If you are looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular open source web platforms (WordPress vs Drupal vs Joomla) the image below might help with your choice.

As you will see WordPress appears to be the most popular and has more off the shelf plug-ins which can significantly lower development time (and cost) for the site owner.

Market share has another important spin-off too, there are probably more people around the world who develop with the product which lowers the support risk for any downstream problems with your site.

Finally Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is about how well search engines find and display your content in their search listings. To the site owner this translates to the number of free new visitors delivered by search engines to the site. WordPress is better out of the box, but the others can be tweaked to deliver similar results. WordPress just does it naturally (even better with a free plugin) and this again saves the site owner design time and money.

The comparison was kindly provided by Devious Media, and taken from their article here

You have probably heard people talk about the importance of being listed on Google page one and wondered what all the fuss was about.

The purpose of this post is to explain why you should at least get someone to check to see if it will benefit you.

There are lots of newspaper articles and studies to show that people are shopping online more. This trend is expected to grow for a while yet.

In our house we seldom use the printed Yellow Pages or local directories – we usually do a Google search when looking to buy an item. This extends to looking for tradesman and service companies as well as retail products. You would be right if you said we wouldn’t be typical, but the evidence is that an increasing number of people are looking to buy items this way.

Google has the lions share of the search market. When I last looked it was about 70%. This means that 70% of the time when people search online they use Google.

When people search online, they usually look for a listing on the first page and depending on which way the wind is blowing, about 35% will click the first listing. The further down the page you are the less likely someone will click onto your listing. Drop to second page and the traffic is minimal.

The last thing you need to know is that it is not uncommon for 1,000 people EVERY MONTH to search for an item .  Its later in the day as I write this and I’m feeling hungry. I just looked up the New Zealand search volume for ‘fish and chips’,  on a monthly basis, 590 people search for this item. Another 720 look for ‘builders’ each month.

Now if you have a website, here comes the best part. Once you are listed on page one of Google (and to lesser extent the other search engines), you will receive free of charge, additional visitors to your site who are looking for your product.

In short if you are on page one of of the Google search listing you will be sent potential customers, every month for free. The number search engines send, depends on a number of factors including your position in the search rankings, the overall traffic for the keyword etc.

If you would like more customers, don’t hesitate to contact us. We can help you decide if  being on page one of Google would be of benefit to you.

Further reading:

• The Value of Google Result Positioning
• November 2010 U.S. Search Engine Rankings
• (Online) Holiday Spending Up 12% so far this year

As a follow-up to the previous post on WordPress, there is an article in Computerworld on WordPress this month.

In summary, they conclude that while it isnt a full content management system, it is a cost effective, easy to use option to manage small sites up to 50 pages.

Heres the link: Computerworld Article

While we  can develop any type of site for our clients, most have used WordPress as the foundation.

If you are considering building a new website or upgrading an existing one, give some thought to using WordPress.

Like most web design companies we like to use a template approach to building websites for clients. The advantage with this approach is that once the look and feel of the website is build, the template will automatically apply it to each page. This reduces the development time for the web design team, which in turn can be passed onto the client in reduced fees.

It also minimises the ongoing costs of changing the site and opens the door to allow  customers to edit their own site without any technical web knowledge (html etc)

Unlike most other web design companies, we decided not to build our own proprietary system. We opted to have the freedom to choose the best the world has to offer. We also understand that the most popular and widely used software has thousands of people using and supporting it. This allows shortened development time and the opportunity to engage experts from around the world on our projects. It allows us to deliver and support world class code with the minimum of operational overhead. All this  in turn leads, to a higher return on investment for our clients over the lifetime of their site.

Some of the factors we took into account when selecting our template system where:

Large community Support

There needed to be a large community backing the development of the software. If there are problems this allows us to search answers out from bulletin boards and other communities around the globe. Equally as important it means that the ongoing development of the product will keep pace with the evolution of the  internet.

Open Source Software
We looked for  Open Source software which allows it to be used free of cost. You can use it on any kind of personal or commercial website without having to pay a fee to use it. It needed to be built on PHP/MySQL (which is again Open Source) and licensed under GPL.

User Friendly
We needed a user friendly system making it easy for our customers to use and for our staff to learn.

Themes Support
The system need to have a large number of ready built themes for all types of applications. This would allow our customers to select a zero cost template with no customisation if they wished to keep cost to a minimum.

Plugins To Extend Functionality
We needed a modular system with lots of free plug-ins allowing us to quickly add any functionality the customer might need.

Standards Compliant
The system needs to follow all the  Web Standards and  compliant to all the rules that have to be followed when running a website.

SEO Friendly
Websites must be designed to be friendly to human visitors, but equally importantly, they need to be search engine friendly. Search engines supply for free, visitors looking to buy customers products. The template system must support different functions which allow it to be search engine friendly. For example sending pings to other sites, making categories, tagging posts, use of h1/h2 tags etc.

After looking a a wide range of platforms we eventually settled on WordPress, arguably the words most popular blogging software which has developed to the point where it can easily be used as a Content Management System (Template System).

WordPress has exceeded all our requirements and has performed well for all our clients to date.

It is also used by on a wide range of well know sites across the globe. Check-out this article for twenty of the more popular or this article .

If you would like some stats on WordPress check out this page by the WordPress team, while they may be a little one eyed the sheer size of some of the numbers will surprise you.

Our web designs focus on appealing looks, search engine optimisation and business performance.

All of our sites are optimized for search engines, can be updated at anytime by you without any special coding knowledge (or we can do it for you) and include a contact form so your visitors can get in touch if they want to.

We have a simple process to which delivers websites tailored to our clients needs.

As part of building your site we:

• Take  time to learn about your business and your objectives for the finished product.
• We agree a written set of site objectives with you.
• We take your ideas and the best of our own then produce a set of concepts for your approval
• The concepts are then adapted using your feedback until we have a site that you are comfortable with.
• When the final concepts are approved, we build and publish the live site.

Then 30 days after implementation  we jointly review the site to ensure that between us, everything is just as it should be.

Please leave a message below to get started.

In addition to designing your website we can also host it for you.

Our hosting includes a number of features which you will struggle to find elsewhere. The servers are fast, reliable and supported by multiple backup systems .

As part of our package you have access to a ticketing system to ensure any issues are dealt with in a timely manner. If necessary you can always call us to get help with that difficult problem.

We have two hosting packages:

All Inclusive  Package

With this package we do everything for you. This includes

• Setting up  email adresses
• Updating your site software on a monthly basis
• Making a backup of your site every month
• Installing additional Fantastico software with the hosting.
• Alerting you to any issues we see with your site

This package is aimed at those who would prefer not to get to involved in keeping their site up and running

Hands On Package

With this package we set up your site, show you the additional features on the site, then leave you to manage it yourself.

Naturally you can still contact us if there are any problems

This package is aimed at those who have the desire and the technical knowledge to manage their own hosting.

Please use the form below to contact us about our web hosting packages.

Search Engine Optimisation is about ensuring your site has maximum visibility when people search for you using search engines.

There are two essential elements to consider to ensure the results are as good as they can be.

On Page Optimization – The coding on your website and the way it is laid out affects your Search Engine listings.

If you site has been produced by us, your in luck, all the work has already been done. If it has been built by someone else, we can provide you with a report recommending changes which will achieve improved search engine visibility. Any approved changes can be implemented by your existing Web Design Company or we can also do them for you.

Off Page Optimization – The links which point from other websites to yours, also affect your position in the search engine rankings.

We can review the current links to your site, make recommendations for changing them. An analysis of your competitors sites is undertaken and we can also recommend additional links if necessary.

Please use the link below to contact us to discuss the potential for search engine optimisation on your site.

Your website should be like a shop. It should attract visitors, draw them in and entice them to buy.

We have lots of techniques to increase the foot traffic to your site, and once there, we know how to get your customers to take action.

Use the link below to get started with drawing up an effective marketing plan to lift your profile and your sales.