First step:
Usually you will have heard about us from one of your friends or business associates and they will explain how well they have been looked after. Hopefully that's enough to convince you that Combustion Cold is definitely the company to talk to about designing your website and getting it up and running.
Then we will organise to come out to your place of business to get an idea of what you do and how you do it. It's at this point we can assess what you think the Internet can do for your business and what volume of benefit the business is likely to gain from having a website. Sometimes these expectations don't match with what we know (based on a LOT of experience) and then it's our job to find the business functions that a website can enhance. So yes, we certainly need to know something about business processes and quality management, and we do.
That will then allow us to scope out the range and volume of content to go into the site, and the additional functions that are going to be needed. Next is to get your preferences for the site presentation and layout and this is where a lot of business need help. In our experience, at least 50% of all small and micro business wanting a website have virtually NO corporare image. Their brochures are a mix of colours and layouts that have little or no coherency with the company style. Invariable, it becomes the website design that drives these business to consider development of a "brand". So thats's a real bonus when working with Combustion Cold.
Next step:
We' then build you a sample image of the sites front page and one of the product/service pages. This will give you an idea of what the site is going to look like. We generally email this to you so you can spend some time working out what you like or don't like. Then you let us know and we modify it to suit.
The key to this process is that you have an idea of what you like in the first place otherwise we can be going back and forth a dozen times before you get what you like. That takes time and can get expensive so the more you can tell us about what you like, the easier it is for all of us.
The go ahead:
When you have decided on what you like we start to build the site template(s) and images and loading it up to a location where you can view and test it. But, if you want to make changes after this point, make it just in content please! Building templates/images/buttons take time and a rehash adds cost.
Voila!
The last step is for you to give the go ahead to make the site live and that happens as soon as the bill is paid. We then give you a copy of the site (zipped to email or CD) for storage.
What else:
Content
Longevity of your website and it's ability to attract customer is dependent on a number of things, the main one being the volume of information and its currency. Websites will live and die by their content so it needs to be freshened on a regular basis.
Graphics and animations
Some of the best looking sites use a system called FLASH to present spectacular animations but they can pay a hefty price when some poor soul on a 56k modem downlaod has to wait 30 minutes to see what the site is. We use FLASH sparingly to highlight specific pieces of information that your business needs to highlight - and that's all. You will rarely find a FLASH file on one of our sites that is greater the 50kB in size because we don't want anything slowing down the delivery of your website to your customers. We have done FLASH intro pages for our customers but once you are in the site, even our "Add Bookmark" links only to the main page, not the intro. FLASH takes time to develop and as a result there is considerable cost for large animations.
Similarly we are cautious about how we use graphics in the website as each picture/background, etc adds to the overall data size of the site.
Shopping Carts
Having a Shopping facility on your site does not guarantee income. We have found that only particular products sell well on the Web and just because you sell widgets at half the price doesn't mean someone wants to buy them. Shopping Carts are more costly to set up and run and you need to assess up front whether it's worthwhile. It might be that you have to have one in which case you are up for the expense anyway but we have customers whose clients want information first, and to buy later.
Build it, they will come..
Not really. Websites are a component of your total marketing plan but they are unique in that they need to be promoted as a separate entity. Add your domain name to all your promotional material and let all your customers know your new email addresses. Add it to you Yellow Pages listing and tell your members at business associations or networking groups.
When we build your website we will also do some Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) so that your site will become attractive to the Search Engine bots that seek and list websites in their databases. You can also condsider options like Google Adwords to raise your sites location in the listings. But a word of caution, spending a lot of money on maximising your sites SEO quality can be a risk. The algorithims that the Search Engines used are regularly modifed and that means your site may be on top of the page one week, but not the next. We recommend doing the basics at the very least, ie keywords, descriptions, titles, etc but it doesn't mean that someone will come to your site.
