Singapore Web Design Company Blog

If you have subscribed to our hosting solution and plan to design your own web pages, we provide some guidelines for you to publish your files.

Firstly, you need a web publishing software like dreamweaver/Ms frontpage. After installation and design of your pages, you need to configure the FTP connection. This is required so that you can connect your local computer with the server. The ftp information is normally sent to you when you first subscribed to the hosting plan.

Once you are able to set up the ftp connection, you will be able to see the files and folders at the server. You need to upload all your files to the /www/ or /public/ folder so that the public can view your web pages. By default, there will be a page called index.html stored at the server. You need to overwrite this page by creating your own index.html file.

That’s it, now you can view your pages in Firefox or IE.
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Then you may ask, what about images…. Well, image files need to be uploaded to the server as well. You also need to specify a path to find the images from the html documents.

Hope this helps.

It appears that some of my clients have serious problems with site content. When this happens, some of them ask professional copywriters to write/validate their content, but most will produce the content by themselves. Of course, there are a handful who will ask us to assist.

Having a professional copywriter to assist you will ensure that the content is grammatically correct, and there are no spelling mistakes. Big companies are more likely to engage one. If your business is a new startup, we strongly advise that you write on your own. We can help to validate your content and save the cost of getting professional help. Professionalism comes with a heavy price.

While we can help to write for your entire site, I still suggest that you write everything. Nobody will understand your business better than yourself. Sometimes, we even have clients asking us to provide an entire consultation on how to start their business. But our business nature is “business support”, we are not likely to be able to help you start/manage your entire business.

So you may ask, how to write good quality content? As professionals in web services, we provide a few guidelines here:

• Important content should be presented first
  In the virtual world, sites are fighting for eyeballs. IMPORTANT information about your products/services/company should be presented earlier. It should not be buried 3 links down from the homepage.
• Write for your targeted customer, not everybody else
  There are many online portals catering to different group of visitors. Your content should be catered to your customers, not everybody.
• Write in point form, with proper headings
  Online visitors DO NOT scrutinize every single word in your site. Most will browse through your content. Visitors come to your site with 2 purpose.
  • Looking for useful information
  • Just want to be entertained
• Organized information will be highly appreciated
  In the information age, we have a problem of “Too much information”. Take a look at some web sites and you will know what I mean. Your pages should not be too cluttered with information. Highly organized information help your visitors to understand what you want to say. To generate successful sales, it is utmost important that you “Motivate your readers to read what you want to say”

Above are just some simple guidelines. There are many tutorials online to guide you on generating content and effective writing on the web. We hope this blog is useful for you. To understand more about our web services, you may want to navigate back to the main page.

Almost every month, we hear stories from clients claiming how their previous designers have “cheated their hard earned dollars”. Some of them paid up to $1000 for a web site designed but not fully functional.

We provide you a small checklist here so that you know better what to look for:

• First, we urge you to check your designer’s background before any commitment. If your designer operate as a freelancer, he/she may be able to handle a 50 pages web site well. If your web site is over 100 pages and you need to meet deadlines, we suggest that you outsource the project to reputable web design companies. Or at least make sure that the freelance designer has someone to work with him.
• Normally, you see what you get. NEVER commit before asking for your designer’s portfolio. We believe it makes sense that experienced designers can produce good quality work and beat the deadline too. If your designer is not able to let you see any of his past projects, then we suggest that you ask for some trial period or pages.
• Ask your designer to prepare for proper quotation and web design contract agreement. Words and promises are empty. Without proper agreement written down black and white, there is no trust between both parties. A major issue you need to address is: “Who will own the design work, logo, and graphics of the site after the project is completed”. Normally, clients have the right to claim all the design work done by the designer. But again, its safer to put this in paper.

For web applications, you may want to check the programmer’s profile. Of course, we are not asking you to look at 100 pages of source code and analyze the programmer’s abilities. Again, you can ask for sites which has been programmed by him/her. Are those sites popular with high traffic? Or, are those authority/important sites These are only some of the pointers.

For me, I am a trained programmer from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). Programming becomes part of my life now, writing too =). Currently, I have a full time and a freelance designer to help me. With our resources and experience, we are definitely able to handle any large scale projects. Of course, you are always welcomed to ask for our portfolio or even clients’ testimonials.