Website Design Aberystwyth, Wales

As a freelance website designer I much prefer it if I can meet my clients face-to-face, which can mean quite a bit of travelling. Today I’m driving south to meet a potential client, hopefully the meeting will go well and I’ll soon be working on a new project, but if for some reason we aren’t a ‘good fit’ then it will have been a wasted journey. There isn’t much I can do about this; living miles from anywhere means there aren’t many clients locally so I have to travel – or force them to travel – in order to meet face-to-face.

It isn’t completely necessary to meet face-to-face and I have worked on projects, even large projects, for people I have never met, but if at all possible I like to meet my clients in person.

There are a number of reasons for this. First, a face-to-face meeting is so much more productive than numerous e-mails being sent back and forth. A meeting, even a short one allows me to cover so much more and get a real feeling for the project and the people involved. I really enjoy building websites that my clients love, and getting to know my clients and the intended audience of their website is the first step to achieving this. They can tell me what their requirements and what they want their website to achieve and I can offer various solutions and show them examples. Often my face-to- face conversations with clients go off on tangents and we end up talking about other things of interest outside of work and the web, but it is these insights into the people that really make the difference and allows me to offer a personal service.

Just as important though is the fact that it gives my clients chance to get to know me. Hopefully they find someone that they can easily communicate with and want to have working on their website. I aim to offer a professional service and pride my self on my friendly, helpful nature. However, I may not be for everyone. I’m a freelancer working on my own, not a big expensive agency, so there are times that I can’t offer the services some larger corporate businesses may want. It is much easier to judge these things for both me and my clients at a face-to-face meeting.

Meeting and developing a relationship with my clients is important for me and for them. It makes the whole process of building and maintaining a website so much more enjoyable.

Meeting face-to-face also gives me a chance to have a chat over a coffee and make friends. When you live in the middle of nowhere this is always something to look forward to, although it isn’t always a good thing as it is difficult to charge full-price to friends!

If you’ve come here looking for the photos taken by Pixelwave Design at the recent Aberystwyth Twin Peaks multi terrain race race, please click here:

Aberystwyth Twin Peaks 2009 Photos ».

Pixelwave Web Design is currently working on a new promotional website for a clinic in Wales.

Vertigo Clinic Wales is a private practice run by a local doctor. The practice offers special clinics including dizziness clinic, ear nose and throat emergencies, sports and exercise medicine and rehabilitation and medical legal reporting.

The website is a simple, brochure style website that introduces the clinics and provides contact information.

Vertigo Clinic Website Comp

If you’ve come here looking for the photos taken by Pixelwave Design at the recent Forest of Dean Enduro MTB race, please click here:

Forest of Dean Enduro 2009 Photos ».

If you’ve come here looking for the photos taken by Pixelwave Design at the recent Lake Vyrnwy Half Marathon, please click here:

Lake Vyrnwy Half Marathon Photos ».

Pixelwave Web Design is pleased to announce the launch of a new eCommerce website for Essential Tea.

The company approached me earlier this year with a website that they already had but wanted to move it away from their current web developer. They also wanted various improvements made to the interface of the website. Unfortunately the system they were using was a proprietary one so no one else could use it or work on it. The only option was to build a completely new eCommerce solution based on open source software which provided more flexibility and meant that Essential Tea weren’t tied to one particular web developer.

Obviously they wanted to keep the look and feel of the site as close as possible to the original in order to maintain their company identity and branding. I’ve managed to do that whilst also improving on the usability of the site so that it is easier for visitors to find their way around and complete tasks on the site.

The new website selling essential accessories and ethical fashion products is now live and ready for all to see.

If you’ve come here looking for the photos taken by Pixelwave Design at the recent Snowdonia Enduro Mountain Bike Event in North Wales, please click here:

Snowdonia Enduro Event Photos ».

Pixelwave Web Design has recently started work on a new website for a garage in Bristol and work is progressing well.
 
Bedminster Road Garage in Bristol provide car repairs, services and MOT’s to individuals and businesses. One of the garage owners (Brad) is actually my brother so its good that he has commissioned me to build the website for him. In fact he has been talking about it for ages now and did at one point have a local firm lined up, but decided against them and has finally got around to giving me the go ahead.

Brad isn’t really sure of what he wants so after a little chat on the phone and sme suggestions from me I’ve made a start on the overall layout and the design of the site based on the information architecture that I think he should adopt for his website.

Knowing my brother it will take a while to get the content from him, but unlike other clients at least I can pester him for it a little! The site is going to be a fairly simple brochure style website for now which will outline the services offered by the garage, introduce the team of mechanics and provide the all important contact information. Nothing too flashy, just an easy to use, clear, concise website to promote the business.

Pixelwave Web Design has just started work on a brand new website for a local Farm and Caravan Park. Based in Mid Wales, just half a mile from the world famous Devil’s Bridge waterfalls in the picturesque Cambrian Mountains, the small, family-run park and camping site is ideally located for exploring the Pumlumon area and the Cardiganshire coast.  The area is ideal for mountain biking, walking and bird-watching with the beach only 20mins away – the famous red kite can often be spotted in the woods at the bottom of the park too!

Their new website will be a promotional tool for the Caravan Park. In addition to providing information on the facilities available at it will also highlight places to visit and activities to do in the area and of course provide important contact information. The site will also contain a “news and events” section that will be updated regularly and a guestbook for visitors to sign. The website will be based around an easy-to-use Content Management System allowing the park owners to update the site and the news and events whenever they wish.

An overall look has already been agreed upon and I have just started work on producing the website itself so it should be live later this summer.

With summer here and the longer days it seems as though there has been a flurry of activity and everyone wants their websites updated all of a sudden. Great news for me of course, as it means business is booming, but I would like to get out and enjoy the summer now and then too!

I’m working on a couple of brand new websites and have a couple more in the pipeline. I’ve been working on various functional updates for Babyfeet, along with the usual daily updates for Fairiesworld and Fantasy Artists. Pantyfod Garden website has had a few minor tweaks and I’ve also been doing lots of work on my personal weblog ‘A Simple Life of Luxury‘ and have been adding social media features to Forces-of-Nature.

I’ve been playing around embedding Twitter comments into some sites and providing people with the ability to post ‘tweets’ on each article if they wish. I’ve also been adding ‘share this’ features for a whole host of social media and social bookmarking services. Much of this has been done in an experimental way to see just how much extra traffic it can generate. Some of the results are amazing and not only does it bring in extra traffic, but if done correctly can bring in quality traffic from visitors who actually want to read the content on your site. It is all about getting the word out there and putting your content in places where people can see it.

If you haven’t explored the marketing opportunities provided by social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook, then now is the time to do so. With a little bit of effort you can get your message out to a huge group of people, many of whom will be potential customers. Not only can it be useful rom a marketing perspective, but it is good fun and you will probably make some new friends in the process.

If you would like help or advice on such topics then Pixelwave Web Design can help wth all your social media marketing needs. I can provide one to one advice and tuition to help you get your head around all of these new technologies and services. I can provide information on the best techniques to employ and the ettiquette expected at such sites, and I can implement various features to help connect your website to social media services so that you and your sites visitors can take advantage of all they have to offer. Contact me now to see how these social media technologies can help your business.