Are you generating enough leads and sales from your website? Does your website actually reflect your current products and services? Do you regularly add news to your website to keep your clients returning to the site? If the answer to these questions is NO – then this article is for you.

61% of all UK Households (BBC News Website 2^nd Sept 2008) now have access to the Internet and this is an increase of one million households in a year – can you afford not to reach this wide audience?

At Waypoint Systems we create and develop online applications for SME’s,these range from one page websites to large ecommerce solutions with newsletter functionality and all our solutions are developed specifically with the individual client in mind.

We take the time to listen to our clients and develop a solution, which will expose them to the relevant markets, increase their turnover and generate them more profitable leads.

At Waypoint we have developed two bespoke online applications, our own CMS tool and “The Waypoint Ecommerce Store” – both of these products are tailored to suit your individual needs and requirements and both give you the opportunity to easily and quickly update your own website content – meaning that you always have an up to date and fresh online image which will work foryou. Our bespoke ecommerce tool is proven to open up new worldwide markets aswell as increase the bottom line figure of our client’s balance sheets.

In line with this we are offering exclusive packages for small businesses and start-ups. We can offer a content managed website or ecommerce solution for a fraction of our normal charge on our “Small Business Five YearPackage”. This package enables you to have a professional bespoke website designed and developed for you along with the peace of mind of secure hosting, support and maintenance over the first five years of your business.

For more information about this exciting new package please contact Olivia Willcocks on 01743 231013.

As we approach our 5^th Birthday we will be looking foranother part time developer as well as new offices to house the ever-growingteam. Its exciting times at Waypoint Systems!!!

We are delighted to annouce that Ben Nimmo has joined the team at Waypoint as an Applications Developer. Some of our local clients may recognise Ben from a very popular watering hole in the town where he has worked during his Uni days! Ben will be working part time, alongside James to make sure all our applications are developed to the highest of standards quickly and efficiently.

We are also delighted to announce that James has now become our Senior Applications Developer, James has been with Waypoint for over a year now and his hard work and determination has made him an outstanding member of the team.

Sadly, Rafal will be leaving us at the end of August as he is going back to Liverpool to continue his studies, however we are very happy to say that although Rafal wont be in the office he will still be doing some freelance work for us especially on the EQA portals which he has been developing for the NHS over the last couple of years. We will miss Rafal's humour in the office !! We do wish Rafal much luck with his studies..

Look out for Ben's profile to appear on the About us page of this website in the next couple of weeks.

 Kindest Regards

Olivia 

As the working day gets busier, many of our clients find less and less time to send out newsletters and updates to their clients.

So here at Waypoint we are delighted to offer a solution to this and yet another innovative way to make your working life easier and hassle free.

We have developed our own stand alone email system which  can be used to send out templated emails to all your clients. We will develope the system for you with four templated designs - so that you can send the appropriate email out easily and quickly.

All you have to do is fill in the content and choose which databse you want to send the email too..

The templates can include areas for images, text, web links, surveys and  questionnaires and they are all designed around your brand and business needs.

For more information on this exciting new product please visit our email systems page or contact one of our friendly team in the office on 01743 231013.

Many thanks and Happy Emailing!

Olivia  

Our support tool aims to speed up and simplify the website development process.
The tool is giving you options to send support/problem tickets to our technicians with description of your problem. You are also able to attach files to the tickets you create so no more emailing hassle is required.

To use the tool you will have to register your account. You can do that at: http://www.waypointsystems.co.uk/support.html where you can also login to start using the tool (after successful registration process).

From wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issue_tracking_system):

An issue tracking system (also called trouble ticket system or incident ticket system) is a computer software package that manages and maintains lists of issues, as needed by an organization. Issue tracking systems are commonly used in an organization's customer support call center to create, update, and resolve reported customer issues, or even issues reported by that organization's others employees. An issue tracking system often also contains a knowledge base containing information on each customer, resolutions to common problems, and other such data. An issue tracking system is similar to a "bugtracker", and often, a software company will sell both.

A ticket is a file contained within a issue tracking system which contains information about support interventions made by technical support staff or third parties on behalf of an end user who has reported an incident that is preventing them from working with their computer as they would expect to be able to. Tickets are commonly created in a help desk or call center environment. Typically the ticket will have a unique reference number, also known as a case, issue or call log number which is used to allow the user or support staff to quickly locate, add to or communicate the status of the users issue or request.

Rafal,
Lead Web Developer

 “What this age of Internet euphoria looks like, to those of us who were in the game last time around. For one, bubbles aren’t completely bad.” 

10 years ago, when as a 14 year old guy I was spending some of my time on building my piece of the Web, I didn't realise where we were going to go, nor did I realise that iPods with Internet access would be everywhere and that “Blogs” would push paper diaries away.  

That was the time when I and my fellow Internet pioneers, were focusing on the technical aspect of the web, forgetting that the information they create is going to be used by normal people!  

Today - it's very different - apart from the fact that we have a second Boom in our Web. Today we have Blogs, Rss Channels, and platforms, which enable people to share all variations of data - from pictures, movies and sounds to texts (blogs). 

People have started to use the Internet in a similar way to the way in which they complete their normal day-to-day tasks such as paying bills, buy stuff on e-bay or publish new photos which they have taken in Nepal or Jamaica. 

This all leads to one, mysterious word : Web 2.0. 

What we (Developers, IT managers and others involved in IT world) shouldn't forget is that the most important part of the Web is the user themselves, and that what we should focus on, is how he/she will use our website, portal or rss chanel. Would you like to spend hours on searching information on some website, or trying to upload photo to your website via FTP?  

We need to think like we are the website user. How many clicks you usually do before you leave the website? 2 or 3?  

So you only have then 3 chances to make the user impressed! And that is what the developers at Waypoint Systems pride themselves in doing – exceeding the expectations to the visitors of any of the websites and innovative online tools that we have developed.  

More about making your website web 2.0 "compatible" in next release of our newsletter

One of the symptoms of being a web developer (it's not recognised as a medical condition yet but I'm sure it won't be long) is that you have a tendency to comment on almost every website you see. Even if you do manage to bite your tongue, and save people around you the experience of hearing you rant about web standards and how you would have done it differently, you still end up being distracted from the actual purpose of the site you’re looking at, by being over analytical. Very occasionally I come across a website that grabs my attention to the point that I stop analysing the technical details and start to appreciate the content.

The reason for this is that these websites create a positive user experience rather than just presenting information. This may be a simple Flash movie or an interactive feature that allows you to really start to use the website rather than just look at it.

Many of these website use a technology known as AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML for those of you who really wanted to know). AJAX allows me to create a website that works more like a desktop application rather than just a web page. Using AJAX it is possible to change elements on the page based on the users input. This could be as simple as a live search that shows you the results as you are typing, or page elements that can be dragged about the screen as you would icons on your desktop.

The list of practical applications is huge. The main point of all this is that if your website involves the visitor in some way they are more likely to return to the site, or tell their friends about it. All this can bring you new or repeat business through your on-line presence (and stops web developers like me from getting bored when they visit your site).

So if you can give your visitors a positive experience when they visit your site you’re in with a better chance of your on-line business increasing.

Thanks for reading.

James Robinson

(Systems Developer)

For well over a year now I have been saying to the team that we really must find the time to update our own website, but there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to actually think about OUR web presence  - it seems a common occurrence within the professional world that there is never enough time to think about your own internal products.

However, as our client list has grown and the website we have been developing have been getting larger and more dynamic I found myself directing more and more people to these websites and away from our own website - this was crunch time!

Both Rafal and James have been very vocal about what they wanted from our new website and thanks to them it will feature an online support area for our clients as well as a blog area for the developers and any other "geeks" there are out there! These areas will all be developed over the next two months and I hope that you will bear with us as we grow this website into our own showcase portal.

For my part, I believe our new website shows you the innovative and stunning websites which we have recently created and I hope will entice you to get in touch with us.

As well as static websites we now specialise in CMS websites - the new CMS system which James has created means that you the client, can alter your websites gallery or slideshow easily and simply within a matter of minutes. We also create educational interactive CD's, online laboratories and ecommerce websites.

I am very proud of our new website and I hope you will enjoy watching it grow.

My thanks and praise must go to Rafal and James for their continued hard work and enthusiasm in the face of a leaky office and for coping with the very busy period we are currently experiencing!!

More about the joys of working in a circa 1450 building next time!!!

Kindest Regards

Olivia
Managing Director