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Umbrella Consultants believes that your success is our success, and we know a strong online presence is crucial to your business. That’s why we built Umbrella CMS, a hosted custom website development platform with fully customizable templates and extensions.
Our professionally designed and developed website templates are unique and specifically built for our client's industry or niche.
We’ll do the heavy lifting.
Our integration experts will help migrate your old website to Umbrella CMS. In the process, they’ll work with you to streamline your site and optimize your content and messaging flow.
Our templates include all the features you’ve come to expect from your website — slideshows, photo galleries, blogs, customizable pages, contact forms, Social Media widgets, and more.
Industry-specific features on a simple and user-friendly platform.
Our content management system is built especially for small and medium sized business and integrates seamlessly with our inbound marketing platform, RevSocial, which makes understanding how to market your business a breeze.
Umbrella Consultant custom websites are built on our powerful yet user-friendly Umbrella CMS (content management system), so you’ll feel at ease when writing blog posts or making changes.
Once set up, you’ll have the ability to edit and add content yourself, although we’re always available to help.
Designed with mobile in mind.
Over 45% of our clients views on their websites come from tablets or smartphones, so we know that an effective mobile website is key. Umbrella CMS websites work beautifully on mobile, which means more happy visitors and more pageviews with a lower bounce rate.
Optimized for search engines and integrated with analytics.
We’ll help boost your search engine rank with search-friendly content and keywords. Plus, our templates are coded with cutting edge SEO insight coded into the site. We even ensure development for compatibility with sharing on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Our sites also support a whole suite of analytics and testing services, like Google Analytics, RevSocial, Facebook and AdRoll pixels, Optimizely, and more.
Best practices mean happier customers, more sales, more subscriptions and more engagement with your community.
We’ve worked with 100's of companies’ websites and spent countless hours thinking about the most effective ways to present your business online.
We’ll use this knowledge to create a customized, easy-to-navigate website, making it easy for your visitors to find the information they need and make the purchase or community engagement that’s right for them.
Managed hosting means less downtime and fewer worries.
Since we manage the entire technical stack, you can be confident we’re working to make your site load as fast as possible while keeping it 100% secure.
We host all Umbrella CMS websties on Liquid Web Web Hosting, the gold standard for reliability. In fact, we run our company website on the exact same platform as yours!
Plus, our e-commerce sites come fully equipped with SSL, making your website more trustworthy to customers and search engines.
As you can see, Umbrella Consultants take extra steps to ensure that working with us on your custom website is smoother for your customers, better for your business, and easier for you to manage.
Ready to discuss your next project?
Determining how much a website should cost is one of the most frequently asked but rarely answered questions in the web design world. Even now, with millions of websites online, there exists no magic formula for calculating either the cost of a new website or the cost of a redesign.
But why not? Questions about website design cost are common online, but very few people are prepared to answer, even when it comes to professional web design prices.
For this article, the Umbrella Consultants team of professional web designers, developers, and SEO specialists have worked together to examine some of the most important factors that go into a web design quote.
These include historical website development costs, as well as web design costs for different components. The data also includes current website features and design costs.
A website can cost anywhere from $500 to $15,000 so it can really be a challenge to nail down a specific professional website cost. That's why we made a website quote calculator that you can use to ballpark prices for websites you want to create.
Want a uniquely custom quote for your website?
Give us a call today at 252-573-8027 or contact Umbrella Consultants!
FYI...
Our website cost calculator can help you determine how much you should expect to pay for a site with the functions and features you want. It is meant as a ballpark quote.
Umbrella Consultants is a team of professional web designers, web developers and marketers with offices located in San Diego, CA and Kitty Hawk, NC. Our consultants have a combined history of over 30 years in the web design industry and Yes!, the technology within our field is constantly improving!!.
One of the most rewarding parts of our job is staying on top of all the latest trends and capabilities available to ensure our customers can always meet their unique website goals and business objectives.
From the beginning, we have never been married to a specific tool, service or methodology. For us always recommending the right tool for the job requires careful consideration of many factors, tools, languages, and methodologies.
We pride ourselves on thinking outside of the box to come up with the best fit solution for our clients’ needs.
Umbrella Consultants is a web development firm with two offices in San Diego, CA and Kitty Hawk, NC. Would you like a Free Demo of Umbrella CMS? Contact us or give us a call 252-573-8027.
What is a 301 Redirect?
A "301 redirect" is a permanent redirect from one URL to the other. A 301 redirect can be described as a "change of address form" similar to what you will get from a post office. Simply stating, it ensures that those who do not know that you have moved that they can still find you. And for web visitors it forwards them onto your new address.
For example, if your previous website was www.oldwebsite.com and you wanted to change it to www.newwebsite.com, you'd implement a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new one. Now whoever typed in your old URL (or clicked on a leftover link to your old URL), would automatically appear at your new URL.
So what does this mean to marketers and business owners?
Here are two insights to better understand how a 301 redirect will help you be seen by your best leads and customers.
Umbrella Consultants is a web development firm with two offices in San Diego, CA and Kitty Hawk, NC. Would you like a Free Demo of Umbrella CMS contact us or give us a call 252-573-8027.
Restaurant customers today, like customers in every other sector, make purchasing decisions using their smartphones. That means that if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, you’re missing out on a huge segment of the population and you’re losing business.
You might have a perfectly lovely website, and it might work very well for desktop users, but think of it this way. You want to buy toys and food for your pet dog. You go to the pet store, and find out that all they have is toys and food for dinosaurs.
Get the idea?
No one wants to scroll, pan, and re-size your website so that it will work on their mobile device. Hardly anyone uses desktop computers any more – it’s all tablets and smartphones. And even worse, if your website isn’t mobile-friendly, Google will penalize you for being non-responsive – you won’t have a prayer of ranking even on page three of the search results, and everyone knows that no one goes past page two.
Simply stated, if your website isn’t navigable on a smartphone, customers looking for a place to dine are going to quickly exit your site and find one that is more user-friendly.
Some of the problems that can occur when people are trying to navigate a desktop-friendly site on a smartphone include:
Even one of these problems can send potential customers giving up in frustration and hitting the “back” button.
We’re in the age of instant gratification. In other words, customers want to “click and call” – they don’t want to have to dial. They want to swipe their finger, not zoom in, zoom out and scroll all over the place.
Recent studies indicate that more than 60% of mobile users will contact a business that has a mobile-friendly site over any other. So, if you’re not meeting their needs, think about the business you’re going to lose.
Now that you understand the importance of a mobile-friendly website, don’t forget about online ordering. As of the time of this writing, only about one restaurant in four actually offers online ordering. Do we have to tell you about the “back” button again?
If you do nothing else with our website in order to make it mobile-friendly, at least make sure that your customers can order online.
Mobile is the way of the future...
So make sure that your website is mobile responsive, and you’ll not only gain new customers, you’ll keep the ones you already have.
You likely already know that a content management system can give you the tools to create your own beautiful and function website. Almost all of the very best blogs and websites you visit every day were created and are managed using content management systems.
With a CMS, you can retain full control over the design, structure, and function of your site without learning any programming, coding, or web development. You can also get access to support and a lot of really great tools, all at a much lower price than you’d pay a web designer to do the same job for you.
Did you know, though, that your CMS can actually improve your productivity in a number of different ways? In addition to freeing up time that you’d otherwise spend banging your head against the wall trying to learn to code, a good content management system like Umbrella CMS can do a lot more for your productivity than you may ever have thought possible.
Here are just a few of the ways your CMS can help you and your business.
With your CMS, you can maintain control over who posts content and when. Why does that matter for your productivity?
Imagine having a website where all of your contributors can post content whenever they like.
Which means that suddenly, you find yourself reading back through thousands and thousands of words of unedited and redundant content that a contributor has written. Then, not only have your viewers and customers seen the potentially shoddy and repetitive content your people have posted, but you also have to take extra time to go back through, edit what can be salvaged, and delete what can’t.
This is, of course, a fairly extreme example, but you can see how limiting access and controlling when content is published can be a huge boon for your brand image.
When you use the tools and applications that your CMS provider offers, you’ll get more effective and functional features on your website. Viewers and customers will easily be able to find and navigate your site and your content.
They’ll also easily have the means to contact you and/or purchase products or services from you.With tested tools and features like these, you’ll never have to worry about losing messages or orders due to a glitch in your code.
Instead, you’ll have more customers contacting you, more orders going through, and more overall business and traffic.
Finally, if you need to make a change to your site and/or add content quickly, it’s both simple and easy with a good CMS.
And you won’t have to worry about the domino effect of making one change and then having to make several others to maintain the aesthetic and function of your site.
It’s all built in, and you can do it all quickly, easily, and effectively.
To see how much a good CMS can improve your productivity, schedule your demo of Umbrella CMS today.
So you’ve decided to use a content management system to build and run your website. You know that using a CMS will help you create a beautiful and functional site without paying exorbitant rates to a web designer and without sinking hours upon hours of your precious time into learning to code a dynamic site.
However, have you considered what you should be looking for in a CMS and how you’ll choose the right one for your needs?
Choosing the right CMS can be difficult. Every service out there seems to claim that they have the best designs and templates, along with the most complete customer service and care. Some services are free, and some are paid, and the paid services you’ll find vary in price. As you look at all of the options and features, it’s easy to feel entirely overwhelmed.
That’s why, before you begin your search in earnest, you absolutely must know what you’re looking for. That means that you need to have a clear idea of your goals for your site, whether you’re creating it for personal or business reasons.
You’re going to have very different needs for a wedding announcement site than you will for an ecommerce site, and the wrong CMS can set you way back.
Before you start assessing features and benefits;
Now you are ready to start looking at your Content Management System options.
Once you’ve found a few CMS providers that have the features and tools you want at prices within your budget, take a look at their support and security.
Now, if you’re not starting from scratch, you’ll also want to ensure that your CMS can be integrated with your existing content, data, and site(s). Otherwise, you’ll need to be prepared to throw what you already have in the trash and start over completely. Likewise, you may find that down the road you’ll need to integrate other systems with your site as your business grows.
Consider integration for your future, even if you don’t need it right away.
Finally, always try before you buy. High quality content management providers like Umbrella CMS will offer free demos to let you play with all of the tools and features of their product before you commit. If you’re looking at a CMS that requires you to pay before you play, then you really should just walk away from it entirely.
There are better options out there, and you want to make sure that you choose the one that’s most suited to your needs.
Want to demo Umbrella CMS today to see if it’s the right content management system for you.
Imagine, for a moment, that you’re sitting in a waiting room. You know that you’re going to have a few minutes to kill while you wait on your appointment, so what are you doing? You’re probably scrolling through social media feeds or browsing online on your phone or tablet, right?
So why aren’t you concerned about mobile technology for your website?
According to a recent Pew report, 42% of adults in the United States own tablets, and 32% own e-readers. Furthermore, 90% of American adults own cell phones, and of that 90%, 63% use their phones to go online on a regular basis.
If you do the math, that means that almost 57% of all adults in America are using smartphones to go online on a regular basis. With an overall population of nearly 250 million adults, that means that – in the US alone – there are almost 140 million adults going online with mobile tech.
Now, you might be wondering, “Why does it matter if my audience is looking at my site on their phones, tablets, or computers?” If you go to your website on your laptop or desktop, you’re likely to see a beautiful layout that’s easily navigable.
Is the same true if you’re on your phone?
With a non-responsive web design, your site will look exactly the same on your phone or tablet as it does on your computer, but shrunken to fit the screen. To navigate, your audience is going to have to do a lot of pinching, swiping, scrolling, and zooming, and they’re going to get frustrated really quickly.
With responsive web design and other mobile-oriented design features, your content won’t be shrunken to the size of a postage stamp when your viewers and customers visit your site on their phones and other mobile devices. Navigation is easier, and they don’t have to do all that pinching and swiping to see the content they want to read or to check out the products they want to buy.
With the right CMS, you won’t have to worry about how your site looks on mobile devices because your design template will already be responsive and mobile-ready. When you create your site, you can look at it on any size screen and see a user-friendly, attractive site that will give your customers the experience they want.
As you plan your marketing strategy and build your website, make sure that you have mobile technology cemented in your plan. Those numbers we cited earlier are already high, and they’re only going to continue to rise in the future.
Stay ahead of the game, and choose a CMS that will account for all users’ experiences with your site, no matter what devices they’re using.
For a free demo of a CMS that will provide you with an attractive and responsive site across all kinds of devices, check out Umbrella CMS today.
Whether you’re creating a blog, an ecommerce site, or any other kind of website, you’re probably thinking something along the lines of:
Stop right there.
If you continue down that line of questioning, you’ll quickly convince yourself that you can’t design or create your own website and that you’ll need to hire a web designer and/or developer if you want to get anywhere. Whether you’re creating a personal or business site, chances are good that you don’t have the money to throw at a professional web designer to get your site launched. Fortunately, though, there’s an easier, more affordable way, and you don’t have to learn any code to do it, either.
Instead of creating a website from the ground up, you can choose a content management system (CMS), like Umbrella CMS. With a good CMS, you will have a variety of choices of website templates to choose from. Then you’ll be able to customize the template you choose to completely personalize your site. The result, in the web design phase of creating your website is a site that’s fully functional and beautifully designed. And, because you make all changes through your content management system’s interface, everything is very intuitive and doesn’t require you to learn any coding or programming.
A good CMS will allow you to publish and edit blog posts easily, upload images of items for sale, and create a thoroughly user-friendly and streamlined website. If you plan on updating your site regularly (and you should), then having a quality CMS is essential to improving your workflow. Instead of hunting through lines upon lines of code, you can drag and drop pictures and graphics, create new content, and more.
And, if you’re concerned about security – as you should be – a CMS is the way to go, too. Essentially, when you choose the right CMS provider, they will take care of quality assurance on all of the products, applications, and elements they make available to you. You won’t have to worry about re-inventing the wheel or accidentally creating a security hazard for your site because all of that will be taken care of for you.
Content management systems allow website owners to focus on what they do best.
With the right CMS, you will have more time to focus on your business and your life, and you won’t have to worry about whether or not your website is working.
Start a free demo of Umbrella CMS today and see how easy working to create and running your website can be.
As you look around for a content management system for your website, you’ll notice that there are actually open source, free CMS options out there. If you’re fiscally minded, then you’re probably already doing some research into these systems and wondering if you should save money on a CMS and spend it elsewhere in your budget.
However, while free is always good, in most cases you really do get what you pay for.
Let’s explore a few of the pros and cons of free and paid content management systems.
First of all, as you look around online for a CMS provider, you’ll see that a lot of them offer free options for their services.
However, when you look a little bit closer, you’ll see that these are highly limited. If you want to get their premium tools, features, and services, you’ll have to pay for them.
Essentially, these providers offer a limited free package because they expect customers to see the advantages they’ll get with a paid service and opt for the premium (paid) package after they become frustrated with the limitations on their free service.
So what kinds of services are you missing out on if you go with a free CMS?
Are you just going to be missing a few premium templates, or are you going to be excluded from using services and features that really matter to you and your business?
One of the most prominent limitations on a free content management system is your domain name. If you aren’t paying your CMS provider, your site will almost invariably be hosted on their domain. Instead of having a web address like, http://www.[YourCompanyName].com, you’ll have something like http://[YourCompanyName].[YourCMSProvider].com.
This kind of URL looks unprofessional, and it immediately gives away that you’re using a free service.
People visiting your site will assume that you are not invested enough in your business to pay for premium services, and they won’t be likely to take you very seriously.
Likewise, if you choose a free CMS and you want to add functionalities like a shopping cart, checkout system, and other dynamic tools, you’re likely going to have to find a third-party application for them.
Instead, with a paid service like Umbrella CMS, you won’t have to go hunting for third-party apps. Now, you can count on your CMS provider to offer all of the built-in functionalities that you need to create and manage a fully operational and scalable site.
Curious about what you can get with a good paid CMS? Try a free demo of Umbrella CMS today and see what a paid service can do for you.
