by Sali Earls
Newport based Jojet is a web design and online marketing agency, that design and build bespoke web marketing solutions to meet the needs of clients across South Wales. Working to the motto big business results for small business prices, Jojet work with companies of all sizes, from sole traders looking at online advertising, to medium sized companies with complex ecommerce requirements.
Clients include big names like Sony BMG and Toptable.co.uk, as well as smaller companies including Pontlliw Service Station and Superkey Locksmiths.
Sali Earls found out more from Jojet director, Joel Hughes.
What's the history of your company?
We were setup in 2001 specifically to focus on the web and online marketing using our design and technical skills in harmony the latest
evolving best practices in web design.
We have a deep understanding of web technology both in terms of its technical aspects but also, and in a sense more importantly, how it can be applied to business in general. This really helps set us apart from the competition as all decisions we make are focused on our clients and how best to apply web design and technology for their needs.
What unique
products/services does your company provide?
I would say that our overall design philosophy (something which internally we call "design360") is one of our key strengths. This design
approach means that we really understand the client's requirements and are able to leverage all of our collective talent and experience into producing for them a first class online strategy.
The process takes us from the very early information gathering stage where clients typically know they want a website (but don't quite know what that means), right though design, to build, completion and promotion with cost-per-click online advertising campaigns.
We are very much a client focused organisation and our ability to develop and foster relationships with clients means that once a client uses our services, they stay with us!
What's been the key to your success?
I believe that the key for us is not only are we strong on the design side but we are strong on the technical which ultimately means we can
envisage what is technically possible and deliver an excellent user focused design to match. The problem some companies have is that they are either strong in terms of design but weak technically, or
visa versa or, have a management structure without a deep technical or design background - this is certainly not the case with Jojet!
What one piece of outside technology has benefited your company most?
From our perspective I would have to say that this would undoubtedly have to be the website validator service hosted by the W3.
To recap, in the 'bad old days' of web design there were a lot of companies jumping on the web design band wagon. This was partially the fault of tools such as Macromedia Dreamweaver which seemed to offer an easy route to the website design process. Unfortunately tools are only as good as the craftsmen that use them - many of our clients are constantly surprised when I tell them that all of our web pages are written by hand.
A web page is actually like a simple computer program with a grammar and syntax in common with all other languages. In the 'bad old days' poor design companies thought they could produce web pages with a blatant disregard for how the web page was actually structured under the surface; as long as the page looked 'good' on their computer screen, they were happy. However, times have changed. It is now apparent that how a web page is written under the surface is VERY important and a well written webpage can reap enormous benefits in terms of search engine optimisation, accessibility, bandwidth and much more. Unfortunately the 'bad old days' still exist in some web design companies.
The W3 validator service looks at a web page, analyses it under the surface and reports on the problems that it finds - the bottom line here is that no serious web design agency would produce pages littered with errors.
One of our ongoing campaigns next year will be to
raise aware in the business community of what makes "good web design" so that business can make in informed choice - if this makes our
competition upgrade their skills then that's good news for business all round!
For the average person the results which the W3 Validator returns can be a bit over whelming, this is one of the reasons we created our online website doctor to help diagnose problems with websites.
What one piece of advice would you give to start-up companies in your field?
The best advice I could give would be this "you need to be passionate; passionate about web
design, passionate about web technology, passionate about accessibility and, ultimately, passionate about combining these skills for the benefit of your clients".
It really is as simple as that. Web technology moves at an incredible pace and unless you love it and love the fact that you are always updating your skills then you are in the wrong industry.
I would also say that you need to be true to your clients, don't try to pull the wool over their eyes with things like "search engine optimisation" Voodoo talk! Our job in this industry is to shield business from the white heat of web design and online marketing and to use our specific skills for their advantage. We need to translate the complexities of the web and distil it into language which business understands - our role is lead and not to scaremonger.
Where do you see your company going in the future?
We shall be offering more and more packaged solutions and products to our customers. I can't give too much away at the
moment but we really feel that we are working on the next generation of tools which will help businesses of all types realise their online strategy.
We will continue to focus on what new technology is available and how this can solve problems for ourselves and our clients. For example, we are currently looking into some very exciting VoIP (voice over IP) Internet telephony applications involving websites.
Find out more about Jojet at www.jojet.com.
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