What are the benefits of a website?
Simple. We'll call it the four M's:
Money. Media. Marketability. Masses. You're in business to make Money -
and to make it, you can't waste it. A website is the world's most
effective use of Money to purchase Media to Market to the Masses.
The Internet is a very affordable Media and it functions 24 hours a day,
seven days a week, with no labor costs to watch it. The Internet has the
most inexpensive and widespread marketing capabilities ever seen - period!
And a website offers your services to the Masses. Statistics show that the
Internet is an excellent way to market your business and sell your
products and services. More and more customers are logging on and making
purchases, buying services and researching choices and information through
the Internet.
Why should you limit your business to your immediate locale when the whole
world is a keystroke away? You also gain major credibility by having an
Internet presence; effectively, you can look like one of the big companies
- all without wasting your money.
What do you need for a website?
Computer: Although highly
recommended, it is not necessary for you to have a computer but it is
necessary for those wishing to view your site.
ISP: an Internet Service Provider is how you connect to the
Internet. This ISP will provide you with an email address to communicate
by electronic mail (email).
Domain Name: This is www.yourname.com; your address or home page on
the Internet.
Host: An Internet presence provider. This is where your website is
stored for the world to view.
Website Design: You'll need all the codes, computer language,
scripts and graphics which, when put together, formulate your website into
a viewable form for the world to see.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol to transfer information to and from
your website for updates, repair, edits and changes. This is how web
designers communicate with your domain at the host.
Maintenance: Updates, additions, changes, and most importantly,
search engine analysis and submission of the pages that make up your website.
What will I put on my site ?
The answer to that question is entirely up to you. There are as many
different types of sites as there are different types of people in the
world. The web content out there ranges in categories as broad as ice
cream to exotic birds to researching your family's history. There are fun
sites, business sites, personal sites, information sites, on and on. What
you decide your web sites theme will be is entirely up to you. But
remember, this is your baby. Do not begin your new web project with any
topic that you do not absolutely love! This is really the best way to
learn to love working on your site. If you pick a topic you are are only
moderately intersted in - I promise you will not last long. But if you
pick a tpic you love with everything you have in you- you will be here to
stay!
What is "E-commerce"?
E-commerce is the buzzword for the
new millennium, and for very good reason. The Internet is changing the way
business is done with literally billions of dollars being made over the
Internet. E-commerce simply means Electronic Commerce. E-commerce gives
you the ability to accept payment over the Internet, by either credit card
or electronic checks. Through E-commerce, you can sell products or
services instantly to anyone in the world without having to constantly
monitor your website.
How does Abacus Consultancy Services create my website?
There are many steps involved in
designing and creating a fully functional website.
First, we determine the exact goals of the client's website. If,
for instance, you are selling a tangible product then the goal would be a
site that has your product listings, pictures, descriptions, prices and
shipping information in an on-line catalog. The end goal being a website
enabling the consumer to easily view, gather information about and then
purchase these products on-line (e-commerce). In addition to these basic
goals, there is the more far reaching and highly important goal of
determining how this site will fit in with your marketing strategy. All
these facts are formulated in a design layout that describes the
fundamental business strategy behind the client's website. In essence, we
want to ensure that we, as the website design team, fully understand what
is required to satisfy our client's ultimate Internet and marketing goals.
Secondly, our design team works with the client to create a basic
visual layout of how the site will appear on the screen. This can be as
simple as being drawn out by the client on a plain piece of paper, using a
word processor or even by showing us another website that looks like what
you want your site to look like. In this step, we might make suggestions
about adding any additional functions that are absolutely necessary or
that might be useful. This step is our outline for the actual website.
Third step is to map the flow of the site from the consumers' point
of view in order to ensure that potential customers can easily navigate
from the entry point through to the main content pages (and all other
pages within the site). This is done by providing intuitive and thorough
navigational tools. In this last step, we combine all the above
information (marketing strategies, e-commerce, and visual layout) and come
up with the final and complete website design plan. Our design team
registers the client's domain name, activates the client's host account,
codes the pages and implements any other functions necessary to make the
client's website functional. We fully test all components of the site.
Then we submit the site in beta (or test) format for the client to view
and approve. If any additions or adaptations are necessary, they are made
at this point. The site is re-tested and then re-submitted for the
client's final approval. Next, the site is uploaded to our server with a
final test of all the site's functions.
Finally, when we are sure the test is in perfect order and the
client is satisfied, the site is submitted to search engines and/or
directories and the client is instructed to implement any additional
marketing strategies. Viola´! Your website is ready for the world to see!
Do you redesign existing sites?
Yes. We can usually redesign an
existing site more quickly, and for less money, than building one from
scratch. Send us your existing site's URL (Web address) and a general idea
of what you'd like to do, and we'll be glad to give you an estimate.
What is your development cost?
Short answer: We offer the most
competitively-priced solutions on market.
Longer answer: It might be hard to
imagine what you will get and amount of work standing behind. Each web
system is custom-made, because we deliver
only the most effective solutions for your specific business tasks.
Price is quoted basing on many details. We need
to find more about you business, and goals you intend to achieve and
constrains you have. Please fill in our
Request
for Proposal form and we will contact you with approximate costs and
timelines.
We often offer very attractive promotion
packages, with exact price breakdown and precise description, like
banner adds, flash intro or a corporate website with certain
functionality.
1. Website Development, Design and
Start-Up Costs: This refers to paying a website design firm to create
the site and place the site in search engine registrations worldwide.
Costs also include buying a domain name and a small fee for your host
server configuration. Included in this fee, at no cost, is advice or
help in marketing your website. Your website's final costs vary and are
proportional to site size and capabilities. Contact Abacus Consultancy
Services for a free price quote. (We recommend never building a website
without a fixed cost quote in hand.)
2. Domain Hosting: Very affordable monthly fee
3. Periodic Editing, Update and Edits/Additions: Proportional to
amount of monthly work required.
What specific technologies do you use?
There is no specific technology we use
everywhere as there is no one global solution for all tasks. We are
proficient in a variety of computing languages and Database Management
Systems and select the most effective copula for each particular task.
We can not say work only on .NET, only Rational Rose for Software
Modeling and only MS Project for developing schedules and optimizing the
workflow.
Let's take Graphic Design as an example: we use
different applications to get maximal output quality possible.
Graphic layout with bitmap elements is
developed in several Corel applications, Adobe Photoshop, and Fireworks,
vector symbols — in Flash, Swish, 3DMax, and Rhino, certain effects from
Corel Photo Paint are putted together in Illustrator in the end. Why did
designer use so many applications for one simple layout? Designer
benefited from possibilities and advantages of each application, reached
better quality, implemented a creative idea and benefited in time.
This is a part of our philosophy — we employ
only the smartest people, each being highly experienced in his area.
Computing language or Applications is only a tool in a hand of
professional.
Why should I hire a web site
designer?
To save time. Hiring a web site designer will
help you save precious time so that you can concentrate on your
business, your vocation, or your organization. Even the best web site
software takes time to learn. Many are expensive. Some limit creativity
and are not compatible with each other. A web designer can implement
proven skills to create your web site quickly and efficiently
What are a website's advantages?
This is a big question with a multitude of answers.
Development and distribution costs are extremely low. When you compare
the cost of establishing a website to what it costs to promote your
business in print or on the air, you'll see that a website is the
cheapest form of marketing ever created. A radio campaign featuring
several 30-second spots per week for three months could run you $5,000 -
$10,000. That gets you five minutes per week of exposure for three
months in the local area only. Newspaper and magazine ads are similarly
highly priced, and they only last for the life span of that particular
publication. A website has virtually limitless space.
You could put up a website with dozens of photographs and several
thousand words for under $3,000 for the first year, and keep it up and
running for a few hundred dollars per year after that. What would it
cost to run a newspaper ad of this size for a year? Imagine how much
it would cost to produce a catalog for 200 different products, and keep
it in consumers' hands for an entire year. You can accomplish this with
a website very easily, with low development cost and almost no
distribution cost. Websites are in full color - a palette of 16.7
million colors for your photographs alone.
A website is accessible globally; that means your website can be viewed
by anyone, anywhere, as long as they have Internet access. There are no
physical limitations to broadcast areas as in radio, no circulation
region restrictions as in newspapers or magazines. You can keep your
website more current more affordably than any other media; you can
update a website immediately, and as often as you like. Imagine you sell
products whose prices fluctuate. With a website, you can change these
prices every time they go up or down, so your marketing materials are
always accurate.
In addition, with a website the little guys can compete with the big
guys since a website is economical and not limited by size. This means a
small business can present as large or creative an image on the Internet
as a bigger company - with the right design team. A website also allows
easy, safe communication between the consumer and you so that anyone who
visits your site can contact you at any time by sending an email. Unlike
communications that originate from other forms of advertising, consumers
who send emails don't have to deal with many problems of everyday
business: pushy salesmen, remembering to call during business hours,
having to battle crowds to get to your stores, spending time waiting on
voice mail or getting the wrong information. It's convenient, easy, and
safe for the consumer. Email is also convenient for you. You can respond
to all your customer inquiries at the same time, and do it when you have
a free moment - not in the middle of rush hour when someone calls up to
ask for product information or directions to your location. You can save
money on tech support and answering questions. If your employees spend a
lot of time answering the same questions and sending out the same
material, you can reduce that labor cost significantly by providing the
information on the website. For instance, a client can avoid having to
mail or fax information for over 1,000 phone call solicitations in a
one-year period simply by providing the information on their site. That
improves on labor costs and provides a real cost savings in reduced long
distance phone bills (for faxes) and postage. Your website can also take
orders while you sleep as people can place orders on a website at any
time, day or night. But most importantly, no salesmen manning the store,
no utilities, no insurance, no payroll...computers don't need a benefit
package or overtime. For every second of every day, your website is
working for you!
As to your choice for website design, if a designer can't tell you why a
website is a unique marketing tool as we have here, how successful
will their website be? Are they helping you to develop a
marketing mechanism or are they selling special effects? Is it an
intelligent tool for driving business or an overpriced, turbo-charged
business card? Make sure you choose a designer with marketing expertise,
experience and skills - Abacus Consultancy Services!
What support does Abacus
Consultancy Services
provide?
The answer is simple: we are here for you 365
days a year, 7 days a week. Effective communication and support is what
makes us different.
What experience do you have?
You can judge about our experience from our
portfolio, but projects listed there show only a small part of over 100
projects we completed, non-disclosure statements do not allow placing
most of them in portfolio section. However, we can provide you with
links on request. It is always better to contact us directly and our
experts will discuss possibility of using specific adoptive technologies
in each narrow area and advise the best solution.
How do investments in professional
custom graphic design improve my online presence?
Thoughtful, professional custom graphic design
results in building a visual and functional user front end that focuses
exclusively on providing an exceptional user experience while conveying
company, service and product information.
Usability — one of the most important
decisive factors influencing user experience from
web-oriented systems (e-commerce store user interface, corporate
website front-end, administrative area
design and extranet systems). This knowledge is more heuristic and comes
with years of experience. Several examples how bad usability influences
sales directly:
- The Yankee Group ascertains that over 75% of
all buyers have left their shopping carts at least once because of
user interface inconveniencies (usability pitfalls).
- Forester research overviews show that 66% of
shopping carts were left by customers before finishing purchasing
process (closing the deal and submitting payment) as a result of bad
usability issues.
Company image. Your website is the most
important sales tool you have. Your visitor's first impression will
almost instantly determine whether or not you're going to make a sale.
Every detail does matter. No one will leave a Credit Card number, nor
order service on a poorly designed site of a company that is not able to
allow hiring professionals.
On the other hand, well designed content is
easy to read, and accurate graphics, plus positive experience during
surfing navigation and using services, will improve company image across
the web audience and prove the company as customer oriented.
Why does my company need a professional
logo?
This is the question you will almost certainly
be asking yourself at the stage where either you are a start up company
or you are simply not generating enough sales. Here are a few reasons
why getting a professional logo will make your company rise above its
competitors.
- You get recognition. People see your logo on
letterheads, websites and advertisements because it stands out — this
makes it more memorable. It also makes your business look bigger than
it really is.
- A professional logo is an extremely valuable
asset. It is said that the Coca-Cola logo is worth more than all of
the premises they own and more than their entire company. So getting a
good logo may lead to getting rich when you feel it is time to move on
and sell your company.
- A logo shows you care about your company and
are willing to invest money into your company to make more sales.
People do judge a book by its cover, so having a good logo is a great
start to making sales.
How long does it take to build a
website?
An afternoon. A week. Two months. Two years. It all depends.
Abacus Consultancy Services can take a concept, flesh out the
navigation, add content and images, and incorporate back-end
functionality for an average 20-30 page site in three or four weeks.
But, that rarely happens. Why? Because there are many timing factors
that can delay progress. Honestly, most of these delays occur on the
client side. Many are too much part of the business process to be easily
evaded. These include:
- Delays in developing Client-side content. Often it turns out that
several departments have to approve certain key pieces of text. The
process of coming up with a mission statement sometimes creates
questions within an organization that must be resolved before moving on.
Vacations, sudden priority shifts, and having one of the key client
contacts get buried in other work are all common occurrences.
There are also those scope changes. When the process begins, a client
suddenly sees new potentials, or changes the target audiences of the
site. This usually involves redesign.
Pre-planning and careful specification of a website will greatly reduce
to likelihood of delays. As will clearly a clearly delineated process
for content creation, client site review, and approvals.
What are my benefits from using Abacus
Consultancy Services rather than freelancers even on small projects?
Abacus Consultancy Services
Web Solutions is experienced, well coordinated team. Each of our
employees is a professional in his particular field of specialization.
Knowledge of every` smallest detail enables faster turnaround time and
thus cutting down the project cost. Experienced project managers enable
team synergy result in the highest performance possible, following the
accurate timelines. Our quality control grants only extremely high
quality products, high usability standards and professional graphic
design.
Our added value is experience, quality services
and fast turnaround time.
Where do I start?
You have to
contact
us directly or fill in Get a Price
Quote Form
describing your requests for web
development. Our sales managers and analysts will discuss with you all
the details of your project and will provide you with precise time and
cost estimation.
