Website, App and Mobile Design
Website design is our bread and butter, and we've been doing it now for 22 years as a business. Northamptonshire's first dedicated website design and development agency, we started in 1997 and have designed and built at least 1500 websites of all types and sizes you can probably imagine. We can design any style you need. Today we undertake responsive website and app design work for a large number of clients and we're ready to help you too.
Website design is not just about pretty pictures--even today! It's more about matching the right kind of design, with the right kind of functionality, the right kind of usability, and the right kinds of searchability and content mix to suit both users and the major portals and search engines like Google. Done right, every website should in some way be unique, and that's what we try to do for every client.
Matching Design with Your Business and Your Budget
Businesses today have a great deal of choice available to them regarding their website and its design, and with our experience, we can help you look at all the options and decide which are right for you and your business. With web design it can also be a bit trickier than most people might expect--it is a case of 'a little knowledge can be a bad thing' and 'what you don't know you don't know' that can hit a business quite hard. We find we are always able to add value, every time.
What's Your Website For?
Stupid question, or is it? More than a few business people see other websites they like and think that's what they need, but most of the time it is not correct. For years we had countless customers say they wanted a site 'like Apple's', which basically had virtually no written content, with the home page a single large picture of an iPhone. Our reposte might have been "Do you have a brand that everyone knows?" "Does most of the world already know about and want your products?". The answer was always "Well no", and then our reply would be "Then no, your website should not be like Apple's".
Most businesses are not so well known, and small businesses and start-ups may not be known at all online. What your business does and how it meets and delivers products and services to its customers is the initial determining factor for what the website needed should do and look and feel like. For some businesses, they may not even need a website, or if they do have one it can be a very limited affair. Some micro-businesses and sole traders who meet their customers in person or by word of mouth might only ever need a website that acts as a brochure, with the sole purpose to 'validate' to potential customers that they do exist, and yes, they are of an acceptable standard to do the job requested of them.
With these, the style of the design, and its look and feel have to express that to the visitor clearly and succinctly. If it states it the wrong way or has a design that doesn't meet customer expectations, then the site and business are likely to do poorly. Ideally, the design also says something unique about the business, and if it uses widely used templates so it looks the same as thousands of other similar business websites, what will that say about your business? And then, why should anyone choose you over the next site?
For slightly larger SMEs, your site may similarly need to be a validation tool, but it may also need to do other things, capture interest, generate contacts, leads and sales, and be searchable over the wider internet and on Google. It may also have products or services that are subject to high levels of competition, and where the availability of accurate and reliable information is required. For these businesses, the website is much more than a validation tool, and so its design needs to find that sweet spot compromise between design beauty and minimalism and delivering the information customers and search engines need. In any event, sites like these and bigger ones, have to make decisions and compromises which will always have consequences, good and bad.
With our very broad experience across a large number of sectors, including sites we have helped develop over many years that have risen to the tops of their sectors, Freetimers is very well positioned to be able to help you find that sweet spot for your website or app. Ecommerce design is similarly much more complex than you might expect and is an art in its own right.
To find out more about how we can help get the right design for your business, contact us today.