website design

taking your business into the digital world

Years ago, marketing consultants and website designers were banging the drum saying "you really need to have a website" to any business that crossed their paths. In time, the businesses would ask "do I really need a website?" as they heard more and more about the online world becoming an ever stronger marketing channel. Nowadays, most businesses are saying "I really need a website" or as often "our website isn't working for us, what's wrong with it?".

Your website is the gateway to the world and every prospective customer within it. Simply put, you have to achieve two fundamental things. Firstly, they have to find you. Secondly, they have to like what they see when they walk through your online door. Not only like it, but find what they came looking for easily and quickly.

At Charlie Apple, we take the time to get to know you, your business, how you work, who your target market is and why they should become your customers. The look and feel of the site must do justice to your business and perfectly represent your brand - remember, a picture paints a thousand words.

The Process....

  1. You talk, we listen - on the phone or face to face - and get some background from you, where you are now, where you want to be, what you want your site to achieve, identify your target audience, etc.
  2. You complete our client questionnaire - you can fill in some of it or all of it, it's up to you, but it will help you think through the site structure, navigation, look and feel and will form the client brief or website specification. Before completing the questionnaire, you may find it useful to read our paper on Writing Your Website Brief.
  3. Based on your specification, we can then give you a fixed price for your website. If you require a phased approach to your website, either for cost reasons or to support the evolution of your business, the price will also be given to match each phase, so you can plan both financially and strategically.
  4. We produce a template for your new site, reflecting your design specification, for you to approve. We'll make the necessary design changes and fine tune it until you are happy.
  5. We then produce all the pages of the website based on the approved template, ready for the content to be added.
  6. We will help you fine tune the copy on the site to make sure it is optimised for search engines. We can also write the copy for your website or revise your provided copy.
  7. You will get to review your entire site and approve all pages, with copy and images, before you give the go-ahead to go live!

Associated Website Services

There are a number of services associated with website design which we can also offer:

  • Domain registration - we can register your domain and hosting for your website on your behalf
  • Email set-up - we will help you set up your pop3 or IMAP accounts across your devices to ensure that you are working the way you want to
  • Website Copywriting - we can write the copy for your website, either from scratch or improving what you provide
  • Images - we can source the images for your site using free images or stock photographs, or we can arrange, manage and choreograph a photography shoot to create a portfolio of images that you can use on your website, printed materials and social media
  • Maintenance - we can provide you with a content management system to update your own site or we can update for you on a regular or ad hoc basis. Maintenance contracts fees are tailored to your needs, the frequency and scale of your updates, and priced for you.