To be successful in the 21st Century, most businesses and non-profits need a presence on the Web. That’s a given. Because of that, most organizations will get a Website of some kind. For most of them, the experience will be expensive, painful, and will end with them having more of a nuisance than a business asset.
How often do you visit a Website, only to find outdated information? Or dead links? Or pictures of employees long since moved on? Or a calendar with events for three years ago?
This is a common problem. A company or non-profit contracts a design firm to build a Website. The organization pays the money, the design firm builds the site. The site goes live, and people start to visit. But then the fun starts. Usually, no one in the company or non-profit knows how to keep the site updated with fresh content. Things change, new business opportunities arise.Times Change, your Website needs to keep up...
But the Website stays the same. Because to get updates to it means forking over $80.00 an hour to some developer, and hoping that it all gets done right. Which, frankly, often doesn’t happen.
The whole thing is a hassle - an expensive hassle. Which means most companies just don’t bother to try and keep their sites updated. That's a shame, because their Websites never fully achieve the desired results.
Corfun has a completely different approach. Our mission is to make your Web presence a vital, integral part of your business strategy. We pursue this mission in the following ways:
We work with you to design a system that can meet your needs as you identify them today. After in-depth consultation and discussion, we combine your knowledge of your core business with our online expertise to produce a Web solution that takes your business to the next level.
Corfun uses Content Management System architecture which allows non-technical resources to learn how to publish content to their own Websites as easily as typing an email. Each of our Websites includes training which will enable your staff to keep your site updated. You can now use the Web as an immediate marketing and sales channel, without the need of external consultants!
The Content Management System can be easily expanded in the future to do more things. Say you start out with a simple eCommerce site that sells a line of products. A year later, you decide to add a Discussion Forum to allow customers to discuss and rate the various products you sell. In a Content Management System, you keep the basic structure of the site and just add-in a new Discussion Forum component which fits right into the site you already have!
But, you may ask, if it is so easy why do we offer Website management services? Simple – not every business or non-profit has an internal resource(s) with the time to be a Webmaster. For that reason, Corfun offers the option of allowing us to either take over, or assist in, the management of client Websites. And because of the Content Management System architecture we use, our management services can be offered at a very reasonable price.
For some additional reasons to consider Corfun, go on to the next page of this article.
When looking for a company to trust with your Web projects, there are a lot of things to consider. On this page, let us introduce you to some of the things we think are important in a Web services company, and how we feel Corfun stacks up.
Experience
The principals in Corfun have over 40 years of combined experience in the software industry. We’ve run major projects for some of the largest corporations in the world. In addition, we’ve been developing Websites since the dawn of the Internet in the late 90’s. We have the background and expertise to handle any size project, and get it done on time and within budget.
Technology
Corfun develops using Joomla Content Management System. This gives us many distinct advantages over other methods of development. Joomla is an Open Source System, so there is no cost for us to license it. This helps keep costs to our customers low. Second, Joomla is a framework that is easy to update. Your own internal resources, with our help, can keep a Website fresh and updated. The ease of publication with Joomla is second-to-none. Third, Joomla comes pre-loaded with many features that you need like user registration and management, RSS feed generation, image management, banner advertising, and a whole lot more. Fourth, additional extensions are available to make your Joomla framework even more powerful by quickly adding eCommerce, Discussion Forums, Customer Support Portals, photo galleries, and eNewsletters.
With Joomla, you get a basic framework, and we can then build it to whatever end state you need. And as your needs change, so can the framework.You, literally, can not outgrow Joomla. It can power a small Church Website, or a major eCommerce portal for a Fortune 500 company, as well as anything in-between.And because Joomla is so powerful, flexible, and comprehensive, we are able to do projects rapidly and for lower cost than other development methods.
Joomla is currently on release 1.5.3 We’ve been developing on Joomla since it was release 1.0 We know the platform inside and out, and can turn that knowledge into a great project for your organization or company.
Cost
Because Corfun develops using the Joomla CMS platform, we are able to do complex Web projects for a fraction of the cost of other methods of development such as ASP. If you check out our sample pricing, and compare it to others in our industry, you will quickly realize that Corfun delivers real value for the money. We frequently render bids that come in at half the cost of competing firms for the same project. Our experience and our Joomla platform allow us to get the most value for every dollar spent.
Quality
Corfun is fanatical about quality. Our goal on turnover of a project is 100% customer satisfaction with all aspects of the project. Let’s just deal with this honestly. We take any kind of problem with one of our sites as a personal failure. We are fanatics about perfection.
Dead links, incomplete pages, shopping cart problems, alignment issues, browser incompatibilities – many Web design firms turn over sites routinely with all of the above problems and more.
That would drive us completely nuts. We don’t do business that way. If you trust us with your Web development, then you will get superior work from a dedicated staff of professionals who can’t sleep if anything is less than perfect.
Graphic Design
Corfun has a graphic artist on staff, ready to assist with Web projects. We maintain several others on retainer. Your Website needs to have great capabilities, but it needs to look visually stunning as well. We have a commitment to Web branding that can help make the difference between a good site, and a great one.
Search Engine Mastery
Do you know how to get a Website ranked well on Google? We do. Not all Web development firms make that claim. We not only make it, but we stand behind it. Websites developed by Corfun frequently get a one-third or more of their visits from Search Engine queries. Imagine being online, and being easily found. We can do that for you using the same techniques that have worked for many other customers already.
Commitment to Training
Every Corfun Web project has training built-in to the price. We also publish helpful articles on our Website on various topics, and also provide 90 days of unlimited support to help you get the most of your investment.
Corfun wants to you to understand and utilize your Website as a business tool, not just an expense billboard on the information superhighway.
Our goal, then, is to enable businesses to look at their Websites the way they do any other sales and marketing channel. The key to this is training, which is one of our number one priorities.
Support
Corfun offers free 90 day support on all new Web projects. After that, we offer competitively priced support contracts which offers services ranging from answering questions via email to actual Website management. At Corfun, we are committed to giving you the tools you need to make your objectives a reality. If you need a lot of intensive support and hands-on management, then we can provide that. If you need just occasional questions answered, then we can do that too.