Websites

Websites created by someone with 35 years in media, advertising, news and corporate presentation.

Well, that's different! 

I am happy to talk over website design for your company, club, association, even online newspaper.

I work with a program called Joomla, which is an Open Source Content Management System. This means that the core software is free, so you are only paying for my time.

I specialise in constructing sites that you and your team will update yourself. If it is just you, and you are reasonably techy, then I can use Joomla straight out of the box and train you to use it. Otherwise I can develop tools specific to your needs that are as easy to use as possible.

Small Company Web sites - Keep Control!

You want a solution that works, that someone will tell you how to use and that you can go away and break all by your self.

• I WONT host your site on my server or do some kind of reseller deal - I will tell you how to rent your own space so you have full control and full access to the hosting company including their support.
• I will INSIST that you buy your own domain names and will teach you how to manage them. My name will not be on your domain records - YOURS will.
• You will be given super administrator access to your CMS (though you will also have an ordinary login for safety) so that should you wish to move on, you have full access to your solution.

No independant website designer or consultant should ever have control over a part of your company or its identity - you should be able to stop using them and change supplier without compromising your website or your company identity or messing up your communications. 

I can also help you set up Google Apps with your domain so that your email and website are not hosted with the same company - if your sever goes down, you want your email stlll working, and servers do seem to go down more often than Google does!

Large, multi user sites

I can construct websites where many people may be contributing information for various parts of the website. This can be a company where various departments need to create their own content, but you wish to retain overall control of the style and the publishing. It could even be an online news paper with a full editorial hierarchy - old fashioned style!

Anything is possible, given enough time and some careful planning. 

Why Me?

Why not use one of the self build?

Self build is fine - the templates are perfectly good and are easy to use. But websites are not just about pictures and style, they are about words. You may be a fantastic butcher, or baker or even computer service person, but are you a copywriter?

With many years of copywriting behind me in a range of media from news to advertising, I can help you work out your message so that it is easy to read, makes sense, is not full of babble and represents you and your company properly - If your customer base is in its 50s, you do not want the writing style of a teen game site! I can help you construct news articles properly to make them informative, fun and readable.

And if you will be supplying the words yourself, writing articles, blogs, help documentation and so on, I can work with you to polish your writing style and give you plenty of pointers.

Recent websites include the Myra Tiffin Performing Arts School in Stony Stratford, the forth coming Dig Stony community website, a caravan park in Wales, a talking book commerce site for a former BBC Producer and I am currently working on a new e-commece site for my brother! (Nice to keep it in the family). Oh, and some blog bits.

Give me a call on 01908 561 472 and will happily give you a ton of free advice
and we can take it from there.

If you are local, pop round for a coffee - I work from home and the dog is friendly (I even designed her a website!)