What do you get in a CiK website?

All Computers-in-Kent websites come with a wealth of features. You can decide which to use from the start and which to use later. My sites have all the functionality of websites costing many thousands of pounds and are outstanding value for money to get a serious small business up and running on the web. Unlike the cheap websites sold by many "web developers" CiK web sites are a serious asset that belongs to your company and will not need replacing as you become disatisfied with the lack of features in these cheap websites. A CiK website has all the features you ever need and more facilities are added as online technology changes. Any additional features added to the product are available to you free of charge.

Below is a summary of the most commonly used facilities. If you need something additional just ask me. I almost certainly have it!

Adding and Amending Pages.
You can add as many pages as you like to a Computers-in-Kent website. Initially your website will include all the pages you need. The critical issue here is content – providing you have it, it can be loaded somehow! If you buy a website from me I will get all your current content onto it within the initial setup price. (within reason!). You can structure your website as a collection of separate pages or you may choose to order it like a book with top-level pages featuring on the main menu which then lead to an unlimited number of nested pages. You can manage these levels easily and move things around if you change your mind. To add a new page, you simply type in the text using the built-in word processor. So, if you can use Microsoft Word or similar you have nothing to fear and will find it simple to maintain your website. To add new pages you may prefer to do them in Microsoft Word and then simply cut and past the text onto the website and then make a few formatting changes as needed. It is as easy as that! Your pages can also include images and other media.

Existing pages can be editing by viewing them and then clicking the “Edit” button you then see the page in the word-processor and can change it painlessly and quickly. If you want to remove something from the website you have the choice of deleting it or unpublishing it. You can delete things you never want to show again. Things you may wish to use again later, for example, a seasonal event you can simply unpublish then re-publish the following year with a few amendments for dates etc.

Page Design and Layout.
It is possible to uniquely design the layout of pages. You can do this for every page if you wish, but more likely you will use different layouts for different sections of your website. For example, e-commerce shopping pages will have a specific layout. I very often use a different layout for the websites home page so that it reflects new content added throughout the website. For an example see www.computers-in-kent.co.uk. In addition, it sometimes helps to have a different home page that displays on very narrow screens like mobile phones. For example: www.computers-in-kent.co.uk/m-kent-computer-repairs.

Responsive Design.
All Computers in Kent websites are written to respond to the layout of the device on which they are shown. This means the reader will get the best experience tailored for the device they are using. My websites will alter the display of content for computer tablets and smartphones. The display will also change if the tablet or smartphone is used in landscape or portrait format. This ensures that all your information is always shown and is always accessible. Non-responsive sites are penalised by search engines which now take account of the device they are sending the webpage to.

Advanced Search.
All Computers in Kent websites are fully searchable. Indexing of pages takes place on a schedule you control. In most cases new pages are indexed within the hour and the sitemap re-prepared for submission to Google and Bing. You also control if any words are to be included or excluded. By default, words less than four letters are not indexed.
Computers in Kent websites also allow you to make use of a content tagging system. This allows you to add key words to any piece of content. These keywords can be used by readers searching for similar items. For example, if you are running a clothing website and your products are categorised into “T-Shirts, skirts, coats, and accessories” and you had a red T-shirt for sale you could tag the product with the word “red”. If someone clicked this tag they would see a list of all the products that have the tag “red”. On this website this would provide an easy way for the customers to find similar coloured products

Media Manager.
The media manager allows you to upload images to your website pages directly from your computer. The media manager also keeps track of all images used so that if you want the same image on another page you do not need to upload it again you can just search for it in your website library and use it again. This means you do not waste your web space on duplicate files. The media manager also allows you to upload video, sound files, text documents, pdf files and any other type of file. You can check to see where files are used and remove ones you no longer need.

Gallery.

This feature enables images to be categorised and displayed. You can add titles and descriptions to the images and have control over whether people can download them. See here for an example of a live gallery: www.topetrino.co.uk/gallery

Newsletters.
Your Computers in Kent website can contain any number of newsletters. Newsletters allow readers to give you their email address and then you can send the newsletter to them whenever it is produced. The newsletter will also be available for viewing on the website. The newsletter list management tools enable you to manage lists of subscribers and to comply with legislation and guidance requiring you to give people the opportunity to opt-in and opt-out of your emails. All the facilities you need to do this professionally and easily are included.

Blogs.
Should you choose to allow readers to submit their own content for comment you can do so. Most business websites will not use this feature. If you do want to use it then you can control the permission you give to individuals to ensure that only trusted people can add material without your approval. You will still have full control over all content and can delete, unpublish or amend anything submitted.  

Forums.
These allow you to categorise blogs. If you are running a craft website you might have a forum on 'oil painting' and a forum on 'embroidery' for example.  

Enquiry Processing.
Every enquiry made through a Computers in Kent website is stored on the database. This allows you to annotate the enquiry with your notes. You can remove enquiries that are fully dealt with and are no longer required. This mechanism provides a useful website enquiry system that helps you ensure that nothing is missed. On one of my websites this feature is used in conjunction with the events facility to provide an accommodation booking log.

Event Manager.

Events can be added to the system in the same way as other content. The headline of the event can be made to appear on the home page. Events can be one-off or recurring and can be set to have a duration.

Search Engine Optimisation, Meta Data, URL Path Generation and Social Media.
Many SEO features are included in the software and these will be set up for you when you start. I can show you what needs to be done to get your site to the top of the search engines (click for more information). You can then choose to include this as a regular part of your business admin or ask me to do it on your behalf. (reasonable fee applicable)

Every piece of content can have individual meta data added to it. Some general site-wide meta data will have been set up for you that will be applied if you do not add individual page meta data. The URL path is the address of the website you see at the top of your web browser. The wording in this is an important part of being found by search engines. You do not want to keep changing your pages as you experiment with your web marketing strategy as it would be very time consuming. On a Computers in Kent website you can set up path names that will link into your marketing plan at any time. As an example, if you type in www.computers-in-kent.co.uk/your-own-website you will see the url change to include the geographic area of the towns currently being marketed. This is independent of the actual page name that is simply “your-own-website”.

If you have a Twitter account then you can control which items of content are posted onto your twitter feed. By default, the titles of all pages will be posted.

If you have your own webmaster accounts then you can send the sitemaps directly to Bing and Google so that you can monitor your own Google analytics data and Bing data. If you do not have your own accounts the details will be sent to the Computers-in-Kent Google and Bing webmaster accounts and I will monitor the data and messages for you.

Social Media Marketing.

Links to your social media accounts are included as standard. This includes: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Linkedin, Pinterest, Vimeo, YouTube and Youtube (Channel).

RSS Feeds.
If your website belongs to a trade or industry for which there are existing newsfeeds then you may choose to include these on your website. For example, a financial adviser can include a feed showing daily mortgage rates. You can also collate your own website information to let others import some of your website content onto their websites.

SSL Website Security.
It is very important for websites selling products and services or any website that collects personal information to be secure. To be secure your website must be trusted and data sent to and from the website must be encrypted when necessary. To do this yourself means obtaining an SSL certificate and getting it installed on the computer delivering your website. Every Computers in Kent website has this included as standard and you will see when you log into your sites as an administrator or when customers buy products that the URL changes to start with "https://" and that a green padlock appears showing that your website is trusted. This is vital if your are to gain and maintain your customers confidence.

Statistics.
Your website can record statistics for people accessing your website. This can monitor page views and searches and any events that happen on the website. Links between your website and the search engines also allow for much more in-depth analysis. The results of this statistics gathering is available in the following reports.

Reports.
Within the Computers in Kent website the following reports are included as standard.

• Status report - get a status report about your site's operation and any detected problems.
• Recent hits - view pages that have recently been visited.
• Top 'access denied' errors - view 'access denied' errors (403s).
• Top 'page not found' errors - view 'page not found' errors (404s).
• Top referrers - view top referrers.
• Top search phrases - view most popular search phrases.
• Top pages - view pages that have been hit frequently.
• Top visitors - view visitors that hit many pages.

In addition, your google analytics data will show you many things about your website demographics. This can used to see:

• How many pages have been served up.
• How your pages where found.
• Search terms that found your pages.
• Where your visitors are located.
• What devices (PC, Tablets or Smartphones) where used to access your site.
• and much more. See www.google.com/analytics for details.

Adding e-Commerce - Selling Online.

The e-commerce system allows you operate a full shop online.
The following features apply to this module together with full reporting of orders and customers.

• Different types of product types are available.
  
  • Single shippable products with product description, title, and price
  • Product kits which allow products to be grouped into sets and optionally sold with a discount.
  • Downloadable products. For example. Music, videos, software, documents knitting patterns etc.
• An unlimited number of product attributes may be defined. These can be general for example colour, height, width length weight. Other attributes can be assigned to a single product type. e.g.) computers may have disk size, memory capacity, processor type.
• The product catalogue can have any number of levels and any number of nested categories. e.g.) Clothes > Men > Outdoor > Summer
• A product can be in more than one category
• Any number of delivery bands can be set up and assigned using rules.  e.g. “Free delivery” if spending over an amount
• Products can include their own specific delivery charges.
• Product stock levels can be monitored
• Products can be given tags. This allows off the cuff searches to be made depending on the customers interest. e.g.) if a ‘red blouse’ is being viewed the customer may search for all other “red” items.
• Discount coupons can be created. These can be money off or %off and apply to a specific customer, product or range of products. All coupons can be time restricted.
• There is a management section containing all “contact” emails sent via the website, together with their status/notes.
• Order management allows you to see all orders and their status.
• A variety of delivery charges can be set up allowing general ranges and product specific charges.
• Customer management allows you to see all your customers and their contact details
• All product images uploaded are held in an Image management system allowing you control over what has been used and to maintain the images alt tags, titles and descriptions.