Texelate's Blog


The benefits of a bespoke website

May 14th, 2012

There are lots of options when it comes to having your website built. You can use open-source software which is free (although you would need to pay someone to configure and style it). You can use an off-the-shelf product which will cost you but would be considerably cheaper than commissioning yourself. Finally, you can go down the bespoke route and pay to have your website built from scratch—also known as a bespoke website. Although this may cost more initially, I propose in many cases it is better for your business.

So, what are the benefits of a bespoke website? Read more »

Posted in Business and Money, Web Development | No Comments »

Pointless or potentially dangerous website features

March 1st, 2012

A mistake overly enthusiastic web designers and clients can make is adding features to their site because they can—rather than because they need it. A website has a purpose (to sell product, generate leads, etc). Any website feature that does not aid that goal is either pointless or dangerous. Here I outline some pointless or potentially dangerous website features. Read more »

Posted in Web Design | No Comments »

Online portfolio tips

February 15th, 2012

If you have a website and you’re in any kind of creative industry—be it a photographer or a kitchen designer/fitter—a good portfolio is crucial. This article provides six bits of advice on making a good online portfolio.

Restrict the main points to one page

A good CV should never be more than two pages in length; similarly, a good portfolio should be clear and concise and if possible kept to a single web page. Include a selection of your work, contact details (see point 5) and a brief summary of you. Include your name, email, top-level qualifications such as Degrees, Masters and PhDs and a short summary of yourself. This should be two to three sentences that summerise your background, experience and ethos. Read more »

Posted in Blogging/Writing/Content | No Comments »

How to make your company easier to contact online

January 26th, 2012

If you wish to make sales online, making you company as easy to contact as possible is essential. This might seem an obvious point but it is often overlooked. Here are five simple ways to make your company easier to contact online.

Don’t hide your phone and email

Plaster your email and phone number all over your website, in large bold type. Also, include contact details for specific members of your team (E.g. account managers, customer services).

Use Skype

Skype is widely use these days. When you create a Skype account you can easily integrate it into your website so people can call or chat with you direct from your contact page. Read more »

Posted in Business and Money | No Comments »

Your website looks pretty but…

December 2nd, 2011

Your website looks pretty but

The design of your website is important but as I’ve discussed before, a website is more than just good design. In this blog I outline some of the mistakes designers make when designing their site.

So, your website looks pretty but…

…it relies on Flash

There’s nothing wrong with Flash per se but it is blocked in some corporate environments and some mobile devices, such as the iPhone, simply do not support Flash. By all means use Flash but provide alternatives for those who do not have it installed.

…it takes ages to download

In today’s age of broadband it wouldn’t appear to be as critical to make your site fast to download. However, in this era of mobiles phones many people may access your site via a slower 2G or 3G connection. Avoid working large images into the template of your website and make sure all images are optimised for the web. Read more »

Posted in General Design, Usability, Web Design | No Comments »

How to make a website easier to navigate

November 7th, 2011

How to make a website easier to navigate

Some sites are huge. Using a site with a large number of pages can be like negotiating your way through a complicated labyrinth. So here are some tips on how to make a website easier to navigate.

Use a site map

A hierarchical page of links to all the main sections in your site gives the visitor a good overview of how your site is structured. Sometimes you can link to every page but if your site is particularly great in size you may have to leave out individual pages to prevent it from looking confusing.
Read more »

Posted in Usability | No Comments »

How to add photos to your website

October 24th, 2011

How to add photos to your website
Almost all websites use photography in one way or another. But how are you going to add photos to your website? Here are three ways:

Take them yourself

It seems like almost everyone has a digital camera these days. Whether it’s on your phone or through a higher-end device, the likelihood is you, or someone in your company, has access to a camera. So, you can take the photos yourself. The obvious advantages here are you can take as many as you want, whenever you want—and it won’t cost you a penny. However, you do get what you pay for. This option may cost nothing in a monetary sense but if your photos come from an amateur using a budget camera, it may reflect badly on your company and its website.
Read more »

Posted in General Design, Web Design | No Comments »

Hosting packages explained

September 21st, 2011

Hosting packages explained
The main types of hosting packages are:

Shared hosting

Shared hosting is where many websites are hosted on the same server. Each server can host many hundreds of websites. Shared hosting is the most economical option but it does have some drawbacks. All the websites on the server share the same top-level settings such as script and mail settings so if you have some bespoke requirements a shared package may not be an option.

Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting has the capability to subdivide your hosting into separate hosting packages. Essentially you can create your own shared hosting packages to suit your needs. The prime use of such hosting is if you want to resell (hence the name) hosting on to your clients. Since reseller packages tend to have more space, bandwidth, etc than their shared counterparts some people opt for a reseller package over a shared one for the extra capacity. Read more »

Posted in Hosting | No Comments »

How to make your website’s text easy to read

August 9th, 2011

How to make your website’s text easy to read

It’s much easier to read a book than it is to read text on a website. As I’ve mentioned many times before website visitors tend to be impatient and scan quickly through content. As a website owner you want to make your site’s content as easy to read as possible. So here are some points detailing how to make your website’s text easy to read. Read more »

Posted in Blogging/Writing/Content | No Comments »

Should you disclose your web design budget?

July 5th, 2011

Should you disclose your web design budget?

The web design budget is of great interest to both parties involved. The client wants to know how much it will cost his or her business and the web designer wants to know whether it’s viable to take the job on.

This can result in a catch-22 situation: the client doesn’t want the web designer ‘stealing’ money from them unnecessarily and the web designer doesn’t want to spend ages writing up a quote for a client only to find out the budget was never going to be sufficient for the project.

So, should you disclose your web design budget? Read more »

Posted in Business and Money | No Comments »

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