The guys at Domain Design have also produced my two websites and countless other things..

Ross Taylor
Taylor Law

‘My name is Leeann and I’m a Facebook Addict’ – there, I’ve said it! Aren’t we all though these days? I’m surprised that there aren’t already people flocking to Facebook Anonymous meetings on a weekly basis to talk to other addicts about how they are trying to wean themselves off it!

I think it’s really interesting how each individual Facebook user uses it for different things, many people use it for keeping in touch with family overseas, many to reunite with school friends or old flames, many use it for playing those highly addictive and highly annoying games (that I seem to get a million requests for each day!) and many are just downright nosey and want to catch up on all the latest scandal!

I often wonder though how many people use it when they are looking for a business or service. I know I personally would feel dubious about using a business that I know very little about other than the fact they have 300 friends on their business Facebook page. In this day and age anyone can really hide behind a screen and ‘pretend’ to be a professional business and nobody can really stop them from doing that. Do you REALLY know who you are trading with on a social networking site? Unless you know them personally, then my guess is, NO. Anyone can set up a Facebook page; it takes a matter of minutes. If I really wanted to, I could set up a Facebook page selling cheap as chips PlayStations, Xboxes, IPhones, I pads – whatever I fancy selling that day, and prey on vulnerable and gullible members of the general unsuspecting public – Never in a million years would I do it, but unfortunately there are a lot of people who do and who ARE getting away with it!

On the flip side of the coin, that also means that there are many people who are being duped by such scams! People can be unbelievably trusting when surfing a social network site and as they are normally in a relaxed frame of mind when online, chances are they let their guard down and perhaps ‘fall’ for these scams and ‘keyboard conmen’ all a little too easily.

What prompted me to write about this was a post I witnessed just last week on Facebook (not on our own business page might I add, but a friend of a friends Facebook wall. Well, let’s face it, everyone can see everything these days, whether we like it or not!) The incident that I read about was a public rant on the Facebook page of the business owner who had failed to deliver a service for, wait for it, a children’s birthday party!!! The business claimed to be an entertainer that specialised in children’s parties, christenings, weddings etc. the mother of the child had booked the entertainer for her little cherub’s birthday party with the promise of the entertainer turning up – low and behold with an army of expectant kids and a birthday kid so excited he was about to burst…..no entertainer arrived! Cue the tirade of abuse and complaints on the ‘business’ Facebook page of said entertainer.

Quite rightly so, had I been the mother of the child who was so badly let down and disappointed, I would have done exactly the same. However, my point is – did the mother really have a booking? I have no doubt she may have spoken with the business owner via the odd private and public Facebook message, but is that confirmation enough when booking a service? We know that sometimes posts can suddenly vanish and messages can be deleted, so really it’s her word against the business owner, so she didn’t really have a leg to stand on.

What also made me think about this was the fact that the business owner didn’t have a website, preferring to ‘do business’ only via Facebook, you can look at that in a couple of ways. Perhaps they generate enough business through Facebook to keep them ticking over and pay for their bills, or perhaps they don’t want to make themselves known as a legitimate business, and can quite easily fall off the radar should they ever need to. My feeling is that the latter is the truth.

When you have a business website, not only does it let your clients see that you are serious about your business and are a professional set-up, but it also gives the client a certain amount of assurance, especially if you are taking payments online through your website or PayPal.

We have built many websites for a variety of businesses and we specialise in e-commerce websites also, when there are payments involved security is paramount. Not just to protect both the consumer and seller but to ensure that there is a record of a purchase or service having being bought and paid for.

Perhaps had the business owner had a professional website with an online booking facility, all the confusion and the disappointment of 30 children could have been avoided.

There are no doubt, many, many reputable business that conduct their business through social media and do a great job of it, but please do bear in mind, that there are some rogues out there too.

My advice to you – know who you are dealing with. Ask for references from satisfied customers, ask for proof of payment/purchase (and don’t proceed until you know you will get it), ask for confirmation in writing (a private mail on Facebook isn’t good enough) and more to the point, if something doesn’t seem right listen to your gut, or if it seems too good to be true, it usually is!

Our client needed a small, simple, but effective website up and running and he needed it online….FAST! We got a detailed project spec from the client and told him to leave the artwork up to us as we already had a few ideas that we felt would work perfectly for the branding that he wanted to create.

Our designers came up with a quirky, innovative logo and then based the rest of the website design around that to tie in with the brand image that we had created. The client wanted his users to be able to get in touch with him really easily, so we added a quick call back facility to his site, along with a live chat facility that would allow users to chat with a Just GI representative right there and then when they were viewing the website.

Our client loved the concept we had put together for him and made literally no changes to the first visual we presented him with. The business is now expanding so we are in the process of making some updates to the site for the client….watch this space.

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Our client wanted a site built that would allow him to sell his unique products all over the world and to a variety of users and businesses. We sat down with him and as he wasn’t based in the country at the time, liaised with him via Skype for a lot of the project. The client was delighted that we could offer this service as he needed a company that he could trust and also that he could get in touch with at any time, even though we were on different continents!

After getting some initial ideas from the client on the look he wanted to go for, we steamed ahead and came up with a variety of designs for the client to choose from. It was evident from the very first visual he saw that he was impressed by our work. We put some ideas to the client that we felt would make great additions to the site and he agreed that what we had suggested would work well.

Our client appreciated the fact that if we felt something wasn’t right for his site, we would be honest and upfront with him. We will always give professional and realistic advice to our clients as at the end of the day, your success is our success also.

We built our client an e-shop which allows him to sell his variety of products online, it also allows the client to update the site as often as he wishes, to highlight promotions or special offers for example.

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Products

Our client wanted to sell their products online but needed a site that was going to really appeal to the eye visually when users landed on the site. They wanted bursts of colour throughout the site and wanted it to be a fun filled website that was a joy for people to view, so when we showed the clients the first visuals we had created, to say they were pleased is an understatement!

Selling online is a massive part of many businesses success these days and a user friendly website is imperative to the success of the site and the sales going through the site also. For this project, we built the site using a platform called Magento, it’s a fantastic tried and tested e-shop platform that is massively expandable, and so after discussing with the client what they needed the site to do, we decided Magento was the best way forward for them.

The client wanted their users to be able to ‘build a wish list’ and also ‘compare products’ – so that was a feature we built into the website for them also. We have now designed two Magento websites for this client and both websites are doing fantastically well. Just proves the importance of using a professional web developer is vital in the success of your business.

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Our client had such a success with the first site that we had designed for him that his business was moving at such a fast pace and he needed a brand new site designed to incorporate the new additions to his business. We changed the site from a brochure website and re-built it in a CMS (content management system) style, giving it a full new facelift in the process!

We came up with some modern, fresh designs and ran them past the client and he was delighted with our work. We have also done extensive SEO work for the client to massively boost the website performance and rankings in Search Engines such as Google.

We like to sit down with our clients to discuss their business aspirations and what they want their website to achieve, as we feel it really gives us a great understanding of how they tick and allows us to develop a site that it just exactly right for them. Carty’s Campers is a prime example of a client who has been on a successful journey with us from having their first site designed, to having their brand new site launched just recently. We love to see our clients succeed!

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Weddings

With technology moving at such a fast pace these days, websites can quickly become dated. That was the case in one of our clients, Moss-Tech. They specialise in repairs to IPhones, I pads, Laptops, PC’s, GHD Hair straighteners, TV’s and lots more – as they hadn’t had their site updated in over 5 years, many of the services they offered had changed dramatically. So our client needed a fresh new website to reflect how his business had moved on and the repairs they could now carry out.

The client loved the artwork we had done previously for him, so we gave the site a refresh but kept a similar theme but with a more modern twist and incorporated the new services that the client wanted to highlight. Within a day of the new site being up and running, the site was generating lots more new business. We specialise in website refresh projects and re-skins, so if you’re current website could do with a facelift, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

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Our design team wanted to come up with some logo ideas that would represent a business owner who was trying to shout about their business from the rooftops to let potential clients know exactly what services they offer.

Our Scream Directory logo that we finally decided on gives the users the instant idea that they have landed on a business directory that will let them search for services they require. We also feel we achieved the brief by having our logo appearing to SCREAM instead of just Yelling!

Our client had some really strong ideas of what he was after and after sitting down with one of our designers to put their ideas on screen, it became obvious that our client wanted something really cutting edge, a logo that people would recognise and that would look fantastic on all of his marketing, signage, website, vehicles and much more.

We asked the client to give us a free reign on the design and what we came up with was a logo that really catches the eye and that people will come to know. Brand awareness is very important to our client and so we feel this logo is a massive step in achieving that.