Web Site Design and Development Services
At the heart of a successful marketing strategy is a web site that allows visitors not only to understand your brand but to experience it. Creating brand experience in a web site requires a commitment to serving your customer needs by constantly engaging them to participate. Through this process your customers develop a sense of ownership which leads to brand loyalty.
A web site project includes everything from concept to implementation and can be done as a standalone project or part of a larger online marketing program. Whether looking for a new site or help redesigning an existing one, we work closely with you to understand your business and how we can effectively serve your customers.
Our approach is done in four stages:
- Discovery – Learn about your business objectives and plan a strategy to meet them
- Design – Create the look, feel, and layout of your web site
- Development – Program all front and back-end code, including database design
- Deployment – Test and ultimate launch of web site
Web sites are never done in a vacuum. We partner with you from the get-go, keeping weekly status meetings and staging work in progress so you can provide continue feedback throughout the entire process. We take client interaction very seriously: your participation is essential to our mutual success.
Usability & Information Architecture
Usability is the primary concern of good information architecture. It is what distinguishes design from art. Of course your web site should be aesthetically appealing, especially if you want to create a unique brand experience, but design by definition must serve function. If users have trouble finding what they are looking for then your web site will fail. After all, online your competitors are only a click away and most visitors have short attention spans.
At answerYES we are experts at organizing information into simple and clear components for intuitive navigation and accessibility. We work with you to understand where your visitors want to go and then design to facilitate getting them there as quickly as possible.
Flash Animation & Development
When done correctly, incorporating Flash on your site can be very effective for engaging visitors and driving home your message. Flash is a multimedia platform for embedding animation, motion graphics, music, video, and entire applications inside web pages. Most web browsers (and other user agents like cell phones) automatically support Flash and for those that don’t, the Flash Player is available free as a quick download.
Whole web sites can be done in Flash, offering visitors a unique interactive experience far exceeding that of your typical static HTML sites. But regardless to what extent you use Flash it should be purposeful – like everything else on your site. It should never be used for “eye candy” or site elements better served by standard HTML or CSS (e.g. navigation).
answerYES excels at delivering innovative Flash that exploits market value to its fullest potential without overshadowing your brand. After all, it is your content that matters, not the technology that delivers it. And like all web technologies, Flash is but one of many tools we can employ to achieve online success.
E-commerce
If you are going to sell products online then you need e-commerce. answerYES offers both custom development solutions as well as integration with out-of-the-box packages such as Miva Merchant, Yahoo! Store, and PayPal. We will come up the best solution that suits your needs and budget.
Blogs & Content Management System (CMS)
A Content Management System (CMS) is a web-based application designed to organize and facilitate collaborative creation of site content. The general idea behind a CMS is to separate content from presentation, allowing content managers to update their web sites without knowing code. There are many types of Content Management Systems, ranging from open-source to proprietary solutions.
Blogs are specialized CMS such as Movable Type or Live Journal. Incorporating a blog or CMS into an existing site requires a web programmer to first create templates using a combination of HTML/XHTML, CSS, and unique CMS tags. Once the templates are in place then a content manager or team uses them to manage web content through a secured environment.
Web Site Optimization and Maintenance
Like every other aspect of your business, a web site must be maintained to keep content fresh and relevant so visitors have a reason to come back and refer others. You wouldn’t let your storefront get dusty or leave old stock on the shelves. Your web site is one of your most important marketing assets and must be as engaging as any other member of your sales team. Perhaps it is your sales team.
Our web site optimization and maintenance services include everything from content updates and graphic design to Flash animation and programming.
