What Do We Offer?
To assist businesses with their web application needs, we can
- Comprehensively analyze their needs vis-à-vis their strategy,
- Professionally design graphics, animation, layout, and applications for ease of use,
- Build and customize applications using tools appropriate to the needs of the businesses,
- Set-up the site and application on hosting servers, or on in-house servers of business, and
- Provide search engine optimization (SEO) services to increase website's visibility in search results of major search engines.
Web Applications
 Prior to the advent of the World Wide Web (Web or WWW), information systems (IS) applications were expensive to build. Each firm had a unique set of customized applications designed by in-house IS staff. These applications resided on larger mainframe and/or midrange computer systems that were cumbersome to use without some amount of training. Further, applications designed for one platform (IBM's mainframe systems, for example), had to be modified extensively to run on another computer manufacturer's platform (Sun Microsystems, for example). To further complicate matters, applications designed for one platform (IBM's mainframe, for example) had to be modified extensively to run on another platform made by the same manufacturer (IBM's midrange, for example)!
Applications development eventually transitioned through several intermediate stages and has evolved to relying on the basic Web and Internet technologies that most people are familiar with. Contemporary applications are built around using, as an integral component, the omnipresent WWW browser (Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla Foundation's Firefox are examples). The advantage is that these applications, if based on appropriate usability factors and sound information architecture in mind, require virtually no training to use. Further, applications are now compatible across platforms and across computer system manufacturers, thus reducing complexity that was inherent in traditional application development environments. Finally, web applications are very graphical in nature, thereby enhancing the user experience.
Mainframes and midrange systems are by no means extinct. They have become integral components in the Web infrastructure, allowing large companies to process millions of customer, credit card, and other business transactions during a typical business day.
Small and medium businesses have much to gain from the evolution of applications to the Web. Whereas applications traditionally required major investments in technology, contemporary applications require processing power that is more than adequately available in current PCs. Where additional storage and processing power are needed, Microsoft Windows Server-based server systems can be purchased at relatively reasonable prices that facilitate the hosting of Web, E-mail, and other applications. In case businesses do not wish to take-on the management and maintenance of server systems, a large number of hosting providers have developed reliable and secure infrastructure that businesses can use to house their applications inexpensively. Either way, businesses can take advantage of the potential that the Web offers in marketing and/or selling their products and services online without having to make huge investments on procuring and maintaining information technologies.
The Design of Websites and Applications
 Websites have become important marketing tools for businesses. A website is especially important for a smaller business because it can help a business market itself, and provide products and services in a wider geographic area. From a basic informational website to a fully comprehensive e-commerce site, NEOITS offers the required expertise needed to cater to a company's specific needs. Several factors have to be considered, though, in creating and deploying web applications:
- Attractiveness and design,
- Ease of use and navigation, and
- Visibility on the Internet.
Attractiveness and Design
A company's website is oftentimes the first exposure a potential customer has to that company. Therefore, it is imperative that a website reflect the professional nature of a business. A professional-looking website catches peoples' eyes and invites them to stay and browse. The more they stay and browse, the more likely they are to become customers. An attractive website allows a business to differentiate itself from others who may not have a professional-looking one.
Ease of Use and Navigation
A website and related applications should be easy to use and navigate. People should never be "lost" in a maze of pages. If they do happen to get to a page they did not intend to, the website should make it easy for them to "find their way out." Information about products and services should be easy to find with as few clicks as possible. Research has shown that if it takes too long to find the needed information, people will leave the website. They might then find the information more easily at competitors' website! Remember, on the Internet, competitors are just a mouse-click away.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
 A website should be easy to find from among hundreds or thousands of others on the Internet. If people are not familiar with businesses that offer a particular type of product or service, they will generally begin their search on a "search engine" website (Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others). Obviously, if a business is not among the search results, no one will know about the company and the products and services it offers. Even if the listing does appear in the search results, people are more likely to visit a website if its listing appears on or near the top of search results. Technically, several options are available to have a listing appear on or near the top of search results. We can configure a website to take advantage of technologies available to increase a company's visibility in search results.
Of course, a website that appears near the top of search listings but that has very little to offer once people get there is of little or no use! SEO should never be the goal for businesses to achieve. SEO should be about business strategy, not about a website being ranked at the top of search listings. For the long run, having the right mix of products and services, appropriate website content, appropriate information architecture, all based on sound business practices as underpinnings, should be the goals to aim for. Higher search engine rankings will follow! |
