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How much will it cost to design a site?
We discuss this first because in most cases it may likely determine whether or not you will choose to read beyond this point, and we know that your time is valuable. The key point to remember is that we have yet to find a budget that we could not work within. In that every web design project is unique, we do not have any “canned” pricing. We will meet with you or your representative to discuss your needs, your timeline, and your ability to participate in the project development. Once we have gathered all necessary information, we will provide you with a project development estimate.
Are there any other costs associated with deploying our site to the web?
Usually, yes. You will need to register your unique domain name (URL). That’s the www.whatever.com. This averages about $20.00 per name per year. You will also have to acquire a Hosting Service to host your web site (unless you plan on doing this yourself, which we strongly discourage). Hosting may have a one time setup cost that can run from $25.00 - $100.00, and a monthly fee. These monthly fees run anywhere from $3.95 to over $100.00 per month depending on your needs. The $3.95 plans are usually sufficient unless you plan on
adding e-commerce capability. So you can see, there are some incidental cost involved in setting up your site, but with a little planning and shopping, you should be able to get a domain name and hosting service for less than $100. We can help you with this, or for an additional fee, we would be happy to do it for you. See Domain Names.
How long will it take before I can see our site on the web?
Typically, once we begin actual site design and construction, it takes from 10 to 15 working days to build the average site. If your domain name and hosting is in place when we complete construction, your site will be uploaded to your host server and ready for viewing immediately. Factors that may affect this projected timeline include: 1) your placement in our pending site “build list,” 2) ready availability of content (this comes from you), 3) availability of domain name and hosting service.
Do I have to know any HTML or anything to see my site?
NO. All you need to be able to do is type in your URL (www.whatever.com).
Where does my web site reside?
Ninety-nine percent of the time, sites reside on a hosting service server. This is a remote computer, owned, operated, and maintained by a third party vendor who will charge you a fee for hosting your site. The actual physical location of the server is irrelevant. It can be right here in Colorado, or in Missouri...it doesn’t make any difference. All site information is uploaded electronically from our system directly to your host service. HighCountry WebDesigns can advise you on very affordable web hosting service.
Can I do some of my own updates to my web page?
Unfortunately, this is highly unlikely, unless you were to purchase and learn to use the same design software that we use. We have found that most prefer to have us do that work for them. Each site design includes one year of free reasonable maintenance. The term reasonable means a maximum of 1 limited update per month. After one year, we will be happy to make arrangements to continue this update maintenance under one of our service contracts. This does not mean that you cannot have us update your site content as many times, or as often as you feel necessary. It just means that those additional updates will be accomplished at a nominal rate. Think of us as your own personal web content management team.
How do people find our site on the search engines?
Search engine submission is truly an art form today. Typically, this type of work is accomplished by a third party provider for a monthly fee. These fees can run as little as $9.95 per month or as high as $200 per month depending upon the level of service, and any guarantees of specific ranking that the provider may offer. Major search engines like Yahoo, Google, Infoseek, Alta Vista, are continually changing the methods that they use to rank web sites. What does this mean to a site owner? It means that you will have to stay on top of those changes or pay someone else to do it for you if you want your site to be found in the top 10 or 20 listings on a particular engine. All of our sites are optimized for most of today’s major search engines.
Other methods of getting others to locate your site include: word of mouth, E-mail, direct mail, flyers. We highly encourage you to begin putting your URL (www.whatever.com) on everything official coming from your organization, ie. letterhead, business cards, mailers, packing labels...you get the idea. This will save you bookoo bucks over the cost of search engine submission providers.
How can your web site generate additional revenue for your business or organization?
There are a number of ways to make a buck from your site. Fees for links, banner ads, e-commerce just to name a few. E-commerce is really pretty simple. All you have to do is have a product or service that you want to sell, post it, put a price on it, and design a mechanism for your reader to make the purchase. You would be surprised how many folks we talk to think that this is magic. Maybe that’s what keeps us in business, but in all honesty it’s not that difficult. There are a number of free or nearly free resources on the web to enable the financial transaction as well as the shopping cart experience. PayPal is one of the best, and it’s basic version is free. All you have to do is go to www.paypal.com and set up your account. Once you have an account the information on their site will walk you through the process of putting a link on your site to transact the sale...or you can let us do it for you.
What does your web site say to the world about your organization...that you don’t know it’s saying?
Folks who visit your web site don’t have the advantage of walking into your office or having a cup of coffee with you. These are the events that give another subtle cues about who you are and how you may conduct your business. In today’s Internet environment, your web site says it all, much like your reflection in a mirror. It can say professional or unprofessional, creative or boring, informative or not. Your web site can provide a service to your readers. It can help them to make decisions, place merchandise or service orders, ask you a question. These are but a few of the ways that your web site can provide a service.
I wish I could tell you how many sites a week I visit that leave me wondering, why did they bother? Everyone is in a rush to “get on the web” but many times this headlong rush results in...well let’s call a spade a spade...a train wreck. Many homegrown sites are clearly visible for hastily thrown together text boxes, and photos, with perhaps a piece of clip art thrown in for good measure. Tacky and bulky background graphics are my favorite target, especially those that use a photograph of a bunch of clouds tiled over and over across the page. Think of your web site like your final exam in organic chemistry, a course most of us would prefer to forget, but had to take to graduate. The final typically makes up 50% of your semester grade and you only get one shot at it. One chance to present to someone everything you have learned or know. Once that impression of skill or knowledge has been caste, it’s out there and gone. Your web site is exactly the same. Once someone sees it and the initial impression takes hold, it’s a done deal. What do you want them to see? What do you want your site to say?
How do you establish two-way dialog with your web viewers when everyone else can’t even get the conversation started?
One of the easiest ways is to start a threaded dialog discussion group or initiate a poll. This allows you to ask question and receive measured responses. One of the single greatest mistakes that I see on sites, is a site designed to be a “one-way” conversation. I.e. I’ll tell you what I want you to know and I could care less how you feel about it..like it or lump it. How inconsiderate? How long would a face to face conversation last under the same set of rules?
Two way dialog is a great way to discover what your readers are interested in, what they like about your site and what they don’t like. It is also one of the best ways to get essential feedback that will allow you to improve your web presence. Two-way dialog also allows your readers to identify with you and feel that they are making a contribution. This is essential to building relationships which is a key ingredient in getting your visitors to return to your site.
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