Build the Right Website

It is crucial to the success of your project that your web designer understands your business.

We have 20 years experience providing IT and web solutions to:

• New Startups
• Small to Medium Business
• Finance, Transport and Utilities

We aim not only to build the website right, but also to build the right website!

Often for a surprisingly economical price, since we avoid unnecessary expenditure and keep our company overheads low. Contact us now for a no-obligation initial discussion of your needs.

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Avoid a Costly Mistake

Only 65% of small/medium organisations in Australia say that their website is good for business (Sensis report, pg 20/22).
That leaves a staggering 35% that are getting no value at all from their website!

Even worse, half did not know if they were getting a return from e-commerce or their return was less than five percent (Sensis report, pg 26/28).

From our experience, 9 out of 10 businesses could be getting better value from their website. Ask yourself the following two questions:

• Have I thought about my business needs?
• Has my web designer asked me about my business needs?

Business Needs

You might like to consider the following list of common business needs:

Contact us to find out more, or view our Portfolio.

"Too often people are in such a hurry to get a website live that they don't pause long enough to consider the needs of their intended audience(s) or the business itself. The result is disappointment and frustration" - NETT magazine (Dec 2007 pg 58)

blog entries:

  "Wishing you a risky New Year!"   (4th January 2009)

Does that phrase frighten you? I’m not surprised.

After all, who would wish for a risky 2009? Especially after seeing so much risk exposed during the past year, finally left bare after the many successive high tides of irrational exuberance finally receded.

It is not surprising that people now want to cloak themselves in the comfort of extreme caution. Except for a few. Warren Buffett is an obvious example of one of the few. A man who is famously rich simply because he was never being afraid to go against the mob. But there are others. Whilst not so rich now, they are putting themselves on the path of becoming so. These are people that are excited by their own vision and courageous enough to act, to rise above the prevailing atmosphere of stultifying caution.

I can think of the story of two medical professionals here in Sydney. Whilst they know each other and are good friends, they have different medical specialities.

The first has caught onto the idea of presenting seminars and recording motivational and educational videos. We have built him a website that promotes and sells these online. He is already making as much money from his seminars and videos as from his traditional medical clinics.

The second has seized on the opportunity to help with the medical treatment requirements of those large Australian organisations that have far-flung outposts located across the whole continent. We have constructed an internet site that allows for secure database access by authorised medical professionals. They can login from anywhere and at any time of day or night in response to a sudden medical incident.

Maybe you are one of those rare people that can break out of the straitjacket. Maybe there's an idea that caught hold of you during the holidays, something wild and impractical, but inspiring nonetheless. Why not take the next step? Why not do it now?

Have a risky New Year!

All the best from Web Ascend - putting websites to work!


  "online suicide"   (24^th November 2008)

You may have heard that a 19 year old college student in Florida named Abraham Biggs tragically committed suicide on the web this week. People sitting in front of their computers at home watched in horror as he slowly lost consciousness and died in front of his webcam after taking some pills. The emergency services arrived too late to save him.

Here is my question to you - is your website committing online suicide? Whilst obviously not on the same scale as a human suicide, a dying website is nonetheless not a pretty sight. We are often called in to restore a depressed or dying website back to life. Here are some symptoms we often find - do you recognise any of them?

Symptom 1 - No visibility
Your website is invisible. It is not showing up in the top search engine results for your keywords. You are getting hardly any referrals from other websites.

Symptom 2 - No data
You don't have any reliable analytical data on your website (number of visits, source of referrals, page rankings, search terms, bounces, etc).

Symptom 3 - No sales
You're not selling much, if anything, via your website. Your website is not helping your company gain additional market share or growth.

Symptom 4 - No cost benefit
Your website is not reducing your cost of operations.

Symptom 5 - Wrong image
Your website is presenting the wrong image for your company. Rather than being a glowing online asset, it has become (quite frankly) an embarrassment.

Symptom 6 - No value add
Your website is not adding much, if any, value to your business overall.

Luckily, fixing these issues might be easier than you think. So take action to stop your website from dying online - before it's too late! Contact us now for an obligation-free opinion and quote.


  "a jumbled honeycomb of dead ends"   (10^th November 2008)

People often ask about compliance to various compatibility standards like W3C DOM, XHTML and CSS.

Yes, it is important that your website looks right in all the commonly used web browsers like IE, Firefox, Safari etc.

But this is just the bare minimum. The much more important question that people should be asking, is:

• Will my website be a clear easy-to-follow narrative - or will end up being a jumbled honeycomb of dead ends?

To answer the question, here is what is needed in order to achieve a clear, easy-to-follow narrative...

Firstly, a website needs to have a clear mission. People need to know what it is about or they won’t trust it.

Secondly, the website should clearly indicate what makes it unique or different from competitors or other similar websites. People need a reason to explore your website. You also want to attract the right kind of person by highlighting what makes you compelling to them.

Thirdly, there should be some clear threads or sequences of pages for people to follow depending upon their interest. Visitors should not be left stranded on a page, wondering where they should go next. There should be clear signposts for them at every stage.

In summary, exploring your website should be like strolling through a large and beautiful garden where there are many and varied treats in store for the visitor, available via a system of well-laid out paths and signs.

Rather than being dumped in the middle of a pitch-black honeycomb of underground caves, with only a tiny flickering candle for illumination and no way of knowing where to go next, or what there is to see.

Cross-browser standards like the W3C DOM are just the bare minimum, checking cross browser compliance is like checking a car is roadworthy. Much more needs to be investigated and far more time and attention needs to be spent on making sure your website meets your business needs - and doesn’t become a jumbled honeycomb of dead ends.


  "the Yin and Yang of the home page"   (1^st November 2008)

Two different clients revealed problems with their websites that were exact mirror images of each other this week.

Customer A
Customer A was very pleased with their search results. Their company was shown in the top 5 for most of their preferred keywords. But, although full of informative text, their current Home Page looked very plain. They wanted to spice it up, so that new visitors would be more likely to browse through the rest of the website after landing there. But they were very concerned about the potential impact of a redesign - would it upset their current stellar Google rankings?

Customer B
Customer B had exactly the reverse problem. Their home page looked very attractive. It included lovely graphics and some subtle animation effects. But their Google search results were very poor. They wanted to know why this was - and how we could fix the problem..

The answer to Customer A was simple. Their Google rankings should remain at or near the top, even after the redesign, provided that we kept the same text and maintained the same metadata tags in the page header. We showed them the "View Source" facility to illustrate why Google would be unlikely to know, or care, that the look-and-feel was different.

The answer to Customer B was that their poor rankings were because their existing home page had very little native text. The graphics were essentially invisible to search engines. I explained that Google prefers plain text information and that the best thing we could do to raise their ranking, was to add a bunch of useful and relevant text to the current home page. We could easily add a new information section underneath, in keeping with their current design and without needing to disturb the existing people-friendly graphics.

So there you have it - you can have a Home Page that suits both people and those pesky search engines!


  "when the going gets tough"    (23^rd October 2008)