Website Development & Design in Kamloops, BC

Modern websites need to display higher amounts of information and load quicker than ever before. Website users want a website to load right away and be able to find the information, service or product they are searching for. Users then want to be able to ask any questions related to the information they are searching for without any effort. This is the purpose of any website and it is our goal to provide functional and visually appealing websites to our clients.

Websites need to flow. From your website’s home page, to your product listing to your contact form, your users want to get in and get out or they will find another website that will allow them to do so.

Questions You Need to Ask About Your Website

The average age of a website is typically 3 to 4 years provided it is well designed in the first place. If a website is designed poorly, it will be outdated from day one. Some questions that should be asked if you think your website is outdated are:

1. Does your website use most of the viewing space available on your screen?
   • A modern day website tends to use most of if not all of the horizontal screen space. This allows for website content to be displayed more efficiently without asking the user to excessively scroll down the website to find any critical information. Humans are naturally left to right, top to bottom readers and websites should be designed with this in mind. Don’t fight what people do naturally.
2. Does your website look the same on your phone or tablet that it does on your regular computer or laptop?
   • You may be thinking that looking the same would be a good thing. Looking similar is a good thing but looking the same means that your mobile website is loading pieces of the website that were designed with assumption that a high-speed Internet connection was being used. Speed and efficiency are everything in web development and this is especially true on mobile devices. This topic will be covered further on the Mobile Web Development page.
3. Does your website take forever to load?
   • As was mentioned in question number two, website load speed is critical when it comes to people using your website. According to Adobe, 39% of people will stop using engaging with a website if it takes to long to load. The usual time time that is expected for a website to load is 4 seconds. Google has said that 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website that they have had trouble accessing and 40% will visit a competitor’s website instead. Again, speed is everything.
4. If you are looking at your website for the first time, would you find every need easily?
   • The entire purpose of your website is to provide information on your products or services to your clients as easily as possible. No website user wants to spend their valuable time searching for information that they can’t find on your website. A lot of websites value visual design elements over the functionality of the website. While we believe that visual elements are important to engage an audience, if the website is not functional, that audience will quickly leave your website for a competitor.

Our Website Development Platform

Position Absolute Web Development develops our websites on a Content Management System (CMS) called WordPress. Roughly 60% of CMS built websites on the Internet currently use WordPress. It is due to this high usage rate that we use WordPress. Based on our experience with other CMS platforms, WordPress has the most robust amount of themes, templates, plug-ins and other functionalities that are used to create modern websites. Also, because of the amount of people adopting and utilizing WordPress, support is readily available in a timely fashion with a high degree of assistance and accuracy.

In addition to all of these benefits listed above, we feel that WordPress’ greatest strength is its ease of use. When we develop a website for one of our clients, we want those clients to feel comfortable controlling the website. This allows our clients to change aspects of the website whenever they please without having to request changes to their website from us. Training on how to maintain the website will be provided to all of our clients who want it upon launch of their website.

The Website Development Process

When a client requests a website from Position Absolute Web Development, we develop that website using a process that has been developed for over 10 years. We feel that this process is best way to satisfy the clients needs for their website and develop the website in an accurate and timely fashion. This process is as follows:

1. Logo/Brand
   • All website should begin with a brand or logo. The importance of brands can not be understated. Your brand is what identifies your company as different from your competitors. Your logo is typically the first impression that potential new clients interpret when visiting your website. The reason why logos are usually placed in the top left corner of a website is that it is human nature to read left to right, top to bottom. Your logo should be clear, concise and attention grabbing. It should entice your users to read on further and use your website. As we believe in the importance of logos and branding, if you do not have a logo or wish to make improvements or changes to your current logo, we are here to assist you. The website development process begins here.
2. Colour Scheme
   • Once your logo has been created, we will use the colours that were used in the logo creation to create the colour scheme for your website. Typically, a website uses 3 to 4 colours. 2 of these colours are primary colours that are used for most of the elements on the website design. The remainder of the chosen colours are used as accent colours to highlight key elements of the website that we want to draw attention to. Once the colours have been decided upon, we can move on to layout planning.
3. Layout Planning
   • Layout planning might not seem like an important phase of the website development process, but we consider just as essential as branding and colour schemes. Layouts are all about planning the best way to display critical information on a website so that users can find that information with ease. Website layouts are broken down into two main areas. The areas are called “Above the Fold” and “Below the Fold”. The fold is the bottom of the display screen when a website first loads with everything on screen being above the fold. When a user scrolls down on a website, this new information would be considered below the fold. The rationale for mentioning page fold is that we want all important information to be “Above the Fold” so that a user can see this information right away. We don’t want to take the chance that people will decide not to scroll down the website, therefore missing important information “Below the Fold”. A website should be as easy as possible to use. With proper layout planning, a user’s path through a website can be planned and made very clear so that they shall not become lost and frustrated and leave the website with an unsatisfactory experience.
4. Service/Functionality/Plug-ins
   • The next step in the website development process is to determine which pieces of functionality are needed to provide your service or product to your online audience. These functional elements are referred to as website plug-ins. The main reason that already created plug-ins are used in website development is that it is more cost-effective to do so. Custom development can be very costly to your final budget for your website and should be only be pursued as a final resort when all other existing plug-ins will not suffice for your website’s product or service. Examples of website plug-ins are online calendars, webforms that provide inquiry services or newsletter signups, booking systems for hotel rooms or vacation tours and online e-commerce stores.
5. Page Creation
   • Next, we determine which pages are needed for your website. As a baseline, most websites will require an index or home page, a page that provides information on your products or services, an about page and describes your business and a contact page that your clients can use to ask you questions about your products or services. Although pages are cheap to create, we advise against having an extreme amount of pages on any website as this creates website bloat and problems navigating your website.
6. Content
   • Although it may not seem like it when the website development process begins, the content stage is most important. This is due to content being used to describe your product or service in a clear and accurate manner to your clients. Content is also very important in the website marketing stage of a website’s life also known as Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). Because of these factors, we stress that content including website images be provided by you, the client, as you are considered the authority on your business type. Any content that we create would not carry the same level of accuracy.
7. Quality Assurance & Testing
   • The time of a website’s launch should be a heralded event where you are proud to show off your new website as a flagship for your company and brand. This event should not be undercut by a faulty website launch with incomplete pages & broken functionality. After investing your money into a website, that website should not launch in an incomplete state. All websites, regardless of size & scale, need to be tested thoroughly & accurately.
8. Website Launch
   • Prior to the launching of any website or service, the final product is returned to you, the client to provide confirmation that the website is properly done and working to your satisfaction. A website is never launched without a client’s final approval.