Website Design El Dorado Hills

Web Design

Custom Website Design in El Dorado Hills, Folsom, Granite Bay, Cameron Park and Beyond

There are many different styles of website design and each style or platform serves its purpose. From custom coded website design with PHP, HTML and CSS to theme-based website designs developed with a CMS (Content Management System), the options for something unique are endless.

Currently, responsive website design (mobile-friendly), along with Optimized Mobile Pages are the go-to technologies for any business and there are many different reasons why. Depending on your current situation and what you are looking for in a web developer or website design company, you’ll most likely be looking for a responsive website.

Depending on your current platform (CMS) and what your business goals are, Front Street Media is here to develop your dream web presence. We are a local team of developers that code websites on WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, and many other platforms. Depending on your business goals, one of these platforms will be the right choice for you.

With Front Street Media, you will get a FREE website design evaluation that’ll provide you with a Scope of Work (SOW) on exactly where you can enhance your website.

Front Street Media – Website Design in El Dorado Hills

At Front Street Media, we are familiar with every aspect of website design, so rest assured, if you are looking for something custom, simple or complex, we can handle your project. We also offer web design training, coaching and consulting in El Dorado Hills, so if you are looking for a little help or solid advice for your website, we can help.

We are located in El Dorado Hills, CA and service Folsom, Cameron Park, Granite Bay and the foothills of Sacramento for Custom Website Design, Responsive Website Design, Small – Large Business Website Design and even eCommerce website design. Below are the top types of website designs that you will see in the web design industry when asking a developer what style or CMS they develop in or on.

Some of these categories will have some overlap. For example; an eCommerce website design can be a custom website design, responsive website design, theme-based website design and on an open-source platform.

Different Types of Website Design

  • Top 5 types of website designs and development environments.

1. PHP/ HTML/ CSS – Website Design

“Hand-Coded” websites from the ground up are virtually a thing of the past. These types of websites are taken from nothing and developed into a completely custom website. Typically all aspects of hand-coding a website design can be either purchased from another developer or are offered for free in an open-source environment. If however, you are working with a web design company that has proprietary software, they will nickel and dime you for everything.

With proprietary software, these companies have full-time web developers and programmers on-hand and they are not cheap. We know this first-hand because we started with proprietary software from 2006-2014. Personally, we would recommend staying away from developers that use proprietary software as it can get extremely expensive and takes far too long.

Unless of course, your website needs to have 100% unique code on the backend, then of course we understand.

2. Custom Website Design

Truly custom website design can be achieved in many different content management systems given the right tools and environments. If your developer knows how to tweak PHP, edit HTML and create CSS, then you can have a website designer create you something completely custom in a very short amount of time.

This custom website design is achieved by purchasing a theme or template on an open-source CMS and tweaking different aspects of the theme to represent what the end-user is looking for. Like we mentioned before, this is very simple if your developer understands PHP, HTML, and CSS.

Whether you are looking for 5- to 10-page custom website design or a custom eCommerce website design, Front Street Media in El Dorado Hills can design, develop and deploy your website in no time.

3. Theme Based Website Design

Theme based website options are one of the most popular environments in the development world. There are virtually hundreds of thousands of themes/ templates available for an end-user who can have it completely customized given the right web development company.

Themes come in all shapes and sizes. Some of the main aspects of what makes themes so custom is the ability to change color, layout, functionality, font size, patterns, background colors, shopping cart layouts, blog roll layouts, page layouts and more.

Again, you want a web designer that knows and understands PHP, HTML, CSS and a strong knowledge of @media viewports and responsive layouts. With a drag and drop mentality, today’s web designers can supply the most complex websites in a matter of weeks instead of months.

4. eCommerce Website Design

eCommerce website development is something most web developers don’t touch because they take so much time, effort and energy. If you are looking to develop an eCommerce website for your current website or idea, look towards theme-based options as this will save you a huge amount of money and give you the most flexibility in the long run.

eCommerce websites don’t come packed with SEO (Search Engine Optimization), so it is important to choose a company that has a strong knowledge of Inbound Marketing and Content Creation. If a web developer is building you an eCommerce store and does not roll a hard SEO campaign into it, you are missing out.

Having SEO in an eCommerce store is like having a display case in a retail environment, pretty much mandatory. If you are looking towards social media alone for your marketing efforts for an eCommerce website design, good luck. Good eCommerce SEO campaigns have all factors of marketing and the execution needs to be near perfect for your company to succeed. Everything needs to be implemented; strong SEO foundation, on-page SEO, off-page SEO, eMail Marketing, Social Media, brand mentions, brand engagements and much more.

5. (RWD) Responsive Website Design

In 2008-2010, RWD quickly became the “go-to” style of web design, responsive website design technology is a website with an optimal viewing and interaction experience. Responsive websites are easier to read and navigate through with a minimum of resizing, panning, and scrolling, across a wide range of devices.

Responsive web design is for all markets and all industries as practically everyone has a smartphone, internet device, tablet or small laptop. Responsive websites adapt to the devices according to their size and layout.

Making the move to start a responsive website out of the gates is very important. If you do not have a responsive website, you should make the switch now, as there are many benefits to having a responsive design.

6. (AMP) Accelerated Mobile Pages Website Design

Accelerated Mobile Pages or “AMP” for short, is a stripped-down version of web pages that are built to load lightning fast on mobile browsers. Google originated the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Project and is completely open-source.

The open-source platform allows theme developers and plugin developers the ability to build, design and deploy new features to open source CMS (Content Management Systems) which allow us, web designers to give your website a better user experience.

The initiative embodies the vision; publish once and have it load instantly everywhere. Front Street Media has a strong understanding of AMP and customed designed AMP pages to allow your customers to have a lightning-fast experience which results in overall satisfaction and more engagements.

Most of the clients we see that utilize AMP are publishers, magazines, local news websites, event websites, directory websites, and many others. If you have any questions about integrating this technology into your website, feel free to give us a call anytime.

Different Types of Content Management Systems (CMS)

  • Top 2 Types of Content Management Systems:

These are the guys that run your website. Updates, New Blog Posts, change pictures, adding company bio’s, etc.

1. Open Source CMS (Content Management System) Platform

Open Source Content Management Systems are the most widely used because they are open source which means free. There are many different types of open source CMS’s out there including, WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, Magento, Hubspot, Blogger, Weebly, Wix, and even GoDaddy has their own CMS.

Content management systems are the backbone of your website and they control everything. A Content Management System allows you to make updates, changes, and additions to your website without having to access your website through HTML, PHP, and CSS files. Open Source CMS’s are great for all types of businesses because they offer so many options for updates, changes, upgrades, and improvements.

With a web development company that offers an open-source CMS, you will likely save time and money through the life of your business and marketing campaign because most of what you need has already been developed.

2. Proprietary CMS (Content Management System) Platform

Proprietary Content Management Systems are built and designed in-house and take many years to mature. Proprietary software and software development Content Management Systems are very costly because anything that you need created or added to your website down the road, you will pay for. If you are having your website hosted with proprietary software and you are looking to add a certain technology, that Proprietary Content Management System owner or company will have to hand-code it and build it from scratch which will cost you a ton of money.

The benefit for the Proprietary Content Management System Company owner is that they now have this feature in their CMS and get to charge for it, time and time again. I have had a personal experience with Proprietary Content Management Systems and in my opinion, they lack the freedom and flexibility that open source CMS’s offer. Proprietary Content Management Systems have more glitches and are buggy at times which is no good for your website.

When looking into a Content Management System, we recommend an open-source environment as they are more stable and flexible. Open Source Content Management Systems also offer upgrades and features that someone on an in-house or proprietary software will never offer.