What to choose - web site template or custom development ?

What should site be to positively influence business and not bring heaps of problems?”.

In this article we want to analyse the parameter of how site is created. There are two major variants – you can get custom developed site or you can buy off-the-shelf ready solution for a site. Exactly these two variants or choice of web sites appearing will be discussed in this article.

variant 1: you decided that you don’t want to be like all the rest and that your business deserves a lot and, constantly, your company web site should be the best in the whole world, especially if you consider it to be a very important constituent of your business. Welcome to the category of people willing to get a custom developed site (exclusive and perfect). Advantages of such a site are:

* custom web site development always allows taking into consideration current and future (which is the most important) needs of the market and customers;

* every field of activity and, consequently, target group has lots of details which you will be able to provide for;

* you will get exactly what you wanted as a result of custom web site development;

* if you want to get profit and benefit from your web site’s work, you will need to constantly develop and improve it (both content and functionality). It is difficult to do this with off-the-shelf solutions, but custom developed sites can be easily improved, developed and changed.

Unfortunately, this variant of web site development is not ideal. There are two big disadvantages: time and money. Custom web site development is labour-consuming and takes a lot of time (of course, time of development depends on, first of all, your requirements) and, therefore, it requires great expenditures. So, if you have time and big budget for the project, take this variant into account.

Second variant : you need to get site (probably, not the most special) as soon as possible and it is highly desirable that site should be not very expensive. You belong to people who need web site, so to say, pro forma. In this case, site will be used not for conducting the business, but will act as means of informing about the company, so it’s functionality can be very simple. If this is your case, there is no doubt that it will be better to choose off-the-shelf solution. We already listed the major advantages of such solutions; these are time and money savings. As for disadvantages, there are a little bit more of them:

* first of all, you will not be able to profitably realize unique aims and objectives of your business (if there are any);

* off-the-shelf solutions do not take into account all your needs and requirements, so you will have to manage your work with what the solution has;

* every time you decide to change or add anything to your site, you will have to turn to developers for help.

So, these are the basic advantages and disadvantages of two major ways of web site acquisition. Of course, we could give some advice, for example, not to create web site only for yourself, the site will be used by your clients and their needs and wishes are of the highest priority and other. But in general, you should decide which variant of those described above to choose. The main thing is to clearly define, why you and your company need a web site and for what you are going to use it.

Source : http://www.selfseo.com/story-19368.php

Snappy design, full color ? Nowadays, senior yearbooks aren't what they

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Earthtimes - AVENTURA, FL -- 06/25/07 -- Netspace International Holdings, Inc. (Netspace) (PINKSHEETS: NSIH), a provider of web design and custom internet marketing services, announced today that it has completed its reverse merger. Under the company's new more

Palm Beach Post - I knew that hiring a culturally diverse team would add more depth to the graphic and Web design projects we create, and it has." Her team includes Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Cuban-American, Asian-American and black men and women employees; along more

Forbes - systems utilizing VDC Display Systems Marquee(TM) and ESCP line of projectors. Video Display Corporation operates eight sales, design and manufacturing facilities throughout the United States and Europe. For more information, visit the Company's web more

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AZCentral.com - It's hard to get customers to appreciate the design or color of a product if they're just looking at a picture on a Web page, he says. But consumers are more fickle and price sensitive than businesses, says tech analyst Roger Kay with Endpoint more

Building Your Small Business Website

Whether you're planning to build your first website or revise a current one, follow these tips to make the process easier:

. Decide its purpose. Before you build a new website or modify your existing one, decide what role it will play in your marketing mix. Websites should be designed to achieve one of these three goals: To inform, to promote or to sell products and services. For example:

1. Auto manufacturers don't expect you to buy a car online. It's too big a purchase to be made sight unseen, so automobile retailers use websites to inform prospective buyers about their products.
   
2. Movie producers design their websites to promote their latest flick by profiling actors, presenting story descriptions and adding downloadable video trailers.

3. Traders flock to eBay.com to actually sell or buy products online.

. Set a production schedule. A website is like a resume. you just keep adding things to it and making little adjustments. Therefore, it's very easy to spend way too much time building your website to get it "perfect."

• Unlike a brochure or flyer, your website can be changed at any time. Decide what you want your website to achieve, what will go on it and how quickly you want it to go up. It's better to have a functioning website that isn't completely finished in your mind than no site at all. Get it done on time and schedule regular updates.

. Work with a pro. Interview three qualified website developers or designers and ask for references. You'll want to hire a firm with experience in building sites like the one you envision. Be sure there's a personality fit as well.

Ask the developer to prepare a Production Schedule outlining 1.e how he or she will construct your site between the project start date and your launch deadline.

Add a blog. Blogs are the hottest thing on the Internet today. A blog is your very own easy-to-use mini-website, where you can easily post thoughts, information and interact with people.

Your visitors can read the latest items. Your visitors can comment on what you've posted, link to it or email you. Visitors may sign up to receive your daily blog posts.

Small business owners use their blogs for different purposes. You can create a blog to share advice, post news or link to your customers' websites. Blogs can link to your website and help you build online traffic.

Find out more about blogging at www.blogger.com, www.wordpress.org, www.typepad.com or www.blogware.com

Help people to find it. A website is like a retail store - some people will stumble upon it, others need help finding it. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) wires your website into the world's top search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN, so surfers can find your products or services.

With billions of websites fighting for customer attention, an SEO expert could become one of the most important members of your small business team. An SEO expert understands the complicated world of meta tags, programming code, search strings and website rankings.

Test your site. Smart restaurant owners hold a "soft" opening a week before their official opening to work out any operational kinks. The same principle applies to your website launch. Launching your brand new website just before a major marketing campaign can lead to disasters such as customers not being able to place orders, page crashes or dumped shopping carts. Hold off on any major marketing that draws attention to your new site until you know it is working flawlessly.

Source : http://www.visa.ca/smallbusiness/articles/article.cfm?article=295&category=60

website design resource - 500 free fonts

I found this Fantastic website. Fonts 500 -
The website contains top 500 free fonts, calculated based on download counts from some of the biggest free font archives which are seeing helpful for every website designer. I hope you like it and suggest me more website like it.