Web Design
At amillionmonkeys we believe in printed media, but digital media is what really make us tick.
Websites are complicated beasts. Of course, you can buy some cheap software that will help you build a website, but it'll look like everybody elses, it probably won't do what you want it to and Google will see that you've a rubbish website and punish you accordingly!
Alternatively, you could invest in a decent, bespoke website, that might cost a bit more, but it'll look mighty good, it'll do exactly what want it to and with a bit of hard work it'll be loved by search engines like Google. Whether you're trying to attract clients, customers or supporters, investing in a decent website is always worthwhile.
Here is how we work:
First of all we assess your needs: do you need to update the site yourself? How important is it that Google likes your site? Who are your key target audience? What type of content will you be inputing: do you need to portfolio of photos for example? Would you like a blog? What is your budget?
We then look for a solution. Wherever possible we like to use existing software, like Wordpress or Drupal, to manage the content of sites we build. Of course, we could build you your own Content Management System, but often this is a waste of time and money.
Configuring servers and databases is a little dull, so while doing all this, we also do some more creative work designing your site.
To do so we normally snoop around the sites of your competitors with view of understanding more about your industry. We also try and get a better picture your target audience: how web savvy are they? Do they have broadband? Are they in to social networking (facebook, myspace, delicious etc)?
We then set to work wireframing the layout of your site, a illustrating what these pages might look like in Photoshop.
Once you're happy and once the server is all set up, we get to work, hand-coding your site - never using templates, or off the shelf designs- so we can be sure exactly how your site will work once it goes live.
The joy of web is that you can tweak stuff as it goes along, so we usually set up a testing server so you can keep an eye on what we're doing and tweak it where you spot things you don't like or have changed your mind on.
Over the past couple of year's we've built sites for wedding planner, make-up artists, printers and churches. Each client has been pleasantly surprised by the flexible and creative way we work. We're pretty sure you'll like it too.
What we use
Every site is different, but here are some of the technologies of software we might use when building your site:
- php- it's like HTML, but a whole lot cleverer
- MySQL- behind every good site, there lies a good database. We build ours using MySQL
- Javascript- allows you to do clever, dynamic things, like our portfolio
In addition we use the following pieces of software:
- Coda- you can cheat and build websites using a WYSIWYG editor (like Dreamweaver), or you can do it properley and lovingly write every line of code using something like Coda.
- Adobe Flash- the best device for animations and video
Why Google matters?
Only a small percentage of website visitors navigate directly to a website. For most organisations the majority of traffic either comes via links on other websites or from a search engine like Google. For some organisations this final category is particularly important; they want people to stumble across their site, when searching for certain products and services.
We've stacks of experience in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and if this is important to you we can advise as to how to get ranked by the likes of Google. It's not a precise science: we can't guarantee you'll get on the first page of Google- particularly if you're targeting a competetive term - but we're sure you'll see more people stumbling across your site if you take onboard our advice.