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Online and offline communications for small businesses, medium-s

How do we measure web design success? What reporting is available for websites?

If you own a shop, you're aware of trends - maybe Friday evening is always busy in a fish & chip shop, as is Saturday lunchtime. You know how much you took on any given day, and how many fish you got through, but beyond that, the details of your success elude you. How many people looked at the menu on the pavement then walked away? How many people came in your shop but didn't buy? And for what reason? Which were your busiest tables? Who tried to find a seat but couldn't and went to the chippy up the road? How long did it take people to finish their fish supper and leave?

With the web and the web-tools we have available now you can find out all of that! Who came to your site, where they live, what time they visited, how long they spent on your site, which links they clicked on, how many pages they looked at, whether or not they bought anything, if they watched your video or downloaded your guide, if they read your opening spiel on your homepage and decided that your site wasn't for them.

The same applies for your campaigns. You can get any number of metrics to determine whether or not your promotion was a success, which parts of it were well received and which bits you can improve in order to make your campaign a resounding success next time.

Is it worth investing time and money into getting the web design of my website right?

One recent survey showed that on average, people will stay on a single web page for just eleven seconds, which is an incredibly short space of time for you, as a website owner, to grab someone's attention and convince them that your website is worth investigating further. In that length of time it is incredibly difficult to get that message across using written content alone, and so the design of your website becomes absolutely critical to the success of your site.

Another recent survey has suggested that two thirds of people, given a short time to browse a page (11 or so seconds) would rather read something that is well designed that something that is plain. The same survey revealed that 40% of internet users say they will click away from a website if the images are broken or if they take too long to load, while 38% will be turned off from a website if the site is poorly designed or not appealing.

How have web technologies evolved with time?

The web is built on several technologies working together to produce the dynamic resource it has become. But what are these, and how did they come about?

The basic building block of the web is a markup language called HTML. This enables content to be presented to the user in a particular way using 'tags'. Without it the web simply couldn't function. HTML was introduced as an experimental technology in 1992, allowing web designers to build a page using text, images and a basic framework to share information to users browsing remotely from their computer.

Mosaic was the first browser to be released, and despite it being launched eons ago in web technology terms, it is still recognizable to a user of a web browser today. Opera and Internet Explorer soon followed, as did HTML2, an evolution of HTML. In a relatively short space of time HTML3 and HTML4 were introduced, and included significant input from the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in order to ensure that competing interests from involved parties wouldn't compromise the technology.

HTML4 would become recognized as THE version of HTML for the next ten years because of this, the '4' was invariably dropped in favour of just 'HTML'.

Meanwhile, Javascript, Java and Flash were developed and launched to allow greater complexity in the design, animation, interactivity and functionality of websites. CSS was then introduced to separate the content of a webpage and its styling. Several other browsers followed, including Safari, Firefox and Chrome, and small updates were made in the guise of XML in the following 10 years but it wasn't until 2008 and the introduction of HTML5/CSS3 that HTML made a serious leap forward. HTML5 gave the designer and the user even more scope for dynamic, interactive client side content, running natively in the browser, Flash having been long since phased out due to its reliance on a third-party plugin.

Maddison Creative web design Newcastle were founded in 2009

Today, the main driver of technology change is the increasing number of devices that browsers use to access websites - mobile phones, tablets, touchscreen devices - all dictate how websites are built, replacing the once ubiquitous desktop browser.

Why should my business worry about having a website?

There is an ever increasing reliance on websites globally, especially in the UK where over 87% of adults use the internet. Around 99% of adults aged between the ages of 16 and 24 are online, and as they get older, this internet savvy audience will replace the current crop of more traditionally internet-cautious middle-aged and elderly people who can find the technology confusing, having been brought up prior to its existence.

People now turn to the internet before exploring any other channel for a wide range of needs, including shopping, leisure activities, watching live streamed media, participation in online communities information gathering and gaming. Largely because of its convenience, availability, cost, versatility and adaptability.

You cannot get this kind of global exposure with any other kind of media. And if you're looking to target people in your area and surrounding areas (any area in fact!) you can target them using tailored advertising campaigns. If you marry this with Google's (other search engines are available) search algorithms, you can ensuring that only people who are interested in what you have to say/sell visit your site, so you don't waste their time, and they don't waste yours. And with great interactive design and functionality, once they're there, you can ensure they keep coming back!

Can you update and develop my existing website, built by someone else?

Yes, not only can we build you a website from scratch, but we can also work with what you already have to increase performance, update any branding you might have, or bring the technology up to speed. Essentially we can give it a new lease of life!

How long might my web design project take and when will you be able to fit it in?

Just like estimating the cost of a website it's almost impossible to give an idea of how long a website might take to design and build without more specific infomration about what the web design project might entail. Once we've had an initial chat, we can give you a rough guide as to how long it might take, and then once you've given us a brief we can give you an idea of exactly how long it will take and when we can accommodate the request. We prode ourselves on being able to meet any (reasonable) deadline, and we can generally accommodate most jobs within two week period once the scope of work has been agreed - obviously the signoff date will vary on the complexity of the project.

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