FAQ's
Following is a list of FAQ's about website design, and some not so frequent.
How much does a website cost?
The number one question asked is "how much will it cost?". This question can't be answered without a fairly lengthy discovery process. Building a website is in many ways similar to building a house. Just as each house is different, each website is different. And just as with houses, owners start seeing more possibilities as they build, and want changes. It is just part of fluid, digital design. There are many areas of expertise that are required to make a great website, design, structurally sound HTML, search engine optimization (SEO), support and monitoring, plus much more. However as a guide most websites we build are in the range of $2 to $20k. We also offer special pricepoints to the unfinished furniture industry with subscription pricing that does not require a down payment.
What kind of websites do you design and build?
- Almost anything
- Informational brochure websites.
- Drupal websites
- Furniture websites
- CMS backed websites
- Blogs
- Web applications
- Ecommerce websites
- Facebook applications
- Full Service Search Engine Optimization Packages, including:
Search Engine Optimization
Inbound Link Building
Pay Per Click Management
Social Media Marketing
Press Releases
Website Redesign Services
Local Google Map Listings
SEO Productive Copywriting
How fast can you build a website?
That really depends on the scope of the project, our current production schedule and how fast you comply with information delivery and critical decisions. As an example; for a smaller brochure website, we can have it designed, built and live within 1-2 weeks. Other sites may take a year before they can go live.
Do you offer hosting and support?
Yes. We provide hosting and support. Good hosting means good support where you can speak to the same, senior person, whenever you need to. Support is there to keep your services online, fast and reliable, to communicate effectively during emergencies and take the hassle away. Factors such as server reliability, quality of customer support, security updates, separate ip addresses, security certificates, bandwith, memory, backup services, server location, server security, company’s reputation and knowledge lead to the variation in the cost. We have dedicated servers, quality servers, knowledgeable people. We do not do development work on 3rd party servers, only our own with our custom interface and scripts.
Do you offer web based email?
Yes - you may have up to 20 accounts, and this system is backed with extremely powerful spam filters.
Can you help with the purchase of a domain name?
Yes We can help you register a domain name for your website.
Setting up a website is so cheap these days, why would I need your services?
It's true. And the old adage that "you get what you pay for" is also true. These days you could use a free online website building tool or installation service or your son that took a course in college and have a website setup for next to nothing, and within a day. Unfortunately that is only the tip of the iceburg. If it cannot be found in the free search, or with an appropriate budget using PPC or is not a good functional consumer experience, that website will cost your profits and income that severely out strip the investment in a sound and visually appealing site. Some important next steps are optimizing your website for search engines, making it visually engaging and attracting traffic. We know how to do this, and do it well.
Do you require a project deposit?
Yes. As a rule we require a 50% upfront payment before we start work on your website. We then setup the project and allocate resources to get the job done. For large projects we offer a payment schedule which is broken down into 3-4 payments payable by credit card or ACH. Full payment is to made on project launch.
What tools do you use?
We use the following tools: Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Safari, Chrome, FireFox Internet Explorer 7 & 8. TextMate. Drupal. Dreamweaver. jQuery and HTML5 *
Do you design for Internet Explorer 6 and 7?
No. IE6 is an antiquated browser, and 7 is almost as buggy. In those rare scenarios where it is critical that a site be designed with IE6 and IE7 users in mind, we will quote that separately. We do offer support for current versions of IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari.
Web developers have to design for a moving target. Not every customer appreciates the time and effort required to develop an adaptive, robust, usable design that answers the demands of almost every browser, monitor and stationary or mobile device such as readers and phones. The reality is that not every customer has a 27 inch iMac or a 1024 screen, and tweaking a site to meet todays ever changing web standards not only takes time, but it is impossible to predict every scenario in advance. Developers have to create an adaptive design for multiple uses and equipment plus server current browsers while being backwards compatible to some very bad browsers. Some browsers, IE in particular, keep old legacy code to serve customers from a long time ago. The same page may display differently in different browsers. Even Facebook has not completely achieved meeting all of these objectives yet. Technology is forcing designers to think beyond a particular context and medium. A website isn't something you just look at on your desktop anymore. We have to go beyond simple html to address functionality such as semantics, CCS layouts, content strategy, user interfaces and controlling source orders during web development. The newest trend in web design is called responsive web design, which not only requires the awareness that we are not designing for single size use case, such as desktop user that uses IE9, but also demands the use of new techniques such fluid grids, flexible images and media queries.