Monday, June 21, 2010

How does a budget website design & development project breakdown?

How does a typical budget website design & development project breakdown?

Many businesses taking there businesses online are confused by the offer of £500 e-commerce website design packages, which 95% of the time simply do not deliver on their promise to generate value to a business. A complete e-commerce website design & development process from E-creation typically starts at £5,000, ten times the cost of the budget £500 website design package you might see offered in the advertising panels in the right of Google - but offers better value for money. Why? Because of the time spent on initial thinking, design and coding together with the unique experience going into making the best value website:


• Consultancy - define objectives, content & navigation for clarity
• Design – create engaging design & experience for website visitors
• Coding – convert design into HTML code & add CMS
• Create new cart – improve the shopping experience
• Applying social media – linking to branded Twitter

The new website typically addresses the common design & structural issues that are found with most budget website designs.

• Simplify content & make the site easier to navigate
• Make content appropriate to local market, therefore faster and easier to process for visitors
• Improve on overall design & brand image, creating more trust in the transaction process
• Delivery of content more effectively into search engines, for higher volume, more targeted traffic
• Employ social media as integral part of website design, bringing 'qudos' to the website
• Make content updates easy via ‘Blogger’ CMS, encouraging regular updates and more accurate content

Basic site re-design, re-coding & e-commerce integration can be achieved for as little as £5,000 + VAT

1 to 2 days – consultancy & documentation

Work with the client to to define the digital business objectives for website (with a half day face-to-face meeting), document how E-creation will technically achieve this and rationalise content (including advice on best ways to write content for website targeting top search engine placements.

2 to 5 days – re-design website

Redesign the look & feel of website, improve navigation & overall ‘experience’ for visitors with potential for homepage animated element.

2 to 4 days – re-code website

Creation of navigation & HTML pages with meta-tags for SEO. Websites usually would consist of around 20 content pages (1 hr per page to code).

2 to 3 days – new shopping cart

The simplest cost-effective approach is Google Checkout cart (see demo site - http://checkout.google.com/seller/gsc/v2/demo/index.html). Google Checkout does not require initial registration, making shopping easier and orders can be directed to UK.

Additional recommended elements – around £2,000 + VAT

1 to 3 days – add ‘Blogger’ CMS to site (optional)

Incorporating Blogger enables the client to easily add content in branded PR and news areas of the website, including photos, videos and links. Because Blogger is owned by Google, content is more rapidly seen in search engines, maximizing marketing impact.

1 to 2 days - branded Twitter page and ‘feed’ (optional)

Design a branded Twitter page with a unique, content related domain name with code to ‘sync’ animated Twitter posts to the homepage.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Award-winning online marketing & web agency for brochures, print, multimedia CD-ROM, e-commerce web design, sales presentations & online marketing

E-creation is an award-winning online marketing and web design agency that combines creativity, technical knowledge & marketing experience to generate astonishing business results. We design & develop marketing & communications products with strategic business advice including:

• Brochures & innovative print materials
• Interactive multimedia CD-ROMs & DVDs
• Websites & e-commerce sites
• Sales presentations & exhibition materials
• Intranet & content management systems
SEO campaigns & online marketing

E-creation produces digital marketing products that not only look amazing but that put the client in charge of their own content; websites with #1 placements in search engine that create valuable enquiries, CD-ROM and digital presentations that can be updated remotely to keep the information up to date & online marketing that automatically organises content to optimise it for maximum traffic. Our clients ranging from small businesses through to large corporations including:

IBM, Unisys, City & Guilds, BP, Cisco, 3Com, London Underground, Royal Bank of Scotland, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, Lastminute.com, the NHS & FluencyVoice

E-creation provides free quotes and initial recommendations, so if you are thinking about ‘doing something digital’ speak to the true digital experts on 01202 853685 and find out how E-creation can make your marketing materials, website, multimedia CD-ROM, presentation or online marketing the best it can be.


Professional website design for accountancy & professional services firms

Professional website design for accountancy & professional services firms

CLIENT
Rouse & Co

PROJECT
Design & coding of corporate website with content management system & SEO

BUDGET
£20,000

TECHNOLOGY
Website was built using ASP, SQL & HTML

The Rouse & Co website is a fantastic example of how professional services companies, like accountancy firms, can use professional website design & development to create new business from the web and improve relationships with clients.

Using personalisation to build better relationships with potential customers

The key communication objective E-creation applied in the design process of the website was the concept of ‘personal service accounting’. To deliver this in an interactive and engaging way, E-creation built an interactive ‘appointment’ request form on the homepage.

Visitors are asked when they would like an appointment and what their preferred beverage is. An image (taken from a half day photoshoot E-creation did in their offices) of the appropriate drink with steam or condensation animation and personal welcome message.

Receptionists receive an email each morning with name, time and beverage request of all appointments for the day, for preparation 3 minutes before appointment’s arrival. This takes the sense of personal detail through from the website all the way to the moment the potential client walks in the door.

Content management & SEO

All key areas of the website are hooked into an easy-to use, custom-built content management system where Rouse & Co (now Vantis) can add & manage:

• News articles (including metatags)
• Newsletters & PDF documents
• Key staff members

This detail in content management, enables Rouse & Co (Vantis) to manage their positions in search engines by constantly improving and updating of site content without the need to come back to E-creation for updates.

Complete professional brand, stationary & website design plus development for under £4,000

Complete professional brand, stationary & website design plus development for under £4,000

CLIENT
Berlingual

PROJECT SCOPE
Brand, stationary & website design

BUDGET
£1,500 for branding & stationary, £4,000 for website design / programming

TECHNOLOGY
Website built using HTML with multilingual elements in Flash

International business appeal

E-creation was provided with a blank slate – come up with a memorable company name that communicates ‘professional English training provided from Berlin’. Berlingual was the resulting brand name and E-creation delivered:

• Concepts and design of company logo and stationary
• Design & development of website & online marketing

At the heart of the design, E-creation demonstrates that ‘business communication is not just translation’ using common English business metaphors with literal German translations, demonstrating the complexity of business English.

Using language road signs for International business

As with all design E-creation’s design, deep thinking was applied on every level, even in the selection of the corporate font – using Berlin based H. Berthold’s Akzidenz Gratesque.

In order to communicate effectively and perform well in search engines, E-creation created ‘German language road signs’ throughout the site – areas where key paragraphs were translated and discretely integrated into the design.

E-creation put together an online marketing campaign with a budget of less than £100 per month that delivers over £1,000 of new business each month – an exceptional ROI.

Complete professional website design & development for under £2,500

SneakerSeeker.co.uk – an online museum for trainer culture

CLIENT:
Slough Borough Council

PROJECT:
Brand consultancy & professional website design

BUDGET:
£2,500 for interactive museum micro site

TECHNOLOGY:
Combination of Flash, CSS & HTML with a MySQL & PHP CMS & user contribution component.

Created for a three week museum exhibition, E-creation had a short time frame (7 working days) to complete site design & programming for this National Lottery funded project. In order to reduce the administrative burden of creating site content, the website is driven by user content which uploaded and commented on. This enabled the website to be populated rapidly and with the very latest relevant content for young people. Basic DHTML brings the site to life with some basic animation and key to the site's success has been top 10 search engine placements for key terms in Google.

The design itself was produced in under 48 hrs from scratch, providing an excellent example of what can be achieved within budget website design projects (under £1,000 for the design element).

Please visit the site www.sneakerseeker.co.uk to see the result achieved by a professional design design agency like E-creation creating a complete, fully functional website for a budget of less than £2,500.

Achieving the best search engine (SEO) placements in Google with a 5 minute 'Blogger and Realtime Google' masterclass

Achieving the best search engine (SEO) placements in Google with a 5 minute 'Blogger and Realtime Google' masterclass

Guaranteed #1 placements in Google is impossible yet it is something that at E-creation we are asked about on a regular basis. So we've put together a 5 minute master class on how to get the best from search engines and Google in particular. Information of achieving top placements in Google is a massively popular subject, you can find lots of more detailed information online, so we will keep our masterclass short, sweet and focused on how to use Blogger and Google's realtime indexing to maximise your position in Google.

Google recently shifted to some some pretty amazing realtime indexing technology, largely driven by Twitter, Facebook and news websites where information changes rapidly and needed a way to be found at the appropriate time. As a result, the days of waiting weeks or months to see the results of modification of page content are gone BUT you need to use the correct technologies to achieve this. A key element is to use Blogger (which is owned by Google, surprise, surprise) as your CMS to achieve top search engine placements with continual improvement and adjustment of content. The www.e-creation.eu site integrates Blogger discreetly in its news and blog section - and our approach enables us to place new content into Google in as little as 3 MINUTES(!) of posting content.

In fact, for our Google SEO masterclass, I will start a timer and post an update on how long it takes for this post to be indexed by Google (under the term 'blogger and realtime google masterclass' - 9 minutes and counting so far ... isn't technology fun - RESULT - 11 minutes and achieving number 5 position for 'Google Masterclass' as well).

So how does this rapid indexing of content help your business and website? People tend to be driven by fashion and peer behaviour, so if a particular business topic or subject suddenly has masses of traffic, it makes sense for a business to utilise the 'spike' for business purposes. People are hungry for information on that topic and if it resolves a technical, business or marketing issue, then your timely advice is massively valuable.

For example, as part of a online marketing & Google optimisation campaign for an online support client, E-creation keeps an eye on new bugs & IT issues released by Microsoft, as well as trawling through IT discussion forums, looking for popular subjects. If a known bug is being discussed or problems due to updates to operating systems or server platforms, together with the client, E-creation writes a micro blog that is posted via a Blogger CMS we built. As the Blogger element is integrated seamlessly into the website, relevant traffic flows to the website within 5 minutes of posting the information, helping to position the company at the forefront of expert advice for an topical subjects (and creating key revenue for the client).

The term 'to Google it' is a reflection of the ease with which people can find information online using Google and therefore, if you know that a particular subject is popular, the window of opportunity to leverage that moment may be short. Often it's best to be the first rather than the 'best' (and we are not just talking about where you rank in search engine, but rather how early you make 'first contact' from a brand perspective).

So back to topic, using Blogger to achieve #1 positions in Google. With Google's realtime indexing of content, once you know what content is topical, you can post, repost and refine your postings infinitely with realtime feedback on each iteration. (I describe website content pages as postings, because the technology behind the content pages is blogging technology - but what visitors experience are standard content pages within a website). This ability to continually refine the postings and see resulting search engine placements means you have the power to tune the posting (web page) content in realtime. E-creation will adjust this post itself, looking at the type of traffic that is generated, assessing the type of business that can be built from that traffic and of course, establishing the value of the information we are providing for free online.

Of course, it is absolutely essential that you have something useful and topical to say. Content is still the key pull for websites but using technologies such as Blogger and realtime Google indexing are key to leveraging that content. The ability to apply a design style to a Blogger feed, as well as the ability to use your unique URL (e.g. news.e-creation.eu) ensures brand integrity.

Friday, June 11, 2010

Website design & technology case studies for 2010

E-creation website design case studies

E-creation has been busy designing websites - so busy, it has taken slightly longer than anticipated but E-creation's 2010 website design case studies PDF is now available online. We have added several new website design projects, including XTM International (a complete branding & website design exercise with some pretty amazing 3D Flash work), Berlingual (a small website with international aspirations attracting large corporate clients) & UrbanMediaGallery (part of E-creation's 'making Slough cool' campaign) as well as shortening some of the existing case studies.

Please take a moment to view the website case studies (click here) to get an idea of typical project costs, design features, unique functionality and ROI website design projects.

With case studies coverage in publications by the Design Council, the Times, Design Week and New Media Age, you can get the inside track on the latest projects E-creation has been working on.