Dzined Media ::

Website Revamp

posted on 29th May 2008

A common error that we see on a daily basis, is when people think that their site doesn't need updating on a regular basis. The general consensus is "My site does what I need it to, I let people find out what they need to and I'm happy with that." These days, unfortunately, for you as a business, that just doesn't cut the mustard.

There are many factors to consider if you use your website as a sales/marketing tool. These include:

Have you chosen an appropriate colour scheme to match that of your corporate identity? Do you have a corporate identity.?
Is your site accessible? By which we mean, does your site cater for the masses? Is it easy for visually impaired visitors to use, is your text visible, or is it difficult to read on a over-fancy background picture?
Do you keep it up to date with news and useful information, about your products/services?
Are your contact details correct or have they changed since your website was designed?
Do you have the ability to keep the site up to date, or do you have to pay a web design company to update it for you?
Is it appearing in the search engines and do the results have the right wording?
Is your site grammatically checked, has the site been checked for spelling errors?

Below you will find a breakdown of each of these points to help you understand the importance of your website and how they can benefit your business through process of a website revamp.

Corporate Identity

What is corporate identity? In a nutshell it is the image you convey to your customers. It is also your general company ethos. Your corporate identity can be expressed through different mediums, which include: vehicle signage, business stationery, company website, advertising, branded clothing/work wear. It can also be expressed through the policies you set as a company which in turn depict how you are perceived to run as a company ie. Efficient, Smart, Honest, Fair and so on.

If you don't have a corporate identity a website revamp can sometimes help as a starting point. A corporate identity can be built into the web design process.

For example, we would start with:

A Logo (Image and/or text)
A Slogan
A Colour scheme

Once we have completed these procedures we would commence work on building a website around your new corporate identity. You will see from looking through our portfolio that the sites we build look very different and that is mainly thanks to the corporate image and the power it has to make a company look both professional and unique.

Accessibility

Ok! You can see your site and it looks fine! But, how do others see it? Can they see it at all?

Accessibility is not a new term, it has been around since the year "dot" and we see it as many scenarios common to "real-life". These include things such as Wheelchair Ramps, Disabled Toilets, Braille, Hearing Aids. So how does that compare to your website?

Without these tools/services available to those that need additional help to perform a task people become excluded from using the things we all take for granted.

The main factor when talking about accessibility on the web is making sure everyone can access the content on your site whether they have perfect vision, are partially sighted or are blind. Many factors come into play with regards to your website and a website rebuild/redesign can make your site accessible to masses through some of the following factors:

Website structure - It is now possible with modern web design techniques to build a site structure to benefit those visitors who may use tools like screen readers. (A tool to help people with sight impairments to view websites). As an added bonus the website structure improvement due to result of web redesign can improve your ranking in the search engines.
Colour choices - Sure a lot of people see colours as they are, but then a lot of people have colour-blindness, meaning colours appear different to them than normal. And there is not just one type of colour blindness, there are many (find out more here). Redesigning your website can allow you to cater for those who have a form of colour blindness, with the choice of an alternative stylesheet to add a choice of colour scheme for viewing.
Text size - a redesign can help you improve the availability for the user to increase the size of the text on your website.
Image tags - A website redesign can not only improve the visual appearance but can also alert you to existing errors like missing Alt Tags. What is an Alt Tag? This is an alternative description for an image, should either the image not be available, or a website is being using through a screen reader.

Browser compatibility - Our website redesign services include a cross compatibility browser check, meaning that your site is tested for the following browsers to ensure everyone sees the same thing:

Windows based Visual Browsers - Internet Explorer 6 and above, Microsoft Firefox 1 and above, Safari, Flock, Aol, Opera.

Mac based browsers - Firefox 1 and above, Safari, Opera

Text based browsers - Lynx

Up to date and accurate content

How regularly do you/can you update your website? With our web site redesigns you have access to our easy to use content management system FREE of charge to allow you to update your website, whenever you wish and wherever you like at no extra cost. Say goodbye to those £15 wording changes you pay your current web designer. By keeping your site up to date with news, products and ensuring your contact details are correct you can help boost your business and improve your search engine rankings.