Brand New Website, or Website Redesign

If you do not have a website yet, you will need to choose this setup option. Or, if you already have a website but you are not happy with the design, or it does not fit your company branding, you should choose this option. However, if you just want to transfer your website to our maintenance services, you should see our Migration of an Existing Website setup option.

A lot of website design companies are creative design companies first, and website companies second. This tends to produce stunningly attractive websites that produce little or no noticeable results. The success of a website has very little to do with how visually attractive it is and more to do with its functionality and usability.

OpenGlobal IT prides itself on not using the sorts of advanced technologies that produce visually stunning websites (such and Flash and Shockwave) but are known to hinder search rankings and usability more often than not. We are focussed on results, and that requires using the tried and tested, open standard technologies that the web thrives on.

We have seen many websites that bear very little resemblence to the company's own branding. Sometimes, customers (or potential customers)  have visited these websites and they are not entirely sure that they are at the right website, because they were expecting a different colour scheme and a different look and feel. Rather than keep to a company's existing branding, it looks as though a web design company has tried to create a completely new branding for their client. Whilst this looks great in their portfolio, it does nothing for the client company.

OpenGlobal IT is not trying to build up an impressive portfolio of fancy looking websites to try to win new clients. We are trying to build a solid base of results driven client websites so that you will be able to confidently recommend our services to others.

Our design process starts with your branding. We will take copies of any leaflets, brochures, catalogues, letter headings, business cards and any other stationery and company publications that you can show us. This is your website and this needs to be obvious to your visitors. We take your branded materials and we build the look and feel of your website around these. We build a website for your company, we don't expect you to adapt your company around your website.

So how can we do all of this for only £400?

Well, the truth is that there really isn't that much that can be done with a website layout, before it starts to adversely affect usability and search engine rankings. Your visitors will expect a certain type of layout. web visitors are used to things being in the right places. A header at the top, a main menu, maybe a secondary menu in certain key areas, the main content in the middle of the page, a copyright statement at the bottom with maybe a link to some other legal pages (privacy statement, company details, terms and conditions, refund policy, etc).

As soon as you start to try to be clever and break away from these expected layouts, visitors get confused and start to leave. Some surveys have suggested that if a visitor cannot find what they were expecting within about 10 seconds, they will go back to the search engine and try another website. You have to help your visitors to find what they want and find it FAST.

There is some leeway and some avenues that can make your website distinctive without becoming a hindrance, but the basics are quite established.

On top of this, most of the graphic work will come from your existing materials. We're not going to redesign your logo, there's no point. We're not going to work out a new colour scheme, that would be crazy. And we're not going to create a whole series of new graphics for your website that don't appear on any of your other stationery or publications.

If you go to a Coca-Cola website, you'd expect it to be red & white and have loads of images of their trademark bottle and probably the "swish" that you see on the coke cans. You'd be confused if it didn't. Don't let another web design company try to convince you otherwise.