Polygraph Rare Books

Industry: Antiquarian Books
Employees: 1
Package: Power Site (modified)
Address: www.polygraphrarebooks.co.uk

Mark, you already had a website for Polygraph, why did you want a new one?

The original site we had was built using some free software. I found it incredibly difficult to update though and it never looked as good as I wanted it to so I decided to get something professional instead.

Why did you home-bake your original site?

It was free, well, it didn’t cost any money anyway (laugh). I considered getting someone external to do it but you never know what you’re getting and on the face of things at least, the software we used seemed to have everything we needed.

And how was building it yourself?

Well sadly the free system we were using was horribly, horribly complicated to use, at least for a non-techie like me. The site took months and months to build, always looked bitty and gave the impression we’d made it ourselves which I suppose we had.

Didn’t you have someone who could help?

I did, I was working with a very computer-savvy friend. He didn’t charge me anything for the help but even at nothing it turned out to be a bit of a false economy. It was very kind of him to help but I couldn’t rely on him and things just didn’t get done.

We spent months putting it together and eventually the whole thing ground to a halt – I was quite dispirited.

So you decided to contact Sitefire?

Yes, they were recommended to me. I’d seen their other sites which seemed good so I was confident enough they were going to be able to do what I needed.

How was Sitefire, did they get things going?

Wonderful. Their speed and efficiency was so good that they put a fire under me to get the core business up and out the door! They put movement and process into a program that had otherwise ground to a halt.

Were you pleased with their design work?

Bowled over - it certainly didn’t look home made! It is very, very obvious to anyone who knows me that I couldn’t ever possibly have done the design of my website myself. There is an effortlessness about the Sitefire design, very professional but without rubbing it in your face.

I was also pleasantly surprised how good it made my updates look. I put together the words and images and the styling does the rest. Everyone I’ve shown it to has complemented me on how good it looks.

You find updating easy then?

Yes, very easy and I say that as a fuzzy rather than a techie. The stuff we were using for the last site was terribly confusing - I just couldn’t make it do what I wanted. That system was definitely a much more “techie” sort of thing.

Sitefire gave me a surprising amount of freedom to play around with the site until it was exactly how I wanted it. I found the flexibility incredibly liberating - it gave me great freedom to express myself.

Was using a design framework a worry to you?

I was a little worried at first that it might not look, well, mine.

Was the worry well founded?

Happily enough no, not at all. The customisation of the main image made the site look fantastic and after I had put the content and my own images into it, I felt it really had the spirit of me and my business.

And was the framework limiting?

Having the framework in place at the start of things was actually quite liberating. I could have wasted hours on things like fonts and colours whereas instead I concentrated on the content and the images which are after all the most important thing.

I think the spirit of the site comes from the text and the images and the design itself is very subtle. I’m not sure that getting a completely bespoke design would have given be a better result at all and I suspect it might even have been worse.

Does your website show up on Google searches?

Well to be quite honest with you, I’m really not really into search optimising but I did find that within a couple of weeks it did started popping up, yes.

I was quite amused because one particular page on my website was listed second on Google and above both the MOMA in New York and Wikipedia. I love it that I’m above the MOMA – they have entire online essays about this book for goodness sake!

In retrospect, are you glad you got the site developed professionally?

Definitely. Getting a “free” site was a total false economy – if you have a business like mine your website is your entire public face and it’s certainly worth spending the money to get it done right.

Would you recommend Sitefire?

Absolutely. Would do, have done, will do in the future!