Datawise Computing

What is a web site, and what should it do for your business? For many small businesses there is a feeling that a web site is important, but not much of an idea as to why, or what it should do.

The most important consideration for the small business is what the web site will do for them. For many this is purely informational – an online shop window so that potential customers can find them and find out a little about them before picking up the phone or making a visit. For others it’s about relationship – regular communication about what the business is doing. For many larger businesses the web site acts as a point of sale where purchases may be made. The type of site depends very much on the type of business: often a business requires the personal touch, a face to face meeting before the sale of a product or service; for others with low value, large quantity sales this is not an issue, it’s all about making the purchase easy.

Before considering your web site it is worth asking the question for your business: What do I want this to do for us? If you don’t know this, then you will never be sure it’s achieving the end result.

My son, Stuart is studying graphic design at UCLAN. This is part of his coursework:

In order to add breadth to their content on the internet Shelter Solutions required an additional web site with content relevant to a specific area of their product range. This was to be a simple site to reinforce the content of their main one.

Following a change in the choice of images for the Dune Prints web site I thought it could do with a bit of a makeover. I wanted to give more prominence to some of my favourite images, so I created a simple slideshow on the home page, and moved the galleries to separate pages. The lighter colour gives a much brighter background to the images than the previous black theme.

Coming very soon, I’m in the process of finishing off work to the new Newcourt Motorcycles web site. This will include integration with the MCN Used Bike listings.