Q & A


Why do I need a website?
Websites are a powerful way to get new customers. Many people use the internet to look for products and services, so it makes sense for any company to have a website. If you don't have a website showing off your products or services your business is missing out.

Websites are a great way to spread information. A well designed and professional looking website will inspire confidence in your business. It is helpful to be able to direct potential customers to your website for more information, for example after face to face meetings using business cards, or through advertising.

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What should I put on my website?
Recommended standard features for a website would be an introductory page explaing what you do and what can be found on the website. If you are selling products or services it is likely that you should have at least one page showing the range that you have available. Contact details are obviously an essential, and maps and directions are often useful. There are many other things you can add to your website - why not take a look at our example websites and previous work to guide you and get more ideas?

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What do I actually need to setup a website?
Firstly you need a registered domain name - this is the address of your site, eg. www.yourdomain.co.uk. You also need space on a server computer which will host your site - the server, which is on all the time, distributes the files that compose your website to users when they type in the address of your site, or follow links from other sites to your site. Finally, there are files that actually make up the site - it is these files that you actually see when you visit a website.

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How should I send you the information that I want to put on my website?
You can email or post us the content for your website. If you are sending the information electronically it is better to have pictures as separate files, not, for example included in a word document, as these can be difficult to extract for use in the website. Text files can be sent in a range of formats, including word documents, rich text, plain text and PDF. Electronic photos can similarly be sent in a range of formats, including jpg, gif, bitmap, tiff, pdf and Photoshop. We can scan printed photos and 35mm negatives and slides. Please get in touch if you have any questions or need further information about sending information to us.

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How can I get more visitors to my website?
All our websites are optimised with keywords and descriptions. This helps people to find your website with search engines. Having links to your website is also key to getting more traffic, and is also used by search engines like Google to rank websites - see below on how to improve Google rankings for your website. We will automatically link to your site to our own site improve its 'visibility'. If you buy our complete package you will also receive free vouchers to place 'paid' adverts on sites like Google to promote your site.

You can also put your website's address on signs, on your premises, on business cards, in catalogues, in email signatures, and on adverts and other marketing materials.

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How can I increase my Google ranking?
Google ranks websites by the number (and quality) of other sites that link to that website. So if you have lots of relavent links to your website on other websites, your Google ranking will increase. We will automatically link to your site to our own site improve its 'visibility'. It will also help to get as many links as you can from other websites, such as directories, partner's websites, facebook/myspace etc. accounts. You should note that it may take a while for your website to start appearing in Google, as it dependent on when Google software's scan of the internet reaches your site.

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Will I get an email account to match my website?
If you buy one of our Complete packages you will get an email account that matches the address of your website as standard, e.g. anything@yourdomain.co.uk. This email account will pick up all mail sent to yourdomain.co.uk, e.g. it will pick all emails like info@yourdomain.co.uk, sales@yourdomain.co.uk, yourname@yourdomain.co.uk.

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What is the website navigation?
The navigation is what people use to move around your website, and is often a menu that appears at or near the top of the webpages (like this site) or the left or righthand side. If there are lots of page in your website, you may want sub-menus to appear when the mouse cusor 'hovers' over a menu item or when a menu item is clicked

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What is a rolling banner?
Rolling banners are pictures at the top of a webpage that automatically change after a set time period. They can be used to make you webpages look more interesting.

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What is a form?
A website form is a way of getting information from people looking at your site. One common use of forms is a 'Contact Us' form, where users can type a question into a box on a website. When the user submits the form, the question is then emailled directly to company (or whatever email address you choose). Forms can also be a good way of getting contact details of potential customers

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Can I get an interactive map for my website?
Yes. We can integrate interactive maps from Google Maps into your website. These maps can show either street map or satellite photo views. We can place interactive markers on the map to highlight locations and to give information such as addresses. They can also be used to give directions to your locations

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Can I sell my products on-line using my website?
Yes. We can create ordering systems, allowing users to select products in an online catalogue to make up an order. When the user submits the order, the contents of the order and their contact details will be emailled to you. You can choose to either contact the customer personally after receiving an order to arrange payment, or we can setup a third party, secure, online payment system using services such as PayPal or Nochex

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Can I get sound and video on my website?
Yes. Sound or video can be embedded into the pages of your website, so that they can be played by plugins. Plugins are small programs that can be added to browsers to do things like play media - common examples include Quicktime, Mediaplayer, Flashplayer and Shockwave. People visiting your site will not be able to play the media unless their browser has a plugin installed that is capable of playing it. We recommend the use of common media formats like mp3 for audio and mpeg for video, as these can be played by a number of different plugins. Most people visiting the site will have a browser that has at least one plugin that can play these media. If the users browser doe not have such a plugin installed, they will be prompted to install a free plugin.

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How do I update my website?
When your site is completed we will provide you with off-line copies of the files that make up your website - each page of the website being an individual file. These files can then be edited on your home computer using software such as Dreamweaver or Microsoft Office's Frontpage. Once you have made the changes to these files you then need to upload them to the server computer to replace the old files. After you have uploaded the new files people will then see the updated versions when they visit your website.

Alternatively, we can arrange to update your site for you.

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What is FTP?
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. This protocol is used to send and receiving information to server computers, and this is what you use to transfer the files that make up your website onto the server computer. You install soft ware on your home computer, an FTP client program, which then provides an interface between your home computer and the server computer. Some internet browsers, such as Internet Explorer, have an FTP client built in to them already which you can use in a similar way to how you would usually move files around with Windows Explorer.

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