Why should you use Exelwebs to design a web site for you?

The name says it all, "Excellent" Web sites developed right here in Armagh Northern Ireland.
We pride ourselves in the fact that every web site we do is unique and pretty much designed from the bottom up.

We do not use templates that has been downloaded 1000's of times, we would rather take the time to find out exactly what you require and what you vision is for your internet presence.
Once we have established your vision, we make it our mission to design the site to your expectations.

We do not give up until you are hundred percent satisfied. Even then, we would revisit the site on a regular basis, analyse the performance, and make suggestions as to where we can improve.

Yes I said We, Exelwebs are not interested in designing a web site and then leave the client on their own.
We are committed to long-term relationships with out clients.

That is the reason why we offer web hosting as part of the package.
After hours of research, we have decided on a data-centre that can guarantee us a high percentage of uptime. Their well-trained and experienced personnel ensures our servers stays up and running by using a fully redundant system with backup generators.

 Why would you need a web site?

Allow me to ask a counter question.
Why are you here looking at the exelwebs.com web site?

It is because you are thinking about creating a web site for your company.
The importance and the marketing power has just been proven. It is the least expensive and yet most effective forms of advertising available.

Your potential customers are using the web to research products, obtain information and establish relationships with other businesses.
Shouldn't you allow them the opportunity to establish a 24/7 relationship with your business?

Five reasons why you should build a web site

 Where do I start?

We understand how overwhelming it can feel to try and work you way through the lingo. We are here to take you through the process step by step and explain to you what you should do next.
What is important is that you get an idea of what you expect from your web site. Most of these things have already been done when you decided to set up your business. All that need to be done is convert your initial ideas to be presented in the virtual world.

 Why can't I just do it myself?

Sure you can, we offer "content management software" to allow you to do your own thing. You can even download free software to design and build your site. How ever the learning curve is steep and there are a lot of factors that influence the success of your site and the ability for your audience to view and use your site.
In the end you want a web site that is fully functional, professional looking, and in compliance with the W3C standards to ensure a pleasurable viewing experience to all your visitors.

Because of the market share of modern browsers (depending on your target market), the compatibility of your web site with the viewers is restricted. For instance, a web site that is designed for the majority of web surfers will be limited to the use of valid XHTML 1.0 Strict or older, Cascading Style Sheets Level 1, and 1024x768 display resolution. This is because Internet Explorer is not fully W3C standards compliant with the modularity of XHTML 1.1 and the majority of CSS beyond 1. A target market of more alternative browser (e.g. Firefox and Opera) users allow for more W3C compliance and thus a greater range of options for a web designer.

We design and test your web site on at least 5 different Internet Browsers to ensure the site looks and act the same no matter how your audience access the internet.

 What is a domain name? Do I need one?

A domain name is the virtual counterpart of your business name. It will help your customers/audience to associate your web site with your business or organization.
Sure you can use "http://www.exelwebs.com/your-business" as a domain name, your web site will still be out there. How-ever "http://www.your-business.com" will do a much better job in raising your branding and trust to your customers.
Exelwebs will help you register a unique domain name for your site. Domain names are vanishing at a rapid rate so we recommend that to be your first step in getting online.

 How will people know about my web site?

Potential customers will generally find your site in three ways:

• seeing your web address on conventional marketing material developed by you.
  You should make sure that every piece of paper or conventional advertising campaign leaving your organization includes your web address in it somewhere.
• by using search engines / directory services such as Google, Yahoo, Free small business directory UK
• by clicking your banner or add on a different web site

As we said before, we are not interested in designing a good web site and then leave you out in the cold. We are interested in a long term relationship and that means sticking by you and making your web site work for you.

 Search engine Optimisation (SEO)

Is the art of making sure your web site comes out on the top when your potential customers search for it in one of the search engines.
Things like Keywords and Meta tags plays a role here.
During the initial consultation we will give you pointers as to what Keywords and Meta tags are and how they are used by search engines.
With our extensive knowledge of SEO and our partners at Hyper Submit, we will do our best to ensure you the best page rankings for your chosen keywords.
In many cases it takes time to do this successful, but with perseverance it will pay-off in the end.

 Web Hosting

Web hosting is the virtual counterpart of your business premises. It is a computer somewhere that has a permanent link to the internet.
Before you ask, yes you can host your web site from the computer in you office using your local internet connection. But it is not that simple.

Consider this

• Reliability - You want your web site to be visible to your customers 24/7/365
• Speed - You want your web site to load fast and display on your customers screen in as little time as possible.
• Uptime - You want your web site to be available to your customers no matter what the problem
• Security - You don't want your web site to be hacked or high jacked by some kid that has nothing better to do.

Exelwebs has spend many hours researching hosting by looking at the points mentioned above and decided on a data canter in the United States. They are the second biggest data centre with over 40 000 computers serving over 10 000 000 web site Their technical expertise and network setup ensures that the sites they serve are available just below 100% of the time.

Many hosting companies offer high levels of uptime, very few people ever stop to consider what this means.
Here are a couple of examples.

It is difficult/virtually impossible to find a balance between acceptable downtime and enough time to maintain the computer where your site will reside.
Making use of our hosting packages you can rest assured that your site will be available between 99.5 and 99.9% of the time.
How can we guarantee this?
Our data centre is big enough to have spare computers and a fully redundant network setup. In the event of a component failure the redundancy will kick in automatically and your site will be back up in seconds.
In the event of a computer failure, the computer can be swapped out, your site restored from backups and be up and running within minutes.

 The truth about Cheap / Unlimited Bandwidth / Unlimited Disk space Hosting?

Consider this pre-sales scenario...
Client: I am hosting with a "unlimited disk-space and bandwidth" host, but my site is very slow
Sales: Please gIve me your domain name.
Client: mydomain.com. Why is your hosting packages limited?
Sales: What is the total file size of your site? (Doing some technical hosting research in the background)
Client: About 1 GB.
Sales: How many hits do you get on a daily basis?
Client: Ahhh..., Lets say about 10 hits per day...
Sales: So you are saying that you use about 310 GB bandwidth per month?
Client: Yea but who cares? The host offers unlimited bandwidth per month.
Sales: Do you realize there are over 6000 sites hosted on the server you are hosting on? If every site is about 1GB in size, that means the total disk space in use is 6000GB and lets say each get 10 hits per day and every hit views all the pages then we are talking 60 000 GB of bandwidth per day....

The specifications for best server at the worlds second largest data canter is as follows:

That is no-where close to what is needed to host out 6000 1GB sites.

Overselling
Now lets look at the reality, very few web sites are large enough to even fill our Level 1 package. The unused balance of the package is sitting doing nothing. This is where "overselling" comes in. Most hosting companies would sell your unused balance to someone else, hoping that you would not upload more files than the average site and hoping the server will not become slow or over stressed.

We believe that "overselling" is unethical and not very professional. The limiting factor for any web server is not the disk space or bandwidth, it is the system resources, memory and CPU power. You know how frustrating it can be waiting 30 seconds for a document to open up on your pc. Now imagine that same pc trying to open up 10 documents of the same size and transmit the results over the internet.
Need I say anymore?

Throttling
The method that an "unlimited host" uses to limit your bandwidth usage in a month is called throttling.
It means to slow down your site to only allow x amount of bandwidth to be used by your visitors to download and view your site.
The result is your site is not going to load and render something viewable within the average 10-15 seconds needed to keep your visitor happy.
If you are really lucky they will stay and wait for the first page, after that they will exit your site, never to visit it again.

Why are our packages limited?
To ensure that even on a shared hosting environment (multiple site on the same server) your web site will perform the way you intended it to perform.

The largest site hosted with exelwebs is using about 356mb file-size. That includes html, downloadable material, mysql database and e-mail boxes. The maximum bandwidth used per month is 853Mb. Total hits per day averages about 320 hit per day with a current peak at just below 600 on one day.
If it wasn't for the file size the Level 1 package would have been enough, They are currently hosting on the Level 2 package with loads of space and bandwidth to spare in a month.

 Will I be able to see my web site while it is under construction?

It is our aim to be transparent throughout the whole development process.
You will either have a choice to have your site publicly under the "Sites undeveloped" section of out portfolio page or you can have a special password protected area on our development server for this purpose. The plus of having a protected area is that your competitors will not be able to see your site as it is being developed and not have a clue as to what to expect from your next strategic move to boost your brand and customer loyalty.

Projects normally start of with the front page - Landing page - of your site. We will develop this and collaborate with you until you are happy with the look and feel. Only upon your approval will be continue with the inside of the site.
In the end it is your decision to tell us when you want your site to go live.

 Can I update content myself?

Yes, we offer different solutions to maintaining your web site. We can build in the option that will allow you to update certain pages yourself. We can even allow for different departments to maintain different sections of your site. This will have an impact on the development cost of the site, but might save you money in the long run.

 What are your rates?

Developing a web site with Exelwebs will cost anything between £250.00 for a basic site and can go up to £5000.00 and more for database driven sites. Each project differs from the rest, some are more complicated that others. After an initial free consultation we will provide you with an estimate of the costs involved. Then we will work with you to develop the site within your budget. We will also keep you up to date with any additional cost involved in the development process and assist with alternatives to keep the costs within the budget.

One way to reduce the cost is to provide things like text and logos in digital format

 Can you provide online shopping for my site?

Yes we have experience with developing online shopping / storefronts. Our web site is an excellent example. The online ordering system for both the domain registration and hosting is automated. We also have a demo shop that includes online payments, stock control and customer management. Keep in mind that adding this function to a site can significantly increase the development cost as well as the hosting. If, like the majority of sites, you want to accept on-line credit card orders, there are additional expenses (other than site design) and a couple of things that you need to know.

• You need to decide if you want to accept off-line or online order processing
• You need to decide if you want to accept online payments via your own site or an alternative means
• Decide on your shipping and return policies before going live

We can guide you through the whole process and have teamed up with a solicitor that can assist with the legalities of compiling the terms and conditions, and other legal matters that are required by the UK law

 I only sell to other businesses. What can a web site do for me?

Publishing a web site is more than just selling products to the general public. It encompasses all the ways that a web site can improve customer support, communication, distribution, marketing, etc. It usually is about reducing costs or improving productivity.
Do you have product catalogs, product specification, technical manuals, brochures, etc. that are expensive to print and distribute?
How much does it cost to run a full page coloured add in your local news paper or regional paper.
By having a web site you can purchase a fraction of the add space, publish your web address and spend the rest of the marketing budget giving the customers / sales team the information need when they need it.

 Will a web site help my local business?

When last did you watch television or even look out your window and noticed the big supermarket sound the corner delivering your neighbours shopping? How did your neighbour do that shopping? Question is, if it can work for this supermarket around the corner why can't it work for you?

By developing a web site for your local business you will get your brand out there. Imagine the expenses you can save by not having to print
10 000's of flyers and hire someone to distribute them from door to door to advertise your products. You can spend the minimum on advertising in the local papers or run a couple of billboard adds and leave the rest to your web site.

 Does my existing site need improvement?

That is pretty much a question that you will need to figure out for yourself. If you can answer yes to any of these statements, then maybe it is a good idea to contact us for a free consultation.

• My nerdy brother-in-law designed it a couple of years ago
• It was never updated since the first publication
• I used a template and have seen a number of similar looking sites
• My site loads very slow and I have received complaints about it
• My site looks good by I know we can get more sales / customers if we expand the functionality
• My customers never mention my site
• You want to cut on advertising costs
• I have problems with the site not being available with my current host