Why use Webbering DDH to design, development and host your website?

It's simple. I have over 35+ years in dealing professionally with small businesses, organizations, governments and individuals. My experiences in accounting, business and computer consulting with companies along with my knowledge of application development as well as website development, gives me a unique ability to quickly understand what you need.

OK, but what about all these slick website design firms?

If you need someone to develop a large, sophisticated and slick website, then Webbering DDH can do it but for most websites, it's overkill. In fact, I have referred potential clients to other website firms when I felt it was outside the focus of my firm. Let's face it, there are some websites that simply would take up too much of my time and not be part of my target market which is small businesses, organizations, governments and individuals.

Why? Let's take an example.

Look at this very nice template to the right. It is the RocketTheme Infuse template which you can view further at this link. This is a very nice template that can be purchased and used on a website through their template club. It's colorful, well laid-out and provides a lot of modules for content display. And that is precisely why most small businesses do not need a template like this. They simply do not have enough content to fill the space. Also, the template does not reflect what their business is all about.

Pretty! Absolutely! Perfect for most websites? No! It might be useful for a florist but would not fit a construction company, insurance agency, chamber of commerce, political campaign or most businesses in general. That's precisely why 'stock' templates are not a good fit for most websites. Also, many designers want to show off their skills so they go all out with their designs which are more geared towards large businesses and organizations but not for small to medium size businesses.

Look at the template positions to the left. In all there are 28 module positions. Modules can be enabled or disabled but, in reality, how many businesses really need a template that has this capability? Not many! If you had a need for a website to hold a lot of content, then something like this would be right up your alley.

Could I provide that capability? Sure! After all, it's just a template based on the Joomla CMS foundation. What is Joomla? Let's don't get into details but think of it like an automobile frame with the body being the template. In this case, the underlying 'automobile frame' is universal and the template ('body') can be anything. So if you wanted a Corvette look, you would put a Corvette body on the frame. If you wanted a Ford F150 look, you would put a Ford F150 body on the frame. By using different templates, you can get different looks, yet the underlying framework as well as actual content is the same. That is the beauty of using a CMS as your foundation. It separates style from content.

I keep focused!

Most of the websites I have developed has come from GPL (general public license) templates. OK, let's make it simple. Free templates! There are literally thousands available worldwide right now. But most do not have the look that a client might want. That is where Webbering 'redesigns' the template to match the clients need.

Southern Cross Ranch

One of the more dramatic template changes I made was for The Southern Cross Ranch. They wanted a website to show off their indoor / outdoor arena areas as well as describe the wide range of services that they provide. In discussions with the owners, they had some features they wanted such as a site look that reflected their ranch style. What better way than to use different images from their facilities to create their website. Also, they wanted content to be bordered by a barb-wire look and they wanted a color scheme that complimented their sign colors. With this info, I research and found a template, the Blue Jean template to the right, that gave us the underlying framework I needed but did not have the look they wanted.

I took this template and modified to reflect the style that they had described to me. I took a photo of their sign and enhanced the image to add photos of Chuck and Diane on the front as they wanted a photo of them on their horses on the home page. As the Blue Jean template had borders around the content, I replaced that border with barb wire images as well as changed the color style to match the sign using a pale yellow background for the main content area. While out at their facility, I noticed the stone wall that they had at their entryway and thought it would be an excellent side borders. So I took photo's of the wall, cloned the image to make it large enough for the background and floated the website in the middle of the page so the stone background became the side borders. Finally, in order to show off the side borders, I reduced the width of the content area to 770 pixels which on some order monitors is most of the width but most modern day monitors, it is about 2/3 of the width. They loved this look.

However, it was obvious that the large header wouldn't work on all of the other pages as it would take up too much screen real estate which was needed for their content. So I created another template from this one but used a small header to free up room for all other pages. I simple removed the photo's of Chuck of Diane, removed the top portion of the sign and made a smaller header. This provided the needed room so that content about their business could be displayed and viewed with very little scrolling. All navigation remained the same as ease of navigation is a standard of all well designed websites. The nice thing is you can assign different templates to different pages so this gives additional flexibility for website design.

Obviously, TheSouthernCrossRanch.com required some dramatic changes but this is not always true for all websites. Some require less changes in structure and only required some graphic as well as color changes.

Splinters, Inc.

Jon and Krissi Murphy with Splinters, Inc. wanted a simple website so they could display Jon's beautifully crafted wood cabinetry. I referred both of them to my template gallery, which has only a couple dozen domain templates displayed. After looking, they liked the layout and header for the Siteground J15-48 template shown to the right. They wanted a color scheme to match their wood-working craft and wanted a saw blade in place of the globe that was in the header.

Using their feedback, I sent them several saw blade images from which they selected one, used four different wood graphic images to created the header along with the font that they selected. On the home page is a slideshow in the left sidebar which rotates many of the items he has crafted. I added galleries for Jon's work for homes and businesses broken down by type. On the pages other than the home, I added a random image display of Jon's work as well as a breakdown for his customization of cabinetry options. I modified the background and highlighted border colors to reflect a wood colored style. This was a simple makeover that only took a few hours to complete yet it gave the client exactly what they were looking for in a website.

Sure, you can take a template off a commercial site and install with no modifications but a website should reflect the business, organization, government or individual that it is representing. Besides, who really wants a cookie-cutter website that several other sites are using with no modifications. Clients want a site that is uniquely theirs.

That is my philosophy too!

Another reason for your business or organization to have a website.

Internet Usage and Population Growth

Source:
http://www.internetworldstats.com/am/us.htm