Our Web Design Options
We design the following types of websites for our clients
Affiliate
A site, typically few in pages, whose purpose is to sell a third party’s product. The seller receives a commission for facilitating the sale.
Archive site
Used to preserve valuable electronic content threatened with extinction. Two examples are: Internet Archive, which since 1996 has preserved billions of old (and new) web pages; and Google Groups, which in early 2005 was archiving over 845,000,000 messages posted to Usenet news/discussion groups.
Blog (weblog)
Sites generally used to post online diaries which may include discussion forums. Many bloggers use blogs like an editorial section of a newspaper to express their ideas on anything ranging from politics to religion to video games to parenting, along with anything in between. Some bloggers are professional bloggers and they are paid to blog about a certain subject, and they are usually found on news sites.
Brand-building site
A site with the purpose of creating an experience of a brand online. These sites usually do not sell anything, but focus on building the brand. Brand building sites are most common for low-value, high-volume fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG).
Celebrity website
A website the information in which revolves around a celebrity or public figure. These sites can be official (endorsed by the celebrity) or fan-made (run by a fan or fans of the celebrity without implicit endorsement).
Comparison shopping website
A website providing a vertical search engine that shoppers use to filter and compare products based on price, features, reviews, and other criteria.
Crowdfunding website
Platform to fund projects by the pre-purchase of products or by asking audience members to make a donation.
Click-to-donate site
A website that allows the visitor to donate to charity simply by clicking on a button or answering a question correctly. An advertiser usually donates to the charity for each correct answer generated.
Community site
A site where persons with similar interests communicate with each other, usually by chat or message boards.
Content site
A site the business of which is the creation and distribution of original content
Classified ads site
A site publishing classified advertisements
Corporate website
Used to provide background information about a business, organization, or service.
Dating website
A site where users can find other single people looking for long-term relationships, dating, short encounters or friendship. Many of them are pay per services, but there are many free or partially free dating sites. Most dating sites in the 2010s have the functionality of social networking websites.
Electronic commerce (e-commerce) site
A site offering goods and services for online sale and enabling online transactions for such sales.
Fake news website
A site publishing fake news stories, intending to deceive visitors and profit from advertising.
Forum website
A site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages.
Gallery website
A website designed specifically for use as a gallery; these may be an art gallery or photo gallery and of commercial or non-commercial nature.
Government site
A website made by the local, state, department or national government of a country. Usually these sites also operate websites that are intended to inform tourists or support tourism.
Gripe site
A site devoted to the criticism of a person, place, corporation, government, or institution.
Gaming website
Websites where users can play online games
Gambling website
A site that lets users play online games such as gambling.
Humor site
Satirizes, parodies or amuses the audience.
Information site
Most websites fit in this category to some extent. They do not necessarily have commercial purposes.
Media-sharing site
A site that enables users to upload and view media such as pictures, music, and videos
Mirror website
A website that is the replication of another website. This type of website is used as a response to spikes in user visitors. Mirror sites are most commonly used to provide multiple sources of the same information, and are of particular value as a way of providing reliable access to large downloads.
Microblog site
A short and simple form of blogging. Microblogs are limited to certain numbers of characters and works similar to a status update on Facebook.
News site
Similar to an information site, but dedicated to dispensing news, politics, and commentary.
Personal website
Websites about an individual or a small group (such as a family) that contains information or any content that the individual wishes to include. Such a personal website is different from a celebrity website, which can be very expensive and run by a publicist or agency.
Photo sharing site
A website created to share digital photos with the online community.
Political site
A site on which people may voice political views, provide political humor, campaign for elections, or provide information about a certain candidate, political party or ideology.
Question and Answer (Q&A) site
Answer site is a site where people can ask questions & get answers.
Religious site
A site in which people may advertise a place of worship, or provide inspiration or seek to encourage the faith of a follower of that religion.
Review site
A site on which people can post reviews for products or services.
School site
a site on which teachers, students, or administrators can post information about current events at or involving their school.
Scraper site
a site which largely duplicates the content of another site without permission, without actually pretending to be that site, in order to capture some of that site’s traffic (especially from search engines) and profit from advertising revenue or in other ways.
Search engine site
A website that indexes material on the Internet or an intranet (and lately on traditional media such as books and newspapers) and provides links to information as a response to a query.
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Showcase site
Web portals used by individuals and organisations to showcase things of interest or value
Social bookmarking site
A site where users share other content from the Internet and rate and comment on the content.
Social networking site
A site where users could communicate with one another and share media, such as pictures, videos, music, blogs, etc. with other users. These may include games and web applications.
Social news
A social news website features user-posted stories that are ranked based on popularity. Users can comment on these posts, and these comments may also be ranked. Since their emergence with the birth of web 2.0, these sites are used to link many types of information including news, humor, support, and discussion. Social news sites allegedly facilitate democratic participation on the web.
Warez
A site designed to host or link to materials such as music, movies and software for the user to download.
Webcomic
An online comic, ranging in various styles and genres unique to the World Wide Web.
Webmail
A site that provides a webmail service.
Wiki site
A site in which users collaboratively edit its content.
What You Get When We Design Your Website
We design user friendly websites with the following characteristics
1. Mobile Compatibility
As more and more people use their mobile phones to access the Internet, creating a mobile optimized website has become a necessity.
The first step is to check how your existing website appears on mobile. You can use Google mobile site tester to find this out. If your website cannot currently be accessed on mobile, you can create a mobile version of your website for free with the help of web-based mobile website builders.
2. Accessible to All Users
A user-friendly website should also be accessible to everyone including blind, disabled or the elderly. These users typically use screen-readers to access the Internet. The 508 website accessibility guidelines highlights simple web design techniques that can be applied to make sure your website can be accessed easily on-screen readers, making your website available to a larger audience.
3. Well Planned Information Architecture
How information is organised and presented on your website is vital for good usability. However, it is often neglected. It has become even more important today as websites offer a wide range of information and resources to attract their target market. Plan your website sections and categories carefully and present information in a way that it is easy for users to find. Always think from the perspective of your users. This is particularly important if you offer a lot of content on your company’s website.
4. Well-Formatted Content That Is Easy to Scan
The average Internet user skims through the content on a web page instead of reading each and every word from top to down. Users tend to scan through key parts of the page quickly to determine if it is relevant to their needs.
It is important to format your content with this in mind. Correct use of headings, sub-headings, paragraphs, bullets or lists help to break up text, making it easy for readers to scan.
5. Fast Load Times
Nothing is more annoying for website visitors than a website that takes long to load. In fact, slow speed is one of the main reasons why visitors leave a website. Making sure your website loads within 4 to 6 seconds is important for good usability. It also affects your search engine ranking.
You can use free tool such as Pingdom to test the speed of your website and to get suggestion on what you can do to improve your speed.
I have found third-party website plugins and widgets including website tracking, social media, to be one of the most common factors that affects website speed. Try to limit their use and only use the ones that are absolutely necessary.
It is also one of the main reasons visitors leave your site. Customer expectations have changed significantly in recent years. A typical customer will only wait for a few seconds for your page to load, after which they will most likely navigate away to a competitor’s site never to visit again.
6. Browser Consistency
Browser compatibility can be easily overlooked. Even the websites of some of the most reputable companies suffer from this problem due to neglect. This is bad for branding and has a negative affect on website usability.
Although modern browsers have evolved and become more efficient, some inconsistencies still exist in how a website is interpreted by different browsers. It is important to ensure your website appears and behaves consistently across all major browsers such as Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Opera. Simple things like this set a professionally designed website apart from the rest.
7. Effective Navigation
Good navigation is one of the most important aspects of website usability. Simple HTML or JavaScript menus tend to work best and appear consistent on all browsers and platforms.
It is equally important for the navigation to be clutter-free. Try to limit the number of menu items as far as possible. A drop-down menu or sub-navigation may work better on large site with many sections and pages.
Advancement in DHTML, and JavaScript libraries such as Motools and Ajax also opened the doors to many new possibilities for creating innovative navigation systems. Take a look at Mashable’s example below.
There is more to navigation than menu. Here are some other aspects to consider:
- Good search feature.
- Multiple ways to explore content e.g. top 10, most rates, most popular, etc.
- Custom 404 Page.
- Good Internal Linking
- Informative header and footer
8. Good Error Handling
Good error handling and description on-screen messages are very important for good usability. However it is often overlooked. Correct handling of errors at a code level ensures the website is robust and free from bugs. Displaying the right error message improves the user experience and overall usability.
9. Valid Mark-Up & Clean Code
A website that adheres to the relevant web design best practices and standards is often more robust and dependable. It also ensures the website will load faster and appear consistent across browsers and devices. It also makes it easier to locate problems and troubleshoot if the need arises.
More information and mark-up validation tools can be found on W3C’s website.
10. Contrasting Colour Scheme
The right contrast between the background of the website and content is one of the most basic yet most important web design principles that should never be overlooked. Good contrast between background and text e.g. black text on a white background makes your content legible and easy to read. Lack of contrast, on the other hand, makes it very difficult for visitors to read your content.
11. Usable Forms
Forms are a very important element on business websites. They allow users to interact with the site. Forms are also very useful for generating leads for a business.
To get the most out of your site, it is important to ensure the forms are easy to use and accessible to everyone.