What makes a good website?

• Accessible design: Theres little point in having a site that people of all abilities cannot use.
• Clear and simple structure: You must make sure that your site is well thought out and easy to navigate.
• Attractive and imaginative: It must catch peoples' attention to keep them from looking to your competitors.
• Good search engine optimisation: You should focus on your potential clients and their needs and the task becomes much simpler.
• Helpful and informative content: You should aim to inform and befriend your visitors in order that they feel confident in your abilities.

Make sure that whoever you choose to build and host your website, can provide the above.

I prefer to build using a content management system. Quite simply, editing the content, layout or even design of your website is much simpler than re-building the entire site from the ground up. Pages can be added, deleted or moved with ease and by people with basic PC skill. You can manage your website from anywhere in the world and with multiple editors. Finally, one of the biggest advantages is the number of extras you can 'plug-in' to your website, so it can grow as your business does.

The CMS I use most frequently is Joomla. It is an Opensource CMS, which basically means it is available for everyone and improved by a collaborative effort from programmers, designers and users across the world.Lastly, its here to stay unlike privately built CMS's where the company which developed it can go bust or charge you an arbitrary sum to use their product.

Have a look at some of the recent websites built and hosted by FE solutions here.