Answers to some questions you are probably thinking about
and some you probably aren'tWhy bother having a Website?
In business, a website is expected. It is widely, if subliminally, regarded as a validation of stability. Without one, your competitors will gain an advantage. The more professional the site, the more professional the business will seem.
A website is the single most cost effective and fundamental marketing tool. It can be as local or as International as you like.
Customers and Clients can engage with your business from anywhere, and if you’re selling, they can buy 24/7.
%
Irish households that have access to the internet
%
Irish businesses that have a website
54% of the world population use the internet today.
In 1995, it was less than 1%.
What does it cost? And why
At college I studied Architecture, and I have been a designer all my life.
The one thing all designers discover early on, is that most of the time, you are not designing at all, you are compiling facts and figures and gathering information.
With Web sites that bit is called content, and Content is King.
As with all media, it is the written word, photographs, video and sound that make up those essential ingredients.
I typically spend 80% of my time researching, writing copy and sourcing images, 10% organising them into a meaningful and relevant format, and just 10% on the style and aesthetics.
Time is money.
If your site requires very little content, or if you have already assembled relevant, quality text and images, it will cost just a few hundred Euro.
How do I get started?
Firstly, we need to talk, it will cost nothing.
The complexity and diversity websites requirements is endless, and I need to arrive at a clear understanding of what your objectives and expectations are.
From there we may move straight to a complete sample site, or for more complex projects, I will compile a design document of agreed development, possibly in several phases or iterations.
Will I be able to add to my own website?
Websites should never really be finished, it’s good to keep them evolving and to add stuff regularly.
Some clients need to add news items, products etc. which are usually straightforward functions.
I can give training on that at handover time.
Can I be top of the list in a Google search?
The criteria for improving your ranking in search engines is complex, and there are many businesses competing to improve your ranking for a fee. This is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Fortunately, Google tell us what they are looking for, which is essentially
relevant, interesting sites that do what they say on the tin, and that people want to visit.
As it happens, that is precisely what we want also!
Popular activities on the internet in 2017
- Email 85%
- information about goods or services 63%
- travel or travel accommodation 46%
- social networking 45%
Thousand Million users in 2005
Thousand Million users in 2017
Here are some interesting 2023 facts about Google
Google processes over 70,000 search queries every second on average
Google handles 83% of world web searches, Yahoo 3%, Bing 9%
and 95% of the mobile search market
4 million e-mails are sent per second
0.01% of the worlds electricity was used by Google’s Data Centres in 2017
billion searches per day
%
of web searches use Google
%
of queries have never been asked before
thousand YouTube videos are viewed per minute
About Social Media
The use of Social media to promote businesses and products has become an essential component of web design, it can be extremely targeted and exceptionally quick in getting your message out there.
- Internet users active on Social Media 62%
- Facebook users who are active every day 69%
- talk about offers and promotions 74%
- Irish consumers seek purchasing advice on social media 44%
- report approval of service or goods 15%
- use it to report dissatisfaction 15%
Figures taken from eightytwenty.ie April 2013
