Web

The Three Whats!

We like to break things down into three simple 'whats'.  What is it? What does it do for me?  And what can Scruffy Dug do to help?  So . . .

What is a Web Site?

It may seem too obvious to ask what a web site is, but there are countless other aspects which you may not know. Technical jargon which may confuse you, or simply just puts a barrier between you and what you want.

A website can be anything from social sites like Facebook, video sites like YouTube, shopping sites like Amazon and Ebay or information sites like Wikipedia. This seems straight forward, and you may already have an idea for something like an online portfolio, your own web-store, or maybe the next big thing which no-one else has even considered yet.

You may find yourself wondering, what is a responsive website? What is hosting? What's a CMS?

Well to quickly answer those 3,

A Responsive Website is a website designed to show equally well on a mobile phone or tablet as it does on a Computer. Simply put, it responds to how you are viewing it, to make sure you get the best experience possible. Recent surveys say that around 87% of people use phones and tablets more often than computers to access the internet.  So getting your Responsive Website right from the start is absolutely vital.

Hosting is the process of renting some space on an internet server, once you've got a hosting account, you're given your own little space where your website can exist and everyone across the world can view it.

A CMS (Content Management System) is a simple way of controlling how your web site looks. In the early days of the web, you needed to edit text files full of arcane codes <br> and <p align=right> and other codes you needed to learn to get everything to show properly.  But now, with a CMS installed on your website, editing a page is simple, if you can post on Facebook, you can use a CMS.

What does a Web Site do for me?

The short list of websites mentioned above should give you some idea of the wide range of possibilities and benefits of an effective website. Basically, it's your shop front, a way of getting your ideas, products and designs out to the entire world.

What can Scruffy Dug do to help?

We want to make everything as simple as possible for you, so we use WordPress, an industry standard CMS, which provides a Responsive framework into which numerous plugins can be added. Plugins allow different types of content on your website, such as a photo gallery, shop, or social features.

We can help you through the first steps, we can design a look for your site, we can help configure your store to take payments and get your catalogue of products online.  We can help you use social media to attract new customers and build relationships with existing customers.

Behind the scenes, we'll set you up with a reliable hosting company, one that provides cPanel, a powerful system which allows you to manage your website and install other flexible web services like Joomla, phpBB and drupal - don't worry if that sounds like gobbledygook, that's what we're here for!

By utilising popular systems like WordPress and cPanel you don't need to worry about security risks out there on the web, these packages get updated free of charge by large teams of programmers around the world to deal with security threats, and that puts your data in some very safe hands indeed.

So what do I do next?

Just get in touch, our friendly team are ready and waiting to help you create your own unique space on the internet.