When regional firm Ashfords decided to upgrade their website, their first consideration was to improve the technical quality of the existing internet presence so that it could be more easily accessed by potential clients. Greg Bousfield investigates

Of course, the firm also wanted a visually interesting website but the technical aspect was the initial impetus for the upgrade, Charles Olney, Head of Marketing & Business Development at Ashfords explains. "We had a very basic website which was not database driven but rather consisted of a large number of static pages. That meant making changes and updates was a very cumbersome and time-consuming process so the first reason we went for the upgrade was more for maintenance and operation of the site rather than to change its design."

Ashfords had inherited the website from their incarnation as Bevan Ashford, a relationship which ended in de-merger several years ago. "We effectively revamped the old website to coincide with our branding but particularly because of its functionality problems we decided to make an upgrade."

With a presence in the South West going back to the nineteenth century, 250+ lawyer Ashfords was keen to offer the website upgrade to a local firm. "We had a variety of letters come back," Olney says, "some were offering a fully custom-made solution but what we went for in the end was an existing, proven product, which we could simply add content to and that would be our website."

"A bespoke website might not have turned out as we had expected, and it's also difficult to quantify the work involved and associated costs, and would seem to take a lot longer to build."

On the other hand, an off-the shelf product could be immediately seen and tested in operation (on other websites) and could also offer evidence of reliability in use.

With those factors in mind, the job went to information management firm GOSS, based at Plymouth's Tamar Science Park. Ashfords chose GOSS's iCM Freedom software, which GOSS says also provides a secure extranet for clients to gain easy access to information such as signed contracts, as well as the ability to create and use online forms.

"GOSS had some experience with law firm websites and many of their clients are local government organisations which have a lot of information content much like a law firm which needs to be organised intuitively on a website," Olney says. "It was a proven product we could see working in different environments and it was rolled out within three months from start to finish without any particular problems."

Some points to keep in mind:

* A bespoke solution to some extent relies on articulating what you want to the website developer.

* Keep in mind that off the shelf software may require you to change some of the ways in which you currently operate your website, or the way you work.

* Bespoke websites may have an off-the shelf core anyway.

* Bespoke solutions sometimes use open source software which is initially cheap but can have very long development times and unknown bug problems.

* It may be more cost-effective to rent an IT service, and not host it in-house.

* Choose a website package that can be quickly updated or re-designed without high-level technical skills. Modern websites can upload videos and photos form a mobile phone, for example.

* If content is fresh and easy to update it is going to improve interest in the website.

For further information:

Ashfords – www.ashfords.co.uk