Services

General

Web designer come in all shapes and sizes. To get all the services you need may involve contacting more than one person or company.

This is only a guide and is not intended to be a comprehensive list although we will expand on it over time and add links to appropriate sites.

This is a recommended list of things to look for and questions to ask when aproaching someone to do your web page:

	Vivid Inspiration Studios	Your designer
Does your designer meet web standards when 'coding' the pages? There are lots of browser programs on several different operating systems. If the designer does not write your web site code correctly then your visitors may not be able to view your web site.	Yes
Does your designer meet 'Accessibility' requirements? That is, can your web site be accessed by people with disabilities. Try looking at their sample sites with 'styles' and images turned off. Can you still read those pages? What if your web page was read out loud? Can you understand the content? Is there enough difference in colour? Will people with colour-blindness (over 15% of the population) be able to read your content easily?	Yes
Will your designer be able to 'code' the pages so later changes can be easily made?	Yes
Will your web designer be able to assist you in marketing your web site? It's more than just putting up a web site. You then have to integrate the site with your marketing plan and draw people to it. How are you going to implement that?	Yes
Can your designer complete the full project for you? The steps for creating a web site include: Registration of domain Creating host site Installing required software on host server Site design and testing	Yes
Does your designer check your site on different technologies? There are 3 main operating systems, over 12 different browsers and several versions of each browser. Each operating system/browser combination has its own quirks and what looks good in one may not appear at all in another. Does your designer check the majority of these browsers for readability?	Yes
Australian law requires a privacy policy. Can your designer help you draft a privacy policy?	Yes
Can your designer help train you in using the features of your web site?	Yes
Can your designer help integrate your web site into your business plan?	Yes
Will your designer check the security of your site?	Yes
Can your designer help track your return on investment?	Yes
Will your designer be able to give you access to tracking and statistical tools?	Yes
Can your designer help you plan for expansion and create a site that will grow with your business?	Yes
Can your designer help you keep your existing customers and grow a loyal customer base for referrals?	Yes
Will your designer work with you to ensure you will get a site that does what you need? There are literally hundreds of different existing packages for web sites. Will your designer take the time to match the right package to your business? Will your designer go through the different options that are available to you? Will your designer educate you on the extra features that are available and how you can benefit from them?	Yes
Will your designer ensure that your site will load within 25 seconds on a 56k modem? All those fancy graphics and animations may look good but history shows that most people will not wait more than 30 seconds for a page to load before they move on. More than 60% of current web users still use dialup which loads pages very slowly.	Yes
Will your designer help you register your site with search engines? A web site must be submitted to a search engine to get listed. The only other way for a search engine to find your site is if someone else creates a link to your site and the search engine knows about the other site. Either method takes time (up to 3 months for your site to be listed).	Yes
Can your designer assist with writing content that will be optimised for search engines? There are over 100 calculations to determine your rank. It has been determined that one of the major elements is the content.	Yes
Can your designer help you establish an online advertising program? There are dozens of programs available. Which one is best for your business? How much should you invest in the advertising?	Yes
Can your designer assist you in creating an identity? If you haven't already created a logo and chosen a colour scheme, will your designer be able to create a memorable and individual look? If you already have a logo, can your designer help successfully transfer it to the web?	Yes
Does your designer understand the Internet Best Practises standard and can they advise you how to meet your obligations as a web site owner?	Yes

August 2006

Newsletters

Welcome to the Inspirations Newsletter

In this issue

Introduction
Recent Work
Webpackage Site Update
New Webpackage plans
How to get free software legally
Making a great first impression

Introduction

Welcome to the new version of Inspirations, the monthly newsletter from Vivid Inspiration Studios.

Over the past couple of months we have been working on a new email marketing service, iNote, which will be used to distribute Inspirations to all of our clients and subscribers. iNote is a powerful tool that can be used to send emails to a large number of recipients, such as newsletters, marketing offers, special notices, news and updates. The service automatically manages the subscribing and unsubscribing of members and has the ability to track and report information, such as who opened the email, who clicked on links, and more. If you would like to learn more about iNote and how it can benefit your business, please contact Mark Cahill at Vivid Inspiration Studios on 1300 858 233.

As well as keeping you up to date with what is happening at Vivid Inspiration Studios, the new Inspirations newsletter will also include a couple of articles each month on a variety of topics, such as marketing, personal development, technology, and software that may benefit you and your business.

In this edition we will share a few tips on making a great first impression when meeting someone for the first time and show you how can save money on software for your home or business.

If you have any thing you would like to see or have included in Inspirations, or any ideas and information you would like to share, please send us your feedback to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

All the best

Staff @ Vivid Inspiration Studios

Recent Work

Over the past few months, the team at Vivid Inspiration Studios have been busy with a number of new clients with a range of projects and we would like welcome the following new clients.

Welcome to Dr Bryan Lee and his staff at Duncraig Dental Care. Vivid Inspiration Studios designed a website, with the Eziupdate content management system, to match their existing Corporate Identity/Branding and to allow Dr Lee and his staff to easily update and change the website themselves. Congratulations to Dr Lee for getting a high ranking in Google, Yahoo and MSN on certain keyword searches for the content they have written on their website.

Welcome to Ozzy, Harry, Karla and the staff at Morley Rollerdrome and the launch of their upgraded website. The new design was built around the EziUpdate content management system to enable the staff to easily update and manage the content of thier own site. Congratulations to Ozzy & Karla for a great idea to market their new website, resulting in over 450 visitors in the first month.

Welcome to Miranda Godfrey and the launch of her new online store Flair for Scrappn. Flair for Scrappn is an online scrapbooking and card making store, with hundreds of products at very competitive prices. Miranda wanted a high quality online store designed that would be easy to use and navigate, and to stand out from other online stores. Vivid Inspiration Studios designed a custom eCommerce solution to meet these goals and was happy to receive positive feedback from Miranda and her customers on achieving this.

The Webpackage site was upgraded and relaunched with two new package offerings making it even more affordable for small business owners to get their business online. Webpackage is the first example of the new EziUpdate package.

We would like to welcome Dr John Marriott and his staff at Riverton Forum Dental Centre with the recent launch of their new website, showcasing the new Webpackage Lite.

Webpackage Site Update

With the release of two new packages to the Webpackge range, Vivid Inspiration Studios upgraded the Webpackage website (www.webpackage.com.au) to showcase the new EziUpdate package design. The original design was a static website, based on the Webpackage Standard, which only could be modified and edited by the designers. Any major changes or alterations would take hours to implement. However, that has now changed. Read more

New Webpackage plans make it even more affordable for Small Businesses to get online.

Vivid Inspiration Studios has released a range of a packaged deals targeted towards small business and home based businesses under its Webpackage brand. These are a series of packages ranging from a single page website to full turnkey solution self managed website, with the goal of making it more affordable for the small business owner to get their business online. Read more

Open Source Software

Get free software, legally!

Why you should get it.

Open Source software is legally free to have and use. You can literally save thousands on software and not have to look over your shoulder every time you use it. Software developers who sell their programs are building more and more safeguards to identify illegally obtained software and punish those who are caught using it. Don’t risk it. The fines can bankrupt a business. Even a small home-based business can be a target.

What is it?

Making a great first impression.

4 D's for success

Why you should read this.

You only have one chance to make a first impression. Both parties are making assessments in the first three seconds of a first encounter. You have a total of 30 seconds to make that first impression a great one. Once an opinion is formed, it is very hard to change. When you are wanting to do business with that person then that 30 second window is crucial. You can gain or lose business based on only a few moments of interaction. That other person will also be telling others how you impressed them. Whether that impression was good or bad is entirely up to you.

How to do this...

Make it even more affordable for Small Businesses to get online

Get free software, legally!

Why you should get it.

Open Source software is legally free to have and use. You can literally save thousands of dollars on software and not have to look over your shoulder every time you use it. Software developers who sell their programs are building more and more safeguards to identify illegally obtained software and punish those who are caught using it. Don’t risk it. The fines can bankrupt a business. Even a small home-based business can be a target.