what you should know about websites

If you are in business today, you should have a website. A website offers you and your clients real benefits. By having a website, people have a convenient access to all the information you have about you and your business. Your website can increase the demand for your services, or products. It is not only a huge marketing tool for your business, but an affordable advertising medium. It saves your business time by reducing the amount of time answering questions face-to-face with customers. A website allows your business information to be available at any time of the day or night. Just think about the amount of money that can be saved on printing and mailing brochures and other promotional items.

Your website is very important to your business and should therefore be professionally designed. Many, many people now-a-day know the basics of web designing, but that does not mean that they know the rules for good web design, or that they can produce a website that speaks well for your business.

We have all visited unsightly or buggy websites. Remember the frustration you felt when you could not locate the information you were seeking, or you found some information, but it was scant. Perhaps you were inundated with busy, overdone graphics, or music that you could not turn off. Poor navigation, broken links, warning windows, ugly graphics, annoying music etc., all lead to one reaction. You quickly left that site very unimpressed. Because of your reaction you probably did not call that business.

A good website follows some very specific rules. It should be very simple in design, layout details and very easy to navigate around in. A heavy website is one that is laden with too many graphics and images that all take time to load. Animated websites are useless to someone who does not have a fast internet connection. Likewise a good website’s content should be full of well-written, error-free text that contains lots of keywords that search engines will find and ultimately give you in a higher page rank. This is known as Search Engine Optimization and is a very important consideration in the overall design of your site. It is also just as important to keep your content up-to-date. Lots of creativity can be used in naming your site and your pages which gives your site a unique identity on the web.

When someone visits your site they want to know who you are and what your company is all about. Do not overlook the importance of an “About Us” page. They also want to know how to contact you. Your contact page should include information regarding your physical address and phone numbers for each department of your business. Be careful about disclosing your e-mail address. You could be subjecting yourself to a lot of spam mail. The best way to have a person e-mail you would be to use of a form that hides your e-mail address through the use of special scripting known as PHP (Perl Hypertext Preprocessor). The information on the form will be directed to your business inbox. An auto-responder on your form will let the person know when they click the send button that the e-mail is sent and that someone will be in touch with them very soon. Be sure to follow-up.

the design process

It is important to understand that a good website cannot be designed in one day; unless, of course, it is only one or two pages in content. Not many, if any, business websites consist of only one or two pages. Each topic area and every link on your website comprises a page. So on a typical business website, you have a “Welcome” page, and “About” page, a “Contact” page, a “Services” or “Products” page; perhaps a “Rates” or “Downloads” page etc., etc. Each page utilizes a number of coding languages such as HTML, XHTML, JavaScript, ASP, PHP, CGI, Perl, etc. These codes generate what the page will look like and what the page will do. If you would like to see what the scripting looks like, you can go to any web page and then on your top menu of the browser window go to “View” and then to “Page Source” or “Source.”

A typical business website will consist of 12 pages or more. Each website is different and each website has different functions. We call the process of designing a website “development.” Most professionally designed websites will take an average of 3 weeks to 3 months, or more, to develop. This is why websites are developed with a contractual agreement for payment, rather than being charged by the hour.

Our clients work one-on-one with the website designer to cut the confusion and to build a great working relationship and our attention to details is as important as the design process. While we are designing, we continue uploading site segments to our development server for you to view. It is our policy to keep in touch with you all the way through the design process!

Before we start designing your website we will consult with you to determine what your budget is and whether you have taken the preliminary steps outlined in this website toward getting your website designed. If not, you can read the steps by “Clicking Here”. We will want to ascertain extensive information about your company and to determine what kind of a website would be best for you. We will also want to take a look at any existing marketing material that you may have that can be incorporated into your site.

Following this, we put together a rough draft of 3 - 5 design ideas and present them to you for your approval. Once approved, we will also give you an estimate of your project costs, a contract is signed and a deposit of 50% of the estimated total project cost is made. The down payment is held in an escrow account^[1] until the completion, approval and release of the site and is then applied to the final cost. Once the final payment is made, your site will be uploaded to the Internet. The files will be zipped and made available for you to download from the “Client Access Area.” You will be designated a password to gain access to your client area.

We guarantee that our clients get the design that they want! We offer six website options. Which one suits you, your company and your budget? Projects and prices vary according to your requirements. Take a look at what each of the our packages include and then contact us and let us what kind of a site you would like to have. Go worldwide with your business today!

What we don’t do

• Anything related to controversial subject matter.
• Anything illegal.

information about website design

^[1]An escrow account is an account designated to hold escrow funds. The escrow accounts purpose is to keep funds held under an escrow agreement segregated from any other account of the escrow agent (the seller). The escrow agent has fiduciary responsibility to disburse the funds in the escrow account according to the agreement.