The new website process

It's actually very easy to build a website. What's difficult, and relies on years of experience, is designing a good or, better still, great website.

Every customer and every website is different and at Mekonta we're careful to treat things that way. Through many years of planning, designing, building and supporting websites, we've developed a solid methodology to cover the whole website lifecycle.

1. Thinking about a new website
2. Planning your new website
3. Designing your website
4. The building of your website
5. Testing your website
6. Getting people to visit your website
7. Keeping your website healthy and your visitors happy

1. Thinking about a website

   You might already have a website that you want to improve upon (step 7 might also be of interest to you), or you might want to launch a whole new website.

   Mekonta will help point you in the right direction. If you already have a website we can take a look at it and make some suggestions. If you want a whole new website, we can talk through any initial ideas and aims for the website and come up with a brief plan to get you started and thinking a bit more clearly about what you want.

   You might want to use this as a standalone service. Or use it as the beginning of step 2: Planning your new website.

2. Planning your new website

   The planning stage is probably the most important phase of building a new website.

   We listen to your ideas for the website, find out about the type of people who will be visiting and understand what products, servcies or information you need to put on the site.

   We then plan the structure of the site, so your customers can find what they want to find really easily.

   The next step is looking at how the website can be updated by you and your staff, without needing any technical knowledge.

   The planning phase helps both of us ensure we know exactly what's happening, to avoid any last minute confusion and get the project delivered on time.

3. Designing your website

   By this point, we probably have a few ideas about how your site might look. But we'll do a couple of quick tests with you as well to check we're thinking along the right lines before starting work on designing a great looking website.

   As well as making sure the site looks great. We take time to ensure it is also easy to use. It's important that your website is one your customers want to keep coming back to because the whole user experience will reflect your company.

   The design phase will continue throughout the project (and often long after the site has been launched). It's inevitable that the content on your website will change, and the visual design of your site can be easily updated to reflect these changes.

4. The building of your new website

   This is the technical stuff. Most of our website are built with Expression Engine Content Management System, customised for every site.

   This is where we make sure the website content can be easily updated by you and your staff. That you can add new pages, delete pages, upload images (and have them automatically resized), put products into categories and, if you want, run an ecommerce shop.

   And then we make sure all of this content is displayed on the website, with interactive pages, easy navigation, fast loading times and search engine friendly code.

5. Testing your website

   Because of the time spent planning the website at the start of the project, you shouldn't have to do much testing. Before delivering any updates to you, we will make sure it works. This includes testing it on different web browsers, usually the latest versions of Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer 7 & 8.

   Sometimes, despite all the planning and communication during the project, there's something that is just what you asked for but ... now you see it in real life isn't quite right. That's OK, it happens. Because of the flexibility of how our sites are built, things can be easily changed.

6. Getting people to visit your website

   Just because of the way they are built, all of our websites are search engine friendly. They use valid code and make sure the important keywords for your business are in the right place. Together with new content being added to the website (which you will be able to do very easily yourself) this is one of the most important parts of SEO (search engine optimisation) taken care of.

   If you really want to push your business online though, you can't always rely soley on SEO. That's why Mekonta works with Bilby Marketing, to offer customers an easy all in one website and e-marketing solution.

   Bilby Marketing are also based in Exeter and specialise in, Paid Search Marketing, Email Campaigns, SEO, Affiliate Programmes & reciprocal links and 3rd party marketing. Visit Bilby Marketing website.

7. Keeping your website healthy and your visitors happy

   Technology moves quickly and the internet moves even quicker. When your new website is launched, it will hopefully be as close to perfect as possible. However, as internet habits, technology, your business requirements and myriad other factors change - you are unlikely to leave your website untouched for any long period of time.

   Mekonta is available for ongoing support and advice to further enhance your website and overall web presence.