Tag: custom website design

5 Potential Obstacles to Your Website Project and How to Overcome Them

Posted on by jenny

As a website design and development company, you’d think we’d encourage anyone to build a website anytime they’re ready. Websites are an important asset, and keeping a website up-to-date and with modern design and functionality is something that most companies need in order to thrive.

However, after working with clients for over a decade, we have come to recognize certain situations that signal a need to take a minute before jumping into a website project. There are times when we uncover issues that need to be addressed before we begin.

If you’re considering a website project and wonder if now’s the time to start one, this list will probably assure you that you have what it takes. However, if any of these situations sound a bit familiar, there could be some work that needs to be done prior to beginning a website project.

Either way, our team at Bellaworks is here to help! We’re a small shop, and our core business is building websites and servicing our website design and development clients. We do all of our website work in-house from kickoff to launch. Plus, we provide hosting services. 

We can help your team overcome obstacles so that you can enjoy a smooth website process and finish with great results. 

5 Potential Obstacles to Your Website Project and How to Overcome Them

Reason #1: Your Company’s Management is Not Really on Board

Sometimes there can be a disconnect between the owners of a company and the person who oversees marketing efforts. 

The marketing director may see so clearly the potential that exists through a new or redone website. The business owner may agree to move forward with the website project, however, when it’s time for decisions to be made, they can have some reservations.

Sometimes business owners have a hard time making changes to the things they think made them successful. We’ve also heard people say that their last website project was so poorly run by another company that they dread doing one ever again. These are just two of several reasons we’ve heard that the management team just can’t seem to get on board.  

Bellaworks has worked with companies in a variety of capacities to overcome hesitancy and ease the perceived pain points on the way to creating a new website. 

Reason #2: Cost

Understandably, cost is an important factor. Companies need a quality website at a price that makes sense for their business. Since websites can range in price from free to many thousands of dollars, finding the right fit for your budget is important. 

In order to determine the cost of a website project, Bellaworks starts by discussing a client’s goals. Then, we scope the work involved. We determine whether an existing website can be updated or if it’s more cost effective to build a new website. If we determine it’s better to build a new website, we can discuss building it on a template or from scratch.

Our Bellaworks team always aims to find the most cost effective solution to achieve our clients’ goals. Having a clean, modern, responsive, secure website that positions your company in the best way possible is like having a great salesperson who is always on the job. There are many options that Bellaworks can offer, and you can rest assured that any website we build will be high quality and a great reflection on your company.

Reason #3:  Unsure of How to Present Products or Services

Descriptions of your products or services are a core component of a website. Yet, sometimes business owners can have a hard time describing their services to potential clients. We’ve seen this with clients ranging from business consultants to service people.

While we can’t make decisions regarding what services your company offers, we can help you present them in a compelling way on your website.

We like to help by offering suggestions for setting up your website navigation and information structure. We also provide clients with a content guide that has tips for preparing content. Many clients also choose to partner with our copywriting expert, who can really remove the burden of copywriting.

So long as you can outline the service or product you want to offer, we can help you package it and sell it on your website with compelling copywriting.

Reason #4:  You Don’t Have the Visuals that You Need

Some companies offer products and services that require the use of specific photos on a website. For example, if you are selling the use of a physical location or property, you need photos of it. Or, if you are offering a particular product, you probably want photos of your product.

It’s always preferable to have your photos ready before you start on website design. Our designer is inspired by photos, and good photos can really enhance a site. However, if you don’t have the photos you need, placeholder photos can be used temporarily. Custom photos aren’t needed for every company, and for service providers, we often rely on stock photography. 

At Bellaworks, we discuss your photography and video needs in our first meeting, so we can plan the best way to ensure you have the materials you need and get the best design for your website. We have excellent photographers and videographers that we can recommend to help you get the photos that you need.

Reason #5:  Not Prepared to Respond to Inquiries

Typically, one of the main jobs of a website is to generate next step actions from potential customers. The next step usually includes a request for more information or an interaction of some kind such as a quote for services, a newsletter sign-up, or even a phone consultation. 

We recently talked with one small business owner who provides a service. He said that he would like to have a website, however, his business is already booked. He doesn’t have anyone who can handle inquiries, so he doesn’t think a website makes sense right now.

Deciding how to interact with potential customers is an important part of planning a website. We discuss many different options with our clients in order to find the solution that works best for them. Generally, we are able to identify the right next step that will help our businesses move forward without overwhelming them.

In Conclusion

Our team at Bellaworks has been designing and developing websites for over a decade. We have experienced so many situations with our clients and have helped them to overcome countless obstacles that could have prevented them from building a great website. 

Reach out to us. Our team will be in touch with you quickly to begin discussing your project.

The Three Key Pieces that Run Your Website

Posted on by jenny

If you are diving into a website design project for the first time, it can feel like entering a whole new world. Terms like “domain name” and “hosting services” get thrown around, and it can quickly become overwhelming!

To help with this, we are going to explain these three key things that you need in order to operate a website. 

  1. Website domain name
  2. Website files
  3. Website hosting

This will give you some understanding of what these services are and the different types of options for each one.

Website Domain

Simply put, a website domain is a website’s home address on the internet. 

Domains can have different extensions like .com, .net, .org, .edu and so on. The value in the common extensions like .com or .org is simply that they are standard and easy for people to use and remember. 

Domains are purchased through registrars like GoDaddy or Namecheap. A domain price can change based on add-ons and services, but the price for the actual domain will be the same regardless of where you buy it. The price is based on what the sellers think that the market will bear. Common names that might appeal to many people can be expensive. Unique names are often cheaper. Either way, simple names that are easy to use are preferable.

Pro tip:

Once you purchase your domain name, you need to keep up with the renewals. The invoices are usually sent by the registrars via email, and they can be easily missed. If your domain is up for renewal and your credit card on file has expired, your domain can fail to renew. If this happens, your website will go down, and you will likely spend hours fixing the mess. In order to avoid all of this, Bellaworks offers clients the option of keeping domains in our account. We keep up with the renewals to make sure you never miss one.

Fun Fact:

Curious as to how domains work? Here’s a quick explanation. 

Computers talk to each other using numerical IP addresses. While this works great for computers, it’s not very user friendly for humans. So, when you type a website address into an internet browser, that domain name helps route you to a server that decodes it into an IP address. Then, you’re pointed to the specific website that you want to access. Handy, right!

You might wonder… What’s the difference between a URL and a domain name?

The URL is the complete address of a specific webpage. A domain name is the root address for an entire website.

Here’s an example:

URL = https://bellaworksweb.com/about

Domain name is in bold.

Website Files

Did you know that websites are really a bunch of files? Yep. The pages are designed and laid out with your copywriting, photos, etc. and then they are developed, or coded, on a platform. 

At Bellaworks, we build all of our websites on WordPress. We can use preset design templates or we can custom build your website from scratch. Once we build your website, you will own the files, and there is no ongoing subscription type fee just to have your website files. 

Fun fact:

When we build a new WordPress website, we will build it on a development server. Once your website is built, we will compress and save your old website files and send them to you if you’d like to keep them. We will then redirect your domain from your old website files to your new files. This cuts out website downtime and makes the process very smooth.

Pro Tip:

Imagine you are updating some content on your website and something goes haywire. Your page is all of a sudden a mess, and you can’t figure out how to fix it. Agh! One huge safety net is having access to daily backups of your website files. This way if your site is ever compromised for any reason, you can quickly roll back to the last copy of your website files.

Hosting

A website host provides stable and secure storage for your website files so they can be easily accessed by internet users. Quality hosting contributes to the proper functioning of your website and a good user experience. In turn, this can affect your website’s position in search engine returns.  

There are many different types of hosting options available with a variety of price points. Less expensive hosting typically offers customers space on a shared server. Your price may be low but the risk of your site being compromised will be high because the environment will be less secure. On the other end of the spectrum, you can have your own dedicated server where you host just your website. This cuts security and performance risks but increases your costs. 

At Bellaworks, we provide high-quality hosting services that balance security, space, and price. We use managed WordPress hosting. This type of hosting goes beyond just providing a spot on the internet. It includes additional support that helps optimize the performance and security of your website in order to keep it running smoothly. This can include blocking malware and hacking attempts at the server level, making sure you’re always running the latest and most secure version of WordPress, and caching your pages to ensure fast loading. Also, our clients can have access to real live human support 24/7 should they ever need help, like a copy of a website backup file.

In Conclusion

Our team at Bellaworks hopes this article helps demystify these three key pieces that combine to run your website. If you have any further questions or want to talk about your website or hosting, please contact us. We are always happy to share more information about how all of this works so our clients can make the best decisions for their company. 

 

 

 

Bellaworks Web Design Moves to NoDa!

Posted on by jenny

The Bellaworks website design and development team is excited to announce that we recently moved to a new office in the North Davidson area of Charlotte, NC that is affectionately referred to as NoDa.  If you know NoDa, you know that it has long been recognized as one of Charlotte’s most creative communities.  We are proud to be a new neighbor in a place with many other locally owned and grown businesses.  Our surroundings inspire us – the photo shown here is of a wall mural right outside our office.

Our new office is a very cool loft, if we do say so ourselves, above the small but mighty Reigning Donuts storefront.  We are across the street from the well-known long timer Cabo Fish Taco and next door to the delicious Haberdish.  Our building has a parking lot in the back and there’s more parking on the street.  Come for a meeting with us, and stay for some really good eats!

While our office has changed, our service remains the same.  We are committed to partnering with our clients to build fresh and modern websites with smart digital tools that can help them grow.  If you wish your website could to do more to support your business, please contact us and let’s talk… over a donut or fish taco if you’d like.