It’s not a simple process to create a successful website these days, especially on a budget. That’s where the small SME web design company steps in. Smaller companies; not the bedroom type businesses but the professional office based business, are your best bet. Doing your homework should be second nature by now so researching your competitors and having a good solid understanding of what you want and need is essential before investing in your online presence. Trying to leave all this to your web designer can be counter productive – they may well be great at building impressive websites that work but do they really understand your business model? Do they know your market or even the demographics of your business….it all count’s. You may well be looking for those leads that attract the very top end of your market and the style is key, if the web designer doesn’t know this then there’s going to be problems from the start. Or maybe the main point is that you want email addresses from your site – this then must be something including from the start so the site can be designed around this need.

Cheap web design tends to be a cost cutting exercise for both the designer and the client. If the client doesn’t know what they want from a website then the designer is faced with many problems. Do they design the site with no idea if you’re going to dislike it or not? Hours could be wasted trying to read the clients mind and create something that could well be miles off target! The dreaded “It’s not what I’m looking for” arises…to which we ask “what exactly do you want, we can’t design with nothing?” The next line is usual “I don’t know you’re the designer!” This is troublesome and drives frustration to its maximum. Mainly because the designer is working to tight deadlines due to the site being a cheap one. This is where the crux is. How do the web designers create websites that ARE cheap to create without losing the quality…it can’t really be done unless the web designer forces the questionnaires and nails the client down to a particular look and feel. Once the initial work is done there is no reason why the designer doesn’t get it close or bang on the first time. Once the design stage has been completed always make sure its signed off by the client. This is important because I’ve had this issue a few times and going back to the design stage again and again through a change of mind (it happens more often than you think or want!) really isn’t cost effective as you can imagine.

It sounds like there is no difference to cheap web design and the expensive variety. Other than expertise, years of knowledge and flair I’d completely agree. The smaller SME web design business has all these and usually a low overhead model in place because of this they can offer you far more than a student trying to pay for his social life by creating quick easy sites from their bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, if your business needs a quick no bells or whistles site without seo capabilities etc then check the students out – they may surprise you! Although, perhaps not for the right reasons.

All I can say is “Do your homework and if your choosing a cheap web designer for your site then please help as much as possible by giving them as much information as possible and work with them along the build – this will keep everyone happy”

Progress on this domain is going well. Only worth blogging because the best result is a single and fairly popular keyword - "Percale". This keywords on the first page and in second position below the Wikipedia URL. I'm very happy with the fact Marks & Spencer's are below. Lets see if we can get the top position and knock ALL the competition out of the water!

So what is cheap web design?

Looks to me like this can be answered in many ways, someone may say they want cheap web design just to highlight a service of theirs for a short period of time with no interest in the design or even the SEO, this can be done extremely cheaply because theres no real thought going into it. On the other hand a small start up business may need a cheap brochure website to highlight their services and act as a 'goto my website for more info' presence. This avenue is the most precarious because the client can quite often move the goalposts; expecting more for their money than we can afford. It also appears to me that some clients aren't aware of the time spent getting a website ready for the web, from the start to finish there is a particular process and this has to be done to make sure your site isn't just thrown up their without improving the ranks on google, yahoo and the rest of the smaller search engines. Our websites are mainly CMS and e-Commerce, this means theres alot of setting up at the backend. So you have certain stages to website design:

Consultation
We would in the first instance liase with the client to acetane the type of site they need maybe a short discussion about the needs and requirements of the client.

Design mock-up
Our next step after gathering information and a certain amount of paperless work to create a clear picture of the clients requirments is to create a design mock-up of how we envisage the cheap website to look.

Build
We then after design sign off start putting the site together, this isn't just cutting up and making pages from HTML, I really wish it was! We use a variety of applications to help.

Testing, bug fixing etc...
We finally test the site and check for bugs and of course the usual spelling mistakes that appear uninvited.

So for that £100 the student or cousin is charging do you think we can do the same without going bust or bankrupt? Hmmm I can't see us lasting long if we could charge so little.

A little point I'd like to make - The client isn't just paying for that amount of time spent doing the website - you are also paying for the research, knowledge, experience and talent that it takes to create that site.

Ah then theres the overheads, how can I forget to add that to the mix!

A quick off the top of my head list;

(1) Broadband
(2) Stock photography
(3) Web hosting
(4) Email marketing
(5) Hardware (iMac/Macbook/Printer)
(6) External hard drive(s)
(7) Software (Including Online Applications)
(8) Office Equipment
(9) Fonts
(10) Stationery
(11) Marketing
(12) Insurance
(13) Tax
(14) Travel

So to finally conclude. Web design by your cousins brother or best mates dog can appear to be a bargain but look into the detailing and you may discover that you do in fact pay for what you get.

Google Plus1
So Googles new plus-one plus1 +1 or however you like to describe it is here and very likely here to stay, but what's it all about?

If you plus one a website you are voting to say the site is useful. This can be then shared in connection with Gchat, Google Reader, Gmail, Buzz and Twitter.
This is the first time anyone has added a direct social signal into search results. The end game to this will be a more human interactive approach to search engine ranking. It will be interesting as to whether SEO techniques change much due to +1.

"When someone recommends something, that's a pretty good indicator of quality," said Matt Cutts, Google's principle engineer for search. "We are strongly looking at using this in our rankings."

I have read that Google will start using the +1 for advertisers; this means we can click to like the advert without costing the advertiser a penny.

"Injecting a social layer into the algorithmic search is key to relevance," said Dave Karnstedt, CEO of Efficient Frontier. "Do a search on 'DVD player' today now you will see 35,000 results in less than 3 milliseconds. It's meaningless, but if you can sort through those by people who have given a social signal and those rise to the top, I think that can only enhance the user experience."

At the moment Facebook's "likes" are integrated into Bing's search results but not the algorithm. I have also read that Google has no immediate plans to add Facebook connection to their system. "It would depend on whether that data were available," said Mr. Cutts.

"It's important for Google to bring in social influence into search results to prevent the social web from becoming a parallel universe," said Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, a unit of Dentsu. "I do think they need to have the Facebook 'likes' in there because you're going to have two webs, the social web and the open web."

All this is all well and good but when I make an attempt at a search on Google all I really want is to have accurate and upto date information on the first page. There is nothing else I want Google to offer me to be honest; I mean why do I need to know how popular a link is to other people - doesn't mean it's going to be relevant to me.

CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) are used for the look and feel of your web page/site and can offer a great and simple way to make your website/page stand out from the rest in your field. Many years ago, well before CSS was invented, old style websites used tables to layout the different sections of a page. There were so many problems people must have been literally pulling their hair out – I know I was! One of the main problems with tables is the amount of excessive code that's required from having large tables and tables within tables etc. These dramatically increased the size of your website and slowed down the time that each web page takes to load. Another problem is that when you create the table it then decides to resize itself when live! So you go back to the table and input numbers in all the rows and columns...and it still went wonky – drove me crazy for years until CSS became the standard.

CSS uses external style sheets containing ALL of your style and layout code which is far more effective and easier to manage. By using CSS you can keep your site clean, tidy, and place objects wherever you want them to sit on your web page.

As mentioned above CSS uses separate files which contain all of your styling code. These files link directly to your web pages meaning that you don't need to place pages of extra code on them.

CSS files can be made using notepad, there are specific programs out there that lay out the code in a special way to ease reading. We use Dreamweaver, mainly because we use Dreamweaver to edit the majority of our website files. We would advise you to read up on CSS – this is a good book - Professional CSS: Cascading Style Sheets for Web Design by Christopher Schmitt, Mark Trammell, Ethan Marcotte and Todd Dominey.

We would also advise you to goto http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Overview.en.html. They offer some excellent resources and advice to all beginners and professionals alike.

CSS should conform to w3 compatibility guidelines. There is a great validator on the W3 website that will check through your code and let you know of any issues that may have or will arise. Web standards are important so try and understand why and how to stay within the guidelines on the W3 website.

Once you get your head around using CSS you will find a whole new world open and an almost unlimited way to align/design your website. Enjoy.

You can also view the article here - CSS - Cascading Style Sheets

Do you go for cheap web design?

As a company based in Manchester we have found there are hundreds of web design agency. So which one do you choose? Like so many people deciding on price tends to be at the forefront of any purchase of services or goods. Price is a problem when buying a website, with so many cheap web design companies in Manchester you wonder why they are so cheap and whether they have the quality to go with it. This brings me to the point of ‘You pay for what you get’. Paying for what you get seems to be the case with lower end and newer web design agencies; cheap tends to be rushed and not clearly thought about. Our advice is to shop around and especially take a closer look at their portfolio and ring those listed in there.

On occasions cheap can mean that the cost is spread out, this is a good approach – especially in light of the current climate – and can help your budget by stopping you from spending a vast amount of money up front. This can perhaps leave you with money to spend on marketing. We offer this kind of service and have found more and more businesses are choosing this route and why not – it’s a great way of testing the water with an online presence and it’s not going to make the business bankrupt! You can be up and running within say a week and while the sites being built you can do some homework on SEO techniques and learn how to use Google Adwords. Google Adwords can get you a spot on the advertisers section of google on a particular keyword – bear in mind that this can be expensive so choose your keywords wisely. Our advice would be to use niche keywords, they have a lower cost per click and are better targeted.

Cheap web design is a good option if you are careful and choose a reputable company who’s been around and takes their sector seriously. It’s a great way to get your business noticed when paired with a good marketing strategy. In fact this is the key point – it’s all very well having a pretty website with all the bells and whistles but if no one can see it what’s the point? So, if you go for a cheap web design company make sure you check their background, ring a few of their clients and asses how you will market the site. A good reputable web design agency will always help and direct you with online marketing strategies.

LVMedia are now offering incentives to all our existing and future clients. If you successfully introduce a business to us we will give you £50 in hard cash yes great british pounds!!

LVMedia are a manchester web design business. We also cover all the areas in and around the greater Manchester area. Based primarily in Cheadle where there is access to all motorway networks and Manchester airport. For directions to LVmedia Manchester web design cannot be easier; follow Manchester web design to read more.

Sharing these days is a big thing on the web. Goolgles new + project seems to be mix up of many other social tools out there. People are saying this service will overtake Facebook as the king of social networking and that 2012 will see the change in social media dynamics.

Google Safe Browsing is a place to check if a website is hosting malware.....Type in this URL http://google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site= followed by the site you want to check, such as google.com or an IP address. It will let you know if it has hosted malware in the past 90 days.