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Archive for March 2009

Archive for March, 2009

Things to consider when getting a website

Saturday, March 28th, 2009

So you’re thinking about a new website – or perhaps you’re considering re-designing your existing one. Submitting a quote to a web designer and working with him or her establish the requirements of your site can be perplexing, especially if you’re not overly familiar with the technicalities of the Internet. To help you write a brief for your new website I’m going to outline a few points for you to consider.

If the following information confuses you, don’t panic! Any good web designer will be able to take you through the whole process pain-free. If you’d like to talk to me about your website regardless of whether you read this blog or not then call me on 07843 483 078 or get a free quote online.

The rationale for the website

First of all, why do you want a new website or a website redesign? People generally ask, how much will my website cost me? The simple answer is, it shouldn’t cost you anything; it should be paid for by your customers, not you. A website shouldn’t be created for the sake of it, rather, it should bring value to your business. Most websites should do one, some or all of the following:

1. Give you online credibility

2. Serve as a reference point

3. Sell products online

4. Generate sales leads

5. Generate revenue through online advertising

As long as you’ve used a decent web company you should at least get a site that gives some online credibility but hopefully it will help your business in one of the other areas too. Sometimes people submit quotes to me because they want a website but don’t quite know why. Think carefully about how the site will help you make money before committing to anything. If the site doesn’t make your money back in a relatively short space of time it’s probably not worth commissioning.

Logo and branding

Do you have a logo for your site? Do you have any branding? Logo design and branding – although both falling under the graphic design umbrella – are actually different disciplines. If you have no logo / branding this needs to be considered during the early stages of your site design. While I am solely a web designer, I do have connections with a number of excellent logo designers who can assist at this stage.

The look and feel of the site

Following on from the branding comes the actual look and feel of the site. At this stage it’s useful to send your prospective web designer links to websites that you like. It’s also just as useful for a web designer to see sites that you don’t like.

The content of the site

How many pages do you want? Do you need to be able to update the pages yourself? Sites that have ‘static’ content – text and images that are always the same or are updated infrequently – take a lot less time to develop than ‘dynamic’ content – content you can update yourself.

Search engine optimisation requirements

Do you need to be visible on the search engines? If so, what words would you expect potential customers to type in to find your website? Despite what some people may think, search engine optimisation (SEO) needs to be built into your site from the outset; it is not something you can plug in afterwards (well you can but it takes a lot more time).

eCommerce requirements

Do you need to sell your products online? eCommerce is a very broad subject in itself; there are many ways to trade online. If you have a business bank account it is likely you can obtain an Internet Merchant Account (IMA) number and take money online so that is goes straight into your account. If you don’t have such an account or are running your business from a personal bank account, you can still take money online but you need to use a third party payment processor – a company that takes money on your behalf (e.g. PayPal). If you do have an IMA you also have to decide if you wish to take the responsibility of taking debit and credit card information on your own site. There is a right and wrong solution for every business and the one which is right for you depends on the size of your business and its products.

Text and images

You’ll need text and images for your website. I find that getting copy (or text) for websites is without a doubt the most common reason a website is launched late. Writing content for your site sounds easy but give it a go – it’s harder than you think. Allow good time for this or ask your web designer for help on how to write good web content.

Domain name

A domain name is the name you see in the address bar of your browser when you visit a site (e.g. www.texelate.co.uk). If you don’t have a domain name already you will need to register one; they are very inexpensive (just a few pounds per year). If you are unsure on how to do this or would prefer not to do it yourself then any good web designer can do it on your behalf.

Hosting

A website is physically ‘hosted’ on a server somewhere. To host a website securely and effectively is quite a complicated matter in its own right so it’s best to pay a company to do it for you. You may have hosting already and you may even have been given hosting as part of your domain registration. If you don’t or are unsure, again, any good web designer can sort your hosting out for you.

Timescales

When does it need completing for? As you can see there is a lot to consider so it’s best for you and the web designer to come up with a realistic deadline.

Budget

And finally we have the unpleasant matter of the bill.  I will emphasize again the point that unless you get a good return on your investment don’t bother commissioning it. If money is tight talk to your web designer and let him or her know your budget so they can help you make the most of it. I price all jobs individually and so don’t put prices on my website but can give you a ballpark price once you request a free quote online.

Conclusion

So as you can see there is more to a website than meets the eye – but don’t worry if you’re puzzled by it all. I can help you with your new site; call me on 07843 483 078 or get a free quote online.

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

Will I have to pay for updates to my website?

Wednesday, March 18th, 2009

A question I’m often asked by people when they request a quote is, will I be able to update the website myself? A lot of people, quite rightly, are concerned that after paying for a website they will be stuck with expensive monthly retainers. By way of reference, here I present a bit of information and advice on the subject to help you get the most cost-effective website.

Static content vs. dynamic content

To answer the question, we must consider the two core types of content on websites: static and dynamic. Static content refers to content that doesn’t change (or at least doesn’t change very often) whereas dynamic content is generated by a back-end system, usually a database. Such back-end systems are known as content management systems, or CMS for short. Although CMSs can be very complex the main idea behind them is they allow the user to manage website content without the need of technical expertise. A CMS is typically a set of password-protected web pages that have a series of forms you can use to add, modify and delete content. A CMS for example might allow you to add stock to your eCommerce website or add a PDF to your latest news section.

In terms of cost, static content is cheaper to develop but it means you have to get the web designer to update it for you whereas content managed by a back-end system is more expensive to develop initially but it gives you control over the site. Which option should you go for?

Three questions

To answer that you need to ask yourself three questions: which sections do you want to update, why do you want to update them and how often? People often request updatable sections in their website brief as a knee-jerk reaction to the concern mentioned in the introduction: they want to save themselves the cost of a monthly retainer. But it’s not as simple as that. You don’t want to pay for a CMS only to use it once or twice a year and conversely you don’t want to keep paying – and waiting for – a web designer to update your content every week or month.

My rule of thumb

As a rule of thumb I recommend to my clients that if the frequency of updates to a particular section of their site is more than once a month then go down the CMS route, otherwise pay me a nominal fee quarterly, bi-annually or annually to update the sites for them. There are of course exceptions and I take each one on a site-by-site basis.

Conclusion

I always strive to get the best value-for-money for my clients; I have come across many other web designers who do the exact opposite. Some sell them a CMS they don’t need and other refuse a CMS where one is needed so they can charge an exorbitant amount in retaining costs.

For more help and information on updating websites get a free quote for updating your website or call me right now on 07843 483 078.

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

Send an email attachment with PHP

Monday, March 9th, 2009

To send email attachments you need to make use of MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) – a mechanism that allows email to go beyond a basic, limited character set. MIME has many uses but for the purposes of this tutorial we will send a multipart/mixed MIME email; this means we can send a text email and attach a PDF file to it (for information on attaching other file types please see the end of this tutorial). The MIME side of things will be exaplined as we go. Firstly, let’s set the email details and the attachment details up.

Set the email and attachment Details

<?php

$to = “$name <$email>”;

$from = “John-Smith <john.smith@domain.com>”;

$subject = “Here is your attachment”;

$fileatt = “/public_html/pdfs/mypdf.pdf”;

$fileatttype = “application/pdf”;

$fileattname = “newname.pdf”;

$headers = “From: $from”;

?>

The email details are obvious; for the attachment we need the path to the file and the headers for the file type (PDF in this case). The $fileattname variable determines the name of the attachment – it doesn’t have to match the name of the original file. Next, we need to transfer the file into a variable which we’ll call $file.

Read in the attachment

<?php

$file = fopen( $fileatt, ‘rb’ );

$data = fread( $file, filesize( $fileatt ) );

fclose( $file );

?>

Now the file has been read in it needs to be converted a format that is compatible with standard email: 7-bit ASCII. Before that, the appropriate headers need to be added to the email so the recipient knows what to expect.

Add the MIME content

<?php

$semi_rand = md5( time() );

$mime_boundary = “==Multipart_Boundary_x{$semi_rand}x”;

$headers .= “nMIME-Version: 1.0n” .

“Content-Type: multipart/mixed;n” .

” boundary=”{$mime_boundary}”";

$message = “This is a multi-part message in MIME format.nn” .

“–{$mime_boundary}n” .

“Content-Type: text/plain; charset=”iso-8859-1″n” .

“Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bitnn” .

$message . “nn”;

$data = chunk_split( base64_encode( $data ) );

$message .= “–{$mime_boundary}n” .

“Content-Type: {$fileatttype};n” .

” name=”{$fileattname}”n” .

“Content-Disposition: attachment;n” .

” filename=”{$fileattname}”n” .

“Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64nn” .

$data . “nn” .

“–{$mime_boundary}–n”;

?>

The conversion to 7-bit ASCII takes place at the $data = chunk_split( base64_encode( $data ) ) line. The file is then attached using the appropriate headers. Finally – send the email:

Send the email

<?php

if( mail( $to, $subject, $message, $headers ) ) {

echo “<p>The email was sent.</p>”;

}

else {

echo “<p>There was an error sending the mail.</p>”;

}

}

?>

You can attach any kind of file you like – you need to make sure that change the $fileatttype variable to reflect the content type of the file you are attaching (e.g. image/gif for a GIF file).

For more help call me on 07843 483 078 or get a free quote now!

Posted in Tutorials and How-Tos, Web Design, Web Development | 2 Comments »

 
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