First to Wordcamp and after a weekend of discussing the hottest plugins, how to accommodate the rise of the use of mobile phones for browsing in our web designs, optimising sites for Google and general WordPress theming, we came away with a host of ideas to help our clients with all their website needs. We’ve been putting them into practice with a couple of our latest featured websites.

Firstly, Henry at Henry Tomkins Leather asked us to update his site whilst still incorporating his favoured shopping solution, Mal’s E-commerce. Henry designs and makes handmade leather bags from his studio in Baker’s Yard in Marsh Barton. His high quality creations sell all over the world and can be bought through his website at htleather.co.uk. There’s a leather bag for every need and Henry can tailor a bag to your specification and even design something bespoke should you require it – a perfect Christmas present idea.

Another site up and running in time for that Christmas purchase is the talented jewellery designer Jamie Inglis. Like Henry, his WordPress website allows him to add new products whenever he creates them giving him ultimate flexibility. Jamie designs beautiful Mexican and South American inspired silver jewellery from earrings to cufflinks to bangles and rings and is happy to take on commissions for those wanting something unique. You can see his designs at jamieinglisjewellery.co.uk.

With their new WordPress website, not only can users see great photos of the projects they’ve been involved in (courtesy of Tim Pestridge) but the architects can also update the pages and projects themselves as and when they need.

With a bit of clever coding the ‘posts’ section on the WordPress dashboard produces a neat little front end projects page where thumbnails, descriptions and large images of the projects themselves are shown for each sector. Then with a touch of Ajax (the programming version as opposed the cleaning one) each thumbnail/description is greyed out/made invisible until clicked on by the user giving an effective display with a good balance of image and text content. We particularly like the private houses page and dream of one day living in such a lovely space!

If you’re looking for an architect in Exeter it may be worth your while to check out the GJR Architects website and even if you’re not, have a look anyway to see some examples of beautiful architecture and photography in all its web-splendid glory.

Well, like any good web developer worth their salt we like to keep up to date with what’s going on in the web design world and learn about new plugins or themes or tips and tricks to give our clients and those that use their websites an even better experience.

So, we’re heading off to Wordcamp 2011 in July for a couple of days where we’ll be immersing ourselves in all things WordPress to hopefully return with our brains brimming over with new ways to design and develop cost effective content managed websites, and, well, we love learning new things and testing out those brain cells to the max. That’s why we love our jobs, there’s always something new out there to learn about. Some think we’re web geeks but the real geeks (meant in a ‘we’re in awe’ rather than a derogatory kind of way) are those who build this stuff. Our lives would be so much harder without their big brains.

So, to all of our current and future clients out there, watch this space for new ways to show off your business on the web with a content managed WordPress site that’s as easy for you to use as it is for your customers to read …

I’m a lyrics person; I like the lyrics to be meaningful to me; about something I believe in or can connect to. The best songs seem so simple but they’re a multi-faceted work of art which, not being particularly musical, I find hard to comprehend. Where do they begin? What makes one song work whilst another fail?

Luckily for me I don’t need to worry about that; I realise my limitations and take pleasure from listening to ‘those that can’. One client who falls into that category and certainly knows her C from her F chords is Plymouth born singer songwriter Diana Johnstone. We’ve just launched her website and having listened to her tracks are looking forward to hearing her sing live and soothe our souls sometime soon. Read more about her and listen to some of her well written tunes at dianajohnstone.com.

The most savvy business owner is now using this tool to enhance and promote their business to an even greater level. It doesn’t have to take a lot of work but it does need a bit more input from you; but don’t worry it can even be fun!

Last week I met up with Gleny Brookes, a freelance business associate and social media guru. Her wide and varied skill base is of value to any sole trader or small business. We discussed her website that we’ve just launched for her and I picked her brains about social media and its benefits.

Time is precious and thankfully social media doesn’t have to take up too much of yours for your business to reap its benefits. There‘s even clever widgets that broadcast any updates you make to other social media sites making things even simpler. To find out more about this service have a look at Gleny’s website at gleny.co.uk and give her call to see how it might benefit your business.

Using Carma’s trademark purple hues, designer Phil Pell gave us a website design after our own hearts; making good use of white space, uncluttered and above all easy to navigate. From this we built him a content managed site in our favourite CMS of the moment, WordPress. We can’t say a bad word about it; it’s easy for the user and with its highly versatile plugins is a developer’s dream – slideshows, online forms, smooth multi-level navigational menus and even plugins to help with SEO and the hot topic of the moment, social media which we’ll talk about more in our next blog.

So just how important is design?

We take graphic design for granted these days as it’s everywhere we go. Take for instance a trip to the supermarket, where we’re bombarded with all manner of products vying for our attention, each with its own design carefully thought of to stand out among the myriad of other products stacked on the shelves.

Think of your website as a virtual can of baked beans if you like; customers have limited time to shop so any product that has got to the virtual shelf (i.e. a top page Google search listing) through good SEO then needs to be attractive to the consumer and shout out ‘I’m what you’re looking for, pick me!’. That spark of interest will then get the consumer to reach onto the shelf and pick out your site and start to read the contents and if they like what they see and read then chances are your product will be in that shopping basket and on its way to the checkout …

In today’s virtual supermarket, can you afford not to take design seriously?

That’s why we like Carma Creative. They are serious about good design and like helping their clients realise the potential of their product or service.

Value baked bean or Heinz … it’s your choice.

The New Year is traditionally the time to make resolutions which more often than not don’t last beyond the first few weeks of the year. However one of our clients has taken the opportunity of the long break over Christmas to update their website to promote thier business with much longer term goals.

When small businesses first start up they find that after a while their company (hopefully!) starts growing and they have more to say on their website, with new products or services to sell or want to promote particular areas of their business. This can be a good time to re-evaluate their site and start to expand.

At the Rapport Store the owner has a wealth of experience and can offer companies all kinds of services ranging from human resources to learning & development to coach-mentoring. As time went on she found that she wanted to promote a few core areas of her business which she found she enjoyed more and were relevant to individuals and companies in the current economic climate. Re-assessing her original website showed that there were areas which could be utilised for such purposes and call to action buttons were added to the sidebar. This enabled potential clients to easily find the most requested services directly from the home page.

Alongside this, a new bar along the bottom gave her the ability to add in social media links showing the latest tweets and blog entries which the client is now using to help promote her business by adding useful content and enhancing her web presence.

If you own or run a business or looking for employment or to recruit then it’s worth having a look at the kinds of services they offer. Contact Clare at The Rapport Store for more information.

We built the website from Carma Creative’s design for the clients into a WordPress content management system (CMS) so they are able to update the content themselves as they will be regularly changing the news section and adding relevant articles to keep their viewers up to date with what’s new in their world.

This is a great way to boost your keyword content for SEO purposes whilst at the same time making your site ‘sticky’ so viewers stay on your site and also visit regularly. Not only good for business and SEO, it gives you that warm glow to know that all your hard work has paid off and someone out there is reading your work and finds it interesting!

It’s great when clients know a little about SEO so they understand how to write their content and know what their keywords are. They know their business better than we do but together we can help each other get the most out of their site. If we ask for a little more keyword rich content they know what we mean and they understand why it’s important.

If you’re not into SEO but want your site to be ranked highly in a natural search, don’t worry as help is at hand. At Bespoke Web Designs we love the SEO side of things and helping a site soar to the dizzy heights of the first page of a Google search (or pretty much any search engine) is our raison d’être. It’s the icing on the cake after a website design and build. After all, what’s the point of a great design and slick build when your site is never found? You (and we) want everyone to see how great your business is and let the world know you’re out there. Right from the start of a design we incorporate the Google tips explained in the article so when your site goes live you’re good to go for SEO. It’s not too late to start SEO-ing; if you have a site that’s already live but floundering in the rankings we can have a look through it and see what’s holding it up.

Working alongside Mike Krage from Krage Design who designed the look of the site, she has built the site into a MODx CMS to allow the team to change content whenever they like. Things have been changing daily at the Real Food Store as they have been raising funds and telling the world about their future plans which means their news section and Real Food Store home page have been regularly updated.

We can’t wait to see the store open and try out some of the local produce from around Exeter; and hopefully it’ll pave the way for more of the same in other towns and cities in the South West.

We love working with small and start up businesses and see them take off. With the help of a website, which can be from just one page, it gives the world an easy way to see who you are and what you do.