Obviously all our clients are GOOD and we love each and every one of them. But in the sense of what makes a good client, I am referring to what can make the process of developing the perfect website go smoother, and how our clients can help.

For example, before you even approach a web development team, like Documentopia, you can do some simple things that will help you to really put into words what you want. Being able to define and give examples of what you like saves time and potential frustration as the design and development process begins.  I suggest to all my clients that they research the following before they get too far down the road on their web design project.

If you can come to your web development team with a list of websites you like, being able to explain what you like about them (their navigation, their color scheme, their overall structure, the use of imagery, etc), this will aid in streamlining the development and creative process immensely for you and your designer.

1. Look at your competition.
   1. Do they have a website?
   2. Do you like their website?  What do you like about it?
   3. Is it easy to find key information?
   4. What don’t you like about it?
2. Look at similar websites in your field.  Look at the leading companies in your field (they may not be competition, they may even be in another country).
   1. Note what you like and don’t like about their websites.
3. Look at some of the most popular websites on the web.
   1. You never know where you might get an idea that no one else in your field has considered on their website.

What else can you do?

1. Do you have existing artwork you want to use? (e.g., a logo).  Do you have photos of your team, products, services or other relevant images?  Pull all your artwork together and bring it along to your first meeting, or set up a Dropbox shared folder with your web design team.  Dropbox is a wonderful file sharing tool.

2. Do you have a color scheme or other artistic elements you’d like to incorporate into the design?  Bring samples of colors you like, or find their RGB or CMYk color references to give to your designer.

3. Think about what the visitors to your website want to find out.  Do they need to know lots of in-depth information before they make a decision, or are they just looking for a phone number and/or address?  What information do you really want to make clear, so everyone who visits the site leaves with this one key piece of information?  Do you want to steer people to perform an action (e.g., contact you, or sign up online, or recommend you, or like you on Facebook, for example).

4. Content – it’s probably the most time-consuming task, especially when you are a self-employed entrepreneur.  But it’s also one of the most important jobs.  A beautiful website that has no information of use to offer, will soon be an unvisited website.  Writing key-word rich copy that not only invites your visitor to read and learn, but also helps search engines find, rank and categorize your site is key.  Don’t rush into this without first speaking to your web design team, who should be able to give you pointers.  Many web developers will write a first draft for you, enabling you to have a starting point to edit and refine.  Many of our clients have admitted its easier to edit something written by us, than to start at a blank screen not knowing where to start.

In return for you hardwork, a GOOD web design and development team will help you pull all this information into a cohesive website, one that shows your capabilities and helps your web visitor fluidly and seamlessly get the information they need to make a decision.

Contact Documentopia now to talk about your website development project, whether you want to upgrade your existing website or start from scratch.  We offer basic logo and web design services, to dynamic database-driven websites with content management systems.  Our in-house programmer will develop solutions to suit your needs instead of pushing you into an existing “one size fits all” answer that isn’t tailored to your specific requirements.  Our designer is fast to mesh her design skills to suit the client’s vision, and will take your ideas and develop a website design that will surpass your expectations. www.documentopia.com.

One of our favorite clients got back in touch with us late last year to talk about BLUE RHINO EXPEDITIONS.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to climb to the top of Kilimanjaro to help this explorer-cum-entrepreneur develop his new website.

After running through an extensive list with Bill, our client and idea-man behind the wiki-based Adventure Chatter website for travelers, we all agreed on the rather cool “Blue Rhino Expeditions” as a company name and then all began to fall into place.

Bill and I played with various Rhino designs (from cutesy to serious meat-head rhino) and then developed a logo from a photo Bill had taken on one of his expeditions, a mother-child rhino scene in front of the traditional Acacia tree, popular throughout the Serengeti National Park and other Safari destinations in Tanzania.

Blue Rhino Home Page

One issue upon which we focused early on, is that Blue Rhino Expeditions doesn’t just specialize in Safaris, but also trekking tours up the rather tall Mount Kilimanjaro (its the tallest free-standing mountain in the world!!). So our home page became dedicated to providing potential web visitors with this clear cut choice… learn about SAFARIS or TREKKING.  We felt pretty confident that most people would have a preference, even if they decided to tailor a vacation package to include both.  Our home page design showcased both in a large and visual way.

Each of the 2 key Travel Sections had their own landing page.  Trekking Kilimanjaro and Tanzania Safaris.  And each landing page had a wide format series of images looping to demonstrate some of the cool sights and achievements possible on future travels, linking to pages of interest within that section.

Custom Icon Set

We also created a series of web graphics for the Blue Rhino Website, including custom icons (left), Kilimanjaro trekking routes and a Tanzania destination map.  We intentionally veered away from the boring old contact form design, and converted our contact page design into a nice old-style postcard design (albeit with an image-based submit capcha – to protect Bill’s email from unwarranted spam).

As with all our websites, we tested it across browsers and various devices, as well as ensuring it was search engine optimized, and the site map was submitted to the search engines that battle for world dominance.

Check out the Blue Rhino Expeditions website (just launched, and still warm!) and be one of the first to like the Blue Rhino Expeditions Facebook Page!

Actually, this is no normal restaurant, at Red Gate Restaurant in Guangdong, China, you can cook all your food yourself! And of course, Documentopia designed the new website.

Our clients, the visionaries who conceived of the Red Gate Restaurant in the first place, had already designed their menus with a local graphic company in Guangdong, but wanted to make sure that the restaurant’s online presence appealed not just to those who already knew about their unique fare, but to the online world as well, in both English and Chinese.

Clean simple navigation

With potential clients checking out the new website from China, from outside while planning a trip, or from elsewhere, we tried to make the website navigation as simple as possible.  Each major page has its Chinese characters, its English translation, and a representative icon.

The Red Gate menu, also presented in both written Chinese and English, is available to download as a PDF or view in a regular web browser. Its common place nowadays for a company to simply upload their menu as a PDF but this can create numerous problems for the user, depending on their web connection speed and the device they are using.  We created the option where you can choose: PDF or Web.

In this case, with distance between client and designer being such a factor, our clients sent us all the photography and other materials they had created, we spoke briefly about their website goals, and in very short time frame, Documentopia returned a fully designed website.  In addition, we helped them improve the English translations to suit the style and theme of the restaurant to appeal to their traveler-based audience.

Check out the Redgate Restaurant website and let us know what you think!

The owner of the Midtown Tavern in Atlanta, contacted us recently to design a website to match their soon-to-launch NEW restaurant and pub in downtown Atlanta

The Documentopia team met up with the management team behind Atlanta’s newest restaurant/pub coming to the Downtown area, The Drafting Table, located in the Pencil Factory Lofts.   The management team members, composed of local Atlanta restaurant and bar experts, came together to create this unique new pub that specializes in local and seasonal food with a class-A bar that hosts local brews and cocktails designed to complement the spectacular dishes served up from the kitchen.  We talked in depth with the Drafting Table team to fully understand the direction and scope of their vision.

We then worked close in developing a logo that tied into the interior design and decor themes and ideas the team had mind for the new pub.  Their slogan, Good Food by Design, ties into the restaurant name, based on the owner’s desire to use an architect’s drafting table as a feature within the restaurant, to showcase the menu and certain dishes when guests first arrive.  Our logo design takes a drafting / architectural look and feel, displaying a butcher’s table with chef knife wedged in its top surface.

The font used in the logo, as well as having a look and feel to suit the restaurant’s essence, also forms the shape of a table (note the raised letters of A, B, L in Table).

Once we had a logo, the website just came together easily.  Working with the clients’ photos, we laid out a home page design that showcases the features of the restaurant and continues to tie in with the overall theme of The Drafting Table.  We use straight “pencil-thin” lines to create layout that looks as though it was drafted on a raised wooden platform.

We took into account pet peeves written about by designers and techies who discussed features of bad websites, by keeping the menu in HTML (and not as a PDF), by providing clear directions and details on the parking situation (a frustrating fact often omitted from restaurant websites in Atlanta).  Every page has the restaurant address and phone number, and there’s a way to contact the restaurant via e-mail.  View the Drafting Table website now.

We also set up the Facebook and G+ pages for the new foodie hotspot.  We hope you like what we did, and soon we’ll be working further with these guys to generate a blog and more menu additions.

RenovoData, in Atlanta, contacted us recently to develop an eye-catching graphic that aided  them in succinctly explain to their clients how they can help with their disaster recovery planning and strategy.

After talking to RenovoData’s marketing and development team, we helped them hone in on what it is that separates them from regular web-based cloud hosting companies, purporting to do the same as Renovo.  They were thrilled with the final design and decided to create a new brochure to email to their clients using the graphic as the central theme.  We are now continuing to develop our relationship with the data protection specialists at Renovo by sprucing up their website and developing other company graphics and ads.

The newly designed graphic:

You can also view our Trade show advert (PDF) and brochure design (PDF).  We love web design, but its great to help a client with all their marketing needs.

We work primarily with small business owners, and most often, with the owner him or herself.

A key part of how we understand the needs of small businesses is that we are one. We understand the time crunch business owners face every day and how sometimes your own marketing efforts can fall by the wayside when you are busy working to meet YOUR clients’ needs.  A good example of how we were able to help one of our clients this week is a phased approach to launching a new website.  They had a basic “contact information” website when we began, and little that represented their high-tech unique manufacturing skills and processes.

Our client didn’t have the time available to write a lot of content and take photos for us to showcase his company’s capabilities but understood that having a nice design, an easy-to-use contact form, and some imagery, was better than leaving the website as it was.   I understand that some bigger web design companies will not do much to help with “content” of a website, or will request separate fees to help on that side.  We take that on to get our clients moving in the right direction.  We took the approved design and fleshed out 4 pages (where just one is a placeholder page) and launched their website, while they continue to spend their time where it is needed.

The phased approach to web design

The FJ Feddersen Gun barrels website (in its phase 1 stage) is pictured above.  Documentopia designed the logo and website design, as well as photography touch up and content editing.  The website mainly links to their “e-commerce” site, which we designed and launched earlier this year, 10/22 Rifle Barrels.

We look forward to fleshing out the rest of the website and extending the reach of the gun barrels manufacturing company.  It’s always worth considering the phased approach if you are pushed for time and need to start by replacing something that is no longer useful to you or your customers.

Look Out Yorkshire – remote Marketing and PR is coming to help you improve your image and Business Performance.

Meet Jane of remote Marketing and PR – after years of running marketing departments and transforming company identities and re-branding companies across the UK, she’s now made herself available to help any company as she launches her new company, remote Marketing and PR.

We are proud to be able to help Jane create her OWN identity as she launches this exciting new company, remote Marketing and PR,  located in the heart of Yorkshire.  We designed her logo and website, working with her marketing insight to create an eye-catching, clean attractive design.

Rarely do we get to play as much with fun stuff and with as fun clients as Paul, Cathi and Tommy, the family behind these beautiful and whimsical ceramic bird bowls.  Tommy, the website’s namesake and creator of the original bird bowl, first hatched the idea at a ceramics class he took with his sister, a ceramics-whizz, Cathi.  Tommy and Cathi’s bird bowl art have appeared in local shows, have been featured in County Line Magazine, and celebrated and supported special charity events.

Documentopia were thrilled to get the opportunity to design and develop a custom e-commerce website solution for Tommy and were pleased to be able to indulge our whimsical side while creating the Tommy’s Bird Bowls website.

First, we got to add these quirky birds all over the site in this fully css-written website design.  Then, when Cathi and family reported how excited they were with our idea, we developed a custom “adopt your bird bowl” page where guests can design a custom bowl from a series of options.

And the best thing about designing a website for other designers and creators… They pay you in their amazing art work! Please check out TommysBirdBowls.com and recommend them to your friends as a unique and fun gift idea!

Electronics Engineering Specialists, Phoenix Designs, contacted us after a word-of-mouth recommendation from one of our many happy clients.  They had a website design that had hardly been touched in 8+ years and was showing some serious signs of age. You can still see their old website design at www.archive.org.

We didn’t want to change up their logo entirely as they have used it throughout their company, so instead we took its basic elements and recomposed them into a new configuration, different color scheme to suit the new website, and added a tagline that quickly clarified their company’s purpose.

We then developed a new look for the website: a cleaner, fresher look with easy, consistent navigation across the top.  We worked with the very busy small business owner to re-write content to maximize searchability on Google and other search engines and ensuring the new copy was up to date and provided easy to follow information on Phoenix Designs.

With small businesses, we often find the owners just don’t have the time to work on the website design.  We took on the task of selecting images throughout the website, editing and proof-reading content and developed a case study guideline document.  We understand not everything can be done up front, so we launched the website knowing that we can continue to develop the content in a future phase, as and when our client finds time to pursue the website content.

After last year where we launched a new look for our airsoft client, SS Airsoft, and new design and updated web coding for Storm-Lake, we are now on our third gun-based website!  This time we were approached by barrel mamanufacturing company, RFour, Inc, to design and  develop a website for their target rifle barrels.

The design process began with the development of a logo that represented the new line of 10/22 magnum and rifle barrels. Our client was thrilled with the initial concept and with a few tweaks we were soon on to the web design.

We presented a website design that was both modern and sleek, tying in with the product itself and target shooting audience.  Rfour were pleased with the design and ready to move forward immediately.  We took photos of the 3 main barrels they sell, showcasing their features so potential buyers could see the craftsmanship as well as various barrel features.

Working with Rfour to develop fresh and SEO-designed content, we fleshed out the information pages and laid out the buy page displaying the various barrels and associated options.  The customer then follows a step by step check out process with a clear guide advising them through the process and what steps are left.

The site launched today after a final run-through to verify the site worked across all browsers, including IE (7-9), Firefox, Safari and Chrome.

Check out the site and let us know what you think! 10/22 Rifle Barrels.