You always have a choice in the platform you choose to use for your website or management system, and that choice is endless.
Open source platforms such as Wordpress or Drupal and CRM's such as Salesforce or Hubspot, the multitudes of SAAS... the choice goes on and on. BUT, what is right for you and your business, what do you really need? What are your end goals and requirements?
We specialise in bespoke design and builds, wether it's a brochure site, e-commerce site or a complex web based management system, our approach is still the same. We will go through the process of understanding your buisness and defining the requirements and goals for the project "planning".
Over the years (and we've been doing this for over 20 of them), the experience we've built up in multiple sectors has given us a really strong understanding of how different markets operate, and what works in them. As far as design goes we've pretty much worked in most, and the design of a website is so important that I can't emphasise it enough. But its just part of the process and needs to be researched and planned.
We come across work all the time where its obvious that the site is just an off the shelf template or a "build it yourself" site. All very well and good for getting something up and running but without understanding your target market and target audience (they are not the same), and planning your design and build, then it's unlikely to be a success..."note: plus the amount of times we have clients come to us with open source sites that have been hacked, it's quite simply scary"....
So, regardless of the size of the project, having a deep understanding and a solid plan is important... data is also key, when possible (and this isn't always the case), perhaps aim for a MVP (minimum viable product) first, a platform that can enable you to get a base presence and start collecting data. See how your users are interacting with your site and use this to influence the next stages of your project and build.
As an example we designed and developed the entire digital platform for Viewber, helping them grow from a new, small startup to a pretty significant platform in the Estate Agent industry.
The platform manages house viewings, photograhy, inspections, key holding and much more covering the entire UK and manages thousands of viewings a month, that's a bucket load of data.
It started as a very simple site with a few sign up forms and data being managed manually, but it grew, and grew and the data that was being collected and the way in which users were interacting made huge influences on it's development. Parts of the system were developed, and re-developed, and so on to cater for the ever changing needs of the business. It started as a build in one of our CMS frameworks and was then slowly scaled up, using the information collected to influence the desicisions. It's now a large scale enterprise platform built on multiple frameworks like Laravel and React.
We also developed an open API for it so that 3rd parties could integrate their platforms directly. The project ran for nearly 4 years up to a point where they could start utilising their own internal team, and that's part of what we do.
"We can help startups and/or even established businesses make that move forward, become more effective, and grow.."
It starts with planning and understanding. The choices you make at the beginning can have profound impacts further down the line and whether its a simple website or vastly complex platform, the process is fundamentaly the same.
Pretty much everything we do is bespoke, open source platforms don't tend to work for the types of projects we undretake and in our many years in this industry we've always found that they can cause more issues later on down the road. Most of our projects tend to start with Larvel as the core. It's a well documented php framework with bucket loads of documentation and a large community. It's also really scalable so we never have to "completey start from scratch" when future large scale updates are required. The way we develop is based on starting with a core engine that handles fundamentals and then scale on top of that core. This gives a cost effective solution that can grow with your business...
So a quick couple of pointers:
- Understand your target market and target audience
- Think about the end goals
- Plan your design and build
- Collect data and let it influence your choices
- Choose the right platform, OS or Bespoke
We’re proud of all the websites and systems that we develop so we’d like to share some information about some of our most recent releases. Check them out for inspiration or visit our site for more information.
Product Brochure – benchkitchens.co.uk
Bench Kitchens is a new Bristol-based kitchen company that needed a website to showcase the quality of their gorgeous kitchens. A branding package and logo design was first undertaken, which set the tone for the site. It was important for the design to compliment rather than outshine the kitchens, however, more than just a brochure, this site features a product catalogue which will one day act as the basis for an ecommerce website. The content management system has also been integrated with supplier product imports to make it easier to manage the large amounts of data. A quote building tool rounds out the functionality, helping to keep these guys busy doing what they do best rather than hours of admin and an integartion with Hubspot's CRM has also been included.
Hubspot brochure - thehamptonclinic.co.uk
As well as building websites in our own content management system we also develop websites in Hubspot, which is great for inbound and automated marketing. Not only is it a very powerful CRM, it also has an open API which enables all sorts of possibilities for third party integrations and development. Page templates are easily managed by clients via drag and drop functionality, allowing them to create different layouts at will.
The Hampton Clinic is a local well-being and beauty treatment clinic which wanted to harness the marketing power that a Hubspot site offers. Their site is also hooked up to Facebook messenger so that they never miss an enquiry.
Ecommerce – gadelles.com
It’s no secret that shopping is going online but recent events have quickened the pace. We recently built an ecommerce website to showcase and sell vintage jewellery for a local Bristolian company, Gadelles. We didn’t want the design to compete with the beautiful product imagery, so we kept it clean and efficient, mostly white with black and green accents to channel the vintage feel. Special attention was paid to the mobile design to ensure that site works just as well on small screens as it does on big ones. It looks simple and elegant on the surface but it’s paddling hard underneath. In addition to the usual, standard ecommerce functionality we’ve done several bespoke integrations. When products are loaded to the website, they are also sent automatically to Gadelles shops on Pinterest, Facebook and Etsy - saving masses of time and making cross channel marketing far easier.
Fully bespoke system – somerset.eddystone-ccard.org.uk
In some cases, the project brief is so complex that it’s more efficient to undertake a site build from scratch rather than try to make it fit into the constraints of a pre-built content management system. The C-card system that we developed for the Somerset County Council is one of those cases. They required a web-based management system to deal with the dispatch of their sexual health care products for young people across the county but it also provides the same service for the Plymouth region. The system is therefore accessible by users located all across the county. It deals with user registration, stock management and ordering, has multi-level administration and automates stock level top-ups. Its also linked tho the app so that young people can book and orgnise their appoinements.
We chose to use Laravel, a well-trusted php framework as a starting point and built the necessary modules and administration areas on top. It's our chosen framework for most projects especially the large bespoke ones.
If you would like to see more of our work or just to have a chat about a potential project then why not visit our website https://somersetdesign.co.uk we'd love to hear from you.
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