Bespoke websites to meet your needs and budget
Contact Matthew Morling on 01473 345321 or email him at matthew.morling@communityactionsuffolk.org.uk
Our bespoke websites are visually stunning websites which are designed using our in-house design skills but built in exactly the way you want it. You get to choose exactly what you want to fit your needs and budget.
If complete freedom over how you want your website to look and behave then this is the best option for you.
Why Choose This Option
- Complete freedom over the look and feel of your site
- You will be heavily involved in the process all the way through
- Totally customisable
- Totally Flexible
- We will do all the leg work for you including inputting content
Website Design Process
IT Services at CAS follows a flexible but set process to ensure your website gets the very best treatment. The process is feedback driven and we ensure that our lines of communication are always open for you.
Phase 1 – Initial discussions and questionnaire – We speak with you to discuss your initial requirements and once an order is placed we will require you to complete a short questionnaire where we can find out more detailed information about your exact requirements.
Phase 2 – Design and Proof – We work on your initial design idea and the output of this phase is a “static” proof of how we see your site looking based on our initial discussions. From here you feedback on what you like and what you don’t and then we continue to amend until you are happy with the end result. This phase sets the design template for the whole site so is critical to get right.
Phase 3 – Main Build – We work to build a fully functional version of your website. The output of this phase is a fully functional test version of your site, where you get a chance to feedback further on what you like and what you don’t like and to find and resolve any bugs that are found
Phase 4 – Final Testing, Go Live & Training – We will perform final testing on all the working parts of the site and then work with you to set a live date and time for the new website. We may need to liaise with your current website hosting company to make this possible. Following the site going live, we will provide you with all the relevant access codes and training material and then organise a remote demonstration with you, if required.
Content Management System
IT Services at CAS Online uses the world famous WordPress CMS for its content management systems (CMS). WordPress CMS is the most commonly used system in the world and has a variety of plugins and support functions available to ensure your website is the most supported and flexible website out there.
WordPress provides a balance between ease of use for the end user whilst being able to be customizable and updateable to allow for whatever functionality, you the customer require.
IT Services at CAS is able to tailor a solution to whatever your needs are. As far as the CMS goes IT Services at CAS likes to restrict access to simply add, edit or delete content or pages. We prefer not to allow the ability for staff or authorised people to change style sheets and the general look of the site. This ensures that your site retains the professional look that it was built to look like.
IT Services at CAS uses the world famous WordPress CMS for its content management systems (CMS). WordPress CMS is the most commonly used system in the world and has a variety of plugins and support functions available to ensure your website is the most supported and flexible website out there.
Below are 8 very good reasons why WordPress is the most used web CMS in the marketplace.
Ease of Use
WordPress is very easy to use and has an intuitive interface. Adding new pages, blog posts, images, etc. on a regular basis is a breeze and can be done quickly. Because the technology is so simple, time spent on formatting is greatly reduced.
Manage Your Website from Any Computer
WordPress is browser-based. You can login from any Internet connected computer and manage your site.
No HTML Editing or FTP Software Required
WordPress is a self-contained system and does not require HTML editing software (such as Adobe Contribute or Dreamweaver). You can create a new page or blog post, format text, upload images (and edit them), upload documents, video files, image galleries, etc. all without the need for additional HTML or FTP software.
Search Engines Love WordPress Sites
The code behind WordPress is very clean and simple, making it easy for search engines to read and index a site’s content. In addition, each page, post, and image can have its own meta tag keywords, description, and title, and be optimized for specific keywords, allowing for very precise search engine optimization. You can also use tags to further enhance your search engine optimization efforts.
A Blog is Built-in and Ready to Go
Since WordPress was originally created as a blogging platform, blogging capabilities are built-in and are easy to integrate, if desired. Setting up RSS / email subscriptions to your blog, commenting capabilities, and automatically adding the most recent blog posts to other pages of the site (your home page, for example) are also very simple to set-up, and help to extend your company’s reach and make your site more dynamic and interactive.
Extend the Functionality of Your Site with Plugins
Want to add an event calendar, video gallery, Twitter Feed, Facebook Fan Box, and more to your site? WordPress makes this possible with plugins, most of which are free or very reasonably priced.
Your Site Can Grow as Your Business Grows
WordPress sites are very scalable. You can have hundreds of thousands of pages or blog posts on your site and the performance of the site will not be compromised in the least.
Have Multiple Users
As an administrator of a WordPress site, you can set-up multiple users for the website and assign access levels and capabilities to each user.
Technically the system runs on a Linux system using Ubuntu. The web server uses Apache software and all of the content is stored in a secure, daily backed up SQL database using the PHP 5 programming language.
Mobile Friendly
As standard with all our websites you will get an accessible and mobile friendly version of your website. This means that your website will be optimised for Apple and Android mobile and tablet devices. This ensures your website has the maximum reach possible.
Browser Compatibility
All of our websites are written to be supported by the following web browsers. Older browsers can be supported on request.
Internet Explorer 7, 8 & 9
Mozilla Firefox
Opera
Google Chrome
Apple Safari
All of our websites will also be supported on the following types of devices.
Desktop PC’s
Laptops
Tablets running Apple OS or Android
Mobile Devices running Apple OS or Android
Apple Mac
Accessibility
With any website design process, it is critical and actually a legal requirement (since the adoption of the Disability Discrimination Act Part 3) that you make your new website accessible to all potential users, including those who may have disabilities. What’s the point in having a website that may not be able to be viewed by a section of society!
At IT Services at CAS we follow our own rigorous accessibility processes and insure that all our sites have the following accessible features.
- All pages are designed in a way that screen readers can follow the text
- We provide a text only version of the website
- Easy to use facilities to increase the size of the text within the website
With any site built by IT Services at CAS you can be assured that as a minimum we meet all level 1 W3C guidelines and we aim to meet as many level 2 W3C guidelines as is possible.
Social Media
What is Social Media?
Social media is the generic term for media tools such as Blogs, Wiki’s, RSS Feeds and sites such as Facebook and Twitter.
What is a Blog?
A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in the form of a public diary and displayed in a reverse chronological order. Blogs often provide commentary or news on a wide ranging amount of subjects.
A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.
What is a Wiki?
A wiki is a website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content, and typically without the need for registration. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to certain specific wiki sites, such as Wikipedia, a popular online Encyclopaedia where the visitors maintain and update its content.
What is an RSS feed?
RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.
RSS makes surfing your favourite sites for news and updates much easier as it draws this information as a ‘feed’ (often depicted by an icon similar to the one shown here) and, as it is automatically updated, it delivers it to your PC.
For example, a news feed containing summaries of news and links to the full article will automatically update as new headlines and articles are added.
What can it do for me?
Social media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, RSS feeds etc have the potential to generate much needed income for your organisation through the easy disementation of information to your client base. IT Services at CAS can integrate these tools within your existing or new website and can give you the expert advice on how best to use these tools, if at all.
E-Commerce
The time to start putting your business online has never been better. More and more people are buying online so harness the power of the Internet and open up your products and services to the rest of the world, all day, every day with an E-commerce system for your website.
An E-commerce system is just like a high street store, except your website is the store.
The benefits of an e-commerce system far outweigh the cost. With low overheads and little administration you will soon be bringing the money in!
As with any website design or high street shop, design of your e-commerce system is critical. Here at IT Services at CAS we ensure that your e-commerce system is well built, easy to navigate and easily maintained by provision of a simple to use user interface where you can add, edit, delete products, change prices and do so much more.
Analytics
We use the web’s most powerful analytics tool – Google Analytics. Gathering statistics such as website hits, time spent on your site, your visitors device type and much more, we can deliver these reports to you on a regular basis or we can give you full access so you can see stats real time.
Backup
All IT Services at CAS hosted sites are hosted on secure systems that are backed up on a nightly basis. Should a “disaster scenario” occur then for free of charge you can rest assured that our systems are flexible enough to cope with this and restore your website back to working order.
What is the cost?
All bespoke websites are priced up based on the discussions we have around your requirements. To get a no obligation FREE quote then please contact us using the contact details below.
How Do I Signup?
Contact Matthew Morling on 01473 345321 or email him at matthew.morling@communityactionsuffolk.org.uk to discuss your needs