Freelance Web Design Lytham St Annes

I design and build inexpensive and attractive web sites for small local businesses, clubs, groups and individuals that are specifically tailored to suit each client’s requirements and presents them to their target audience in a professional manner.

Today when people need a product or service they automatically search the web using a search engine to find a solution to fulfill their needs and meet their requirements on a desktop computer, laptop or a mobile device, rather than getting out the trusty old phone book to let their fingers do the walking to find a local business or tradesman who can give advice and provide a solution.

This means that businesses of all sizes need a presence online today in the form of their own web site, so that people who are looking for the products or services that they provide can actually find them, the site should contain detailed information about the business and the products and services the business provides and contact details so that visitors can get in touch.

New Web Site Project Design & Build Process

I work with WordPress to build new web sites, WordPress is free Open Source software written in PHP, that can be used to create web sites with static pages or a blog type web site or both, a WordPress site or blog has an admin area or dashboard that contains tools that allow the owner to create pages or blog posts and add text and images, and edit them whenever they need to.

This is a WordPress web site, the layout and look of the pages is determined by the theme in use, this site uses a theme called Vanatage Premium that is fully responsive when viewed on a tablet or mobile phone, when first installed WordPress comes with a couple of themes, you can download new themes directly from the WordPress web site via the dashboard, most themes are free and you can also buy themes or pay a fee or make a donation to upgrade to a premium version of the theme.

To add extra functionality WordPress uses plugins, for example to add a mail form on the contact page I installed a plugin that allowed me to add the mail form to the page by inserting a short code, and just like the themes you can download plugins directly from the WordPress web site via the dashboard, most plugins are free and you can either buy them of pay a fee for a premium version that provides more functionality. 

WordPress is very flexible and allows the site owner to manage their own site and easily edit the content and update pages, change the theme or install plugins etc, which helps to keep overheads to a minimum, if you are not sure how to do anything there is a little help tab in the top right corner of the dashboard, plus a comprehensive knowledge base on the WordPress web site and I am always on hand if you get stuck.

Each  new web site project starts with an enquiry and a meeting with the client for a chat to discuss their requirements, needs, objectives and their expectations in order to ensure that the solution that I provide is aesthetically pleasing and presents the business in a professional manner and also able to meet it’s intended goals and the needs of the target audience.

After meeting with a new client in order to gain a good understanding of their business and the requirements for their web site I can then start to gather any materials such as images and textual content that is required to describe the business and products or services that they provide.

Then I can install a copy of WordPress on a spare domain and hosting package that I use specifically for this purpose, this allows my clients to view their site and monitor progress and provide valuable feedback as I work on the site, this also means that search engines do not crawl and index the site before it is launched.