How can custom web development help your business?

FAQs

Should I find a company that can do web design near me?

Although we can work remotely to help with your project, a local company means face-to-face meetings, the peace of mind of knowing we're nearby, and familiarity with your business. Most of our clients are in Gloucestershire because businesses look for local web design providers near their business.

How do you manage my web design project?

You'll get a dedicated project manager who will help you through every step of your web design enquiry and keep you up to date during the project. They'll be backed up by our team so there is always someone who can help.

Once you've decided to use us for your website design, we'll seek your feedback at every stage to ensure the design, content and functionality meets your needs. We're proud of our long term relationships and will stay by your side as your website and business needs change over time.

What does web design include?

Your unique web design starts with our consultation on your requirements. We'll talk to you about what you want to achieve, who your customers are, how you want to be perceived, and any specific style of colour preferences.

We follow this with a bespoke home page design that we believe fits your needs. Most of our clients choose the first concept, so we're confident the process works, and we can make amends or even produce a new concept if needed.

The important factor is communication and we know you'll find it easier to respond to visual ideas, whether you like them or not! We work hard to present our ideas and take on your feedback. Beyond the first page, we'll produce additional design elements and artwork as needed once you start working on the real content for your website.

What is responsive design?

Your website is likely to be seen on mobile devices more often than desktop computers, so it's essential it works well on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Responsive design means the website automatically scales to match any screen size, with images and content moving to fit the current display best. This approach ensures that your website looks just as good on every device, while you still have a single website to manage.

What is in-house web development?

We provide all our development work "in-house", in other words our code is produced by the team working from our office in Cheltenham. This means your website design and functionality are as unique as your business, and not limited by templates or off-the-shelf solutions.

You get bespoke web design without the price tag because we have our own framework to get started. So features like content management, responsive design and security are provided as standard, and we can spend more time on what makes your website different.

As well as bespoke design, we can easily add features like customer login, secure card payments, transactional emails and integration with third party software.

We use the open source technologies PHP and MySQL to build your website, which gives you access to a wealth of alternative developers and agencies should you choose to move away from us later. So you're not tied to us.

What does content management mean?

A content management system (CMS) lets you update your website content via an online login. We find websites with content management perform better simply because they reflect your business. Your website can be more up to date because you can instantly post about a client testimonial, new member of staff or promotion.

The content management system provided with your new website will let you easily update content with a 'what you see is what you get' display which actually looks like your website. You can add images, format text, manage links and even embed video.

Most importantly, our CMS is really easy to use, and we find most clients don't need any help at all. But just to make sure, we also provide training and free lifetime support by email and phone.

How do I get higher on search engines (SEO)?

Your new website will naturally perform better on search engines because the code is succinct, we follow all the relevant rules to make it easy for Google etc to find and list your content, and our websites run quickly and smoothly across devices.

We also offer an optimisation service to target specific search terms for your business. This starts with a research phase to work out what your potential customers are actually typing. It's important to know if more people search for 'web design near me' or 'website design Cheltenham', for example, and we use Google Adwords to find out how many people are actually searching for the various terms that describe what you do. This means you get more of the right visitors to your site.

Once we know which terms to target, we can write the page titles and descriptions to target these search terms, as well as advise on how you can add more relevant content. Optimised content will not only help you get more visitors from Google, but also convince your customers that they're in the right place, so they're more likely to get in touch.

What is web hosting?

Website hosting means providing a physical space on a computer that stores the various files of your website - the database, images, text and so on. Usually this is within a specialised data centre. We are proud to re-sell hosting from our partner Clook, who we've used for several years for their service and expertise.

Although you don't have to use our hosting (and we have worked with dozens of different hosting companies), this gives you a one-stop shop for all your website support.

What's a website domain?

The website domain is the address that you see in the top bar of your internet browser, e.g. www.bluelinemedia.co.uk. This is separate from hosting as it's just the name of the website. By purchasing this name you ensure that you can provide a website and email addresses, but it effectively works like a post office box where you point the domain to hosting, which is a separate service.

You can pay for your domain directly with a service like 123 Reg or GoDaddy, or we can manage on your behalf and automatically renew to ensure that it never stops working. It's a one stop shop so you only have one point of contact for everything website related.

What's a secure certificate (SSL)?

A secure certificate protects your users by encrypting any data that is sent between them and your website. It also confirms that you are who you say you are. This is shown by a green padlock in the browser address bar, and the full address starting with "https" rather than "http".

Users like to see secure certificates to reassure them when using a website, especially if sensitive data like payment details are provided. Google also suggests that a secure website is likely to perform better on search engines. And many browsers now highlight "not secure" websites in a way that can put off users. We can install a secure certificate on your website for a yearly fee.

How do you support my new website?

We're glad to say that most of our work still comes from existing clients, which we believe is a testament to the quality of our service and our personal relationships.

Our bespoke development services mean we can provide all sorts of custom software such as a recruitment database, bespoke online ordering tool, integration with other software services, and custom member areas. Once you start using our services and realise the impact on your business, it becomes an essential part of your service that grows with you.

Your content management system includes free lifetime training.

You won't have a support contract, retainer or any tied-in service with us. You only pay for the services you need, which includes a discounted hourly rate for buying a bank of hours.

Web design is changing all the time, and our experience in-house and with our customers means we can make recommendations to help your business.