Award winning design…
Barleywine Graphics offers comprehensive web site creation services, including original graphics, e-commerce, and site maintenance.
We offer attractive and affordable custom-designed web sites tailored to your individual needs and budget. We’ve won several web design awards for our sites.
Whether you are wondering, “where do we start?” in creating a web site, or need to update an existing one, we can guide you step by step through any project, regardless of size.
But can I edit my pages myself?
Yes, yes, yes!
In the old days, websites were static – built with HTML that was either hand-coded or made with programs like Dreamweaver or FrontPage. Every page in a static website must be completely built and maintained by hand, making static websites difficult and expensive to maintain, requiring special software and FTP capabilities.
But with the advent of content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla, Gallery, and Zencart, it’s easy for you to edit your own pages from anywhere, using just your web browser – no knowledge of HTML needed! Another benefit is that the content of the site is completely separated from the look of the site through the use of template, allowing the entire design to be changed with the click of a button (or a few changes in a style sheet)! No more changing every page on a site just to make the headlines a different color, size or font, or even a completely different layout!
When you choose a CMS, we set up the site for you, installing the software and necessary components and customizing the look, then teach you to input and edit the text yourself. And there are hundreds of plug-ins available to give your site functionality for you and your visitors, from calendars, event registration, membership management, image galleries, user login, subscriptions, blogs, news feeds, forums, polls, business directories, and much more. Again, no technical knowledge is needed to use to these items in your website, just familiarization with how the components work. If you can use a browser (like Internet Explorer or Firefox), and have the skills to operate a program like Microsoft Word, you can maintain a website built on any of the systems we recommend.
At Barleywine Graphics we are staunch believers in the Open Source movement of software solutions. Open Source software is free of charge and does not include expensive or limiting licensing fees. (More info )
We’ll work with you to figure out which of the different systems are right for you – Do you need forums, membership lists, or event registration? Go with Joomla. Need a blog, or simple page page editing and not much more? WordPress. Need a dynamic image gallery that you can manage yourself? Gallery2. How about a full featured ecommerce shopping cart solution with complete order and customer management? ZenCart. Need a little of each, like simple page editing with an image gallery as well? We can bridge WordPress and Gallery together to create a seamless integration!
In addition, we’ll customize the template for you to match your business’s look and feel.
We can take anything – an existing site, Photoshop PSD, or just an idea–and convert it into a CMS or Blog template. We will even set up the pages for you or copy existing content if you wish. The site will look the same, but you’ll be able to edit content, add pages, and the hundreds of other things that content management systems allow you to do.
See the CMS Comparison for information.
Common Misconceptions
They’re hard to use
The hard part is setting up the software and the plugins. That’s what I’m here for! I’ll get you set up and ready to go, whichever system you decide to use. CMS’s are designed to be very easy to use by the end user. Many are similar to using Microsoft Word or other Word processor program. User Manuals are often also available. And support is only a phone call or email away.
They all look the same
In an effort to help folks “get online ASAP”, CMS’s usually come with prebuilt templates. However, any design can be built into a CMS as long as you have an experienced programmer (like me!) to set it up for you.
They are ugly
All CMSs produce HTML, and HTML can be styled to look exactly the way you want. If a website is ugly, the CMS is not to blame – rather the designer.
What We Do
* Choose the appropriate CMS for the site
* Design the website
* Build the design onto the CMS (called a template)
* Personalize the CMS with add-on modules
* Install the customized CMS on your hosting account
* Train you to use the CMS and update your website yourself
Attention to Detail
No matter whether you choose a CMS or a traditional static website, there are some guiding principles in web design that we adhere to:
Well-Organized Menu Navigation
We believe a website that can’t be easily navigated is useless! We’ll work with you to make sure your navigation menus are well organized and easy-to-follow. Your visitors will thank you for it!
Beautiful Graphics
Websites often use images or photographs as part of the general layout. You can provide your own images to us, or we can point you in the right direction so that you may choose stock images on your own, or if you prefer, we will make the choice based on our best discretion. It’s up to you.
Regardless of where the images come from, Barleywine Graphics will optimize them so that they are the right balance between fast loading and good looking.
The Little Things
We make sure that we follow the most current web standards in our sites, and we check our sites on multiple platforms in all the most popular browsers to make sure that your site looks the same with all browsers (no easy feat these days!). We use modern CSS techniques to create dynamic rollovers and menu systems, and make every effort to keep up with the ever changing standards.
Ok, it’s not really a little thing; but the one thing that sets us apart and has people coming back year after year is our customer service. It’s very important to us. Our goal is to give you a great website that makes you happy! If you ever need help, support is always just a phone call or email away!
Full Featured Hosting
We also offer full service Web Hosting with domain name registration, 5 gigs of storage space, email, MySql databases, and configured with the technical ability to use all the special server applications required by Joomla, WordPress, ZenCart, as well as many others. If you need more details, email us.
So, not only can we help you setup and configure your CMS Website but we can also host it. We truly offer a complete solution. Let us show you how we can save you time and money when you consolidate all your website needs with us.
Oh yeah, and it’s cheap, too!
Frequently Asked Questions
How much will it cost?
Pricing for a website should include: Design work, the creation of the site, the implementation and some follow up training or assistance with the site. From start to finish, pricing can vary based on the amount of involvement you need. For example, if you have training in html but don’t have the inclination for the graphics, we’ll handle the graphics and work with you on the content. Another variable is the number of revisions involved in customizing the template. The more hours we spend tweaking, the higher the final cost.
No matter what, every customer receives a written estimate of the cost before starting and each web site is priced separately according to your needs. A signed contract and deposit is required before actual work begins. To see suggested pricing guidelines, click here.
What is a Content Management System (CMS)?
Content management systems (CMS) allow a site owner to create and mange a website using a simple browser interface. For example, to maintain my CMS site I would open my web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape or Safari), go to a web address such as www.mysite.com/administrator and complete my changes.
Mambo, Joomla and Wordpress has attracted many users due to its ease of use and the capability of installing more advanced features such as different templates, user permissions and logins, document and image uploading and management, RSS feeds, printable versions of pages, news flashes, blogs, forums, polls, calendars, website searching, language internationalization, and other possibilities.
What is Open Source?
Open source is a set of principles and practices that promote access to the production and design process applied to the source code of software. This allows the software to be available to the general public with relaxed or non-existent intellectual property restrictions. For the website owner thinking about Content Management Systems, this means that the software which will be used to create and manage your site is free for your use and readily available. The cost you can plan on is 1) the customization (your look, your graphics, your logo, etc) and 2) the monthly hosting fee to the host of your choice. To read more about Open Source click here:
How do I know if a Content Management System is for me?
Barleywine Graphics will meet with you to will help you decide if you are a good candidate for Joomla, or a Wordpress site and what plugins and components you will need.
Most of the decision to go with a CMS or not, will depend on the amount of involvement you want with keeping the site up-to-date and also with maintenance costs. If you only want a tiny informational site that won’t be frequently updated, then perhaps an old-fashioned static html site is right for you. But if you have a rapidly changing business that requires more frequent updates, we strongly encourage using some form of CMS.
What is the difference between Joomla, Gallery, Wordpress, and ZenCart?
There are many differences similarities between these platforms, namely the ease of use for the client, the use of templates and css for ease of design changes, and the incredible number of plugins that add to the functionality of the site.
Here’s a quick rundown:
- Joomla is more suited to a very large website with specialized requirements such as event registration, business directories, forums, membership management, etc. It can handle an enormous, complex site, and has literally hundreds of components and plugins for added functionality.
- WordPress is geared toward smaller sites and personal blogs, but is well-suited to regular CMS with its ability to manage large numbers of basic pages. There are a huge number of plugins available for WordPress as well. Even if you have a lot of pages, it may be perfect for conversion to WordPress, if only for ease of editing.
- Gallery2 is an image gallery that is perfect for artists who want to showcase their work in an easy-to-use format. Where in the past, you needed to mail a cd-rom to your web developer and wait for them to edit the images to add to your website, now YOU can upload them, add captions and descriptions, all yourself, with no knowledge of HTML. You can add images to existing albums or to new ones you create, and you can change your mind and move them – or delete them. It’s an amazingly empowering leap of technology!And get this – are you an organization who needs your membership to be able to create and upload their own images to just their own albums? No problem, that’s a BUILT-IN feature!
- And finally,do you need a full featured shopping cart with customer, order and full product management? ZenCart is the way to go. And if you feel you need a combination of the above, give us a call, we can customize a solution just for you.
See how we can offer affordable web solutions to small and medium size businesses!
Give us a call at 802.263.9556 today!
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