Method / Philosophy
SAFI’s Philosophy
As we mentioned on our homepage, our philosophy on websites is very simple:
a website needs to be purpose driven. Many people will try to convince you
that your business is no business if you don’t have a website in today’s
world. While this statement can often be true, in essence this is a flawed
statement that misleads and is unhelpful. If a business develops a poorly
planned and designed website with no objectives or purpose, then statistics
show that that business will potentially waste thousands of dollars on a
website that will not benefit the business in any way, and how is that better
than not having a website at all?
The Purpose
First and foremost, before any design work can be done and even before development
plans can be drawn up, a purpose and reason for having a website must be
established. Our experience shows that different businesses will have very
different purposes for having a website, such as: increasing sales, increasing
product/service information availability, creating an efficient communication
medium, this list goes on and on. Without a purpose, the chances of your
website succeeding is greatly reduced. Which leads us into our next point….
The Test of Success
Once your purpose and objectives have been established, you need to decide
on what will be used to measure the success of your future website. Without
the ability to test and measure the success of a website, you will never
know if the money you invested into the website was in fact an investment
at all. If the purpose of your website is to increase sales, be sure to
introduce a system to differentiate website sales from traditional sales,
as this will allow you to test if overall sales are increased as a result
of the website. Likewise, if your website’s purpose is to reduce the
amount of phone call enquiries and increase the amount of email/web enquiries,
you need to ensure a system is in place to measure the reduction of phone
enquiries after the inception of the website.
The Plans
For any website, regardless of size and scope, planning is of utmost importance.
Planning provides the roadmap for the client, the project manager and for
the designers and developers. Planning gives the client an opportunity to
document their thoughts and opinions – we provide questionnaires and
step by step guides to assist in the planning process which motivates and
provokes ideas from our clients. The size and scope of the website project
will generally determine the amount of planning required, planning will
also ensure that budget blowouts do not occur and that client requirements
are identified and most importantly met.
The Design & Development
We encourage all our clients to actively participate and contribute to the
design of the website. In our experience many clients say they don’t
have any particular design ideas or expectations in mind, but when a design
is produced – we discover that in fact the client certainly did have
ideas and expectations! It is our challenge to help extract those expectations
and ideas from our clients, this is helpful to everyone involved in the
project, and again, ensures that the expectations of the client is met –
which in essence is our goal. Further to this, we will make sure that the
design of your site is appropriate, relevant and is able to reflect who
you are and what you do.
Should special development requirements exist – such as e-commerce,
content management, special customer enquiry forms, etc, we are able to
provide a solution tailored to the clients needs.
The Hosting
Simply put, web hosting is just providing a space on the internet to put
your website – not so different from leasing a property to build your
offices on! We can take care of this technical requirement – to ensure
that you are shielded from any unnecessary ‘geek speak’.
The Launch & Website Marketing
Is there any point to having a beautifully designed and functional website
if nobody knows it exists? Of course not. We can arrange for a custom marketing
campaign to be developed to assist in the promotion of the website. Promoting
the launch and promoting the ongoing services of the website is vital. We
can develop a campaign that suits your budget and needs.