LET’S TALK

My goal is for you to have the very best website possible. If you are looking for the best website design, we should talk!

“How can we move this ball forward?” you might be asking. Well, let’s talk! Feel free to fill out the Web Contact Form available on my site or send me an email or give me a call. Here are a few of the things we should talk about:

It would be very helpful if you try to clarify what your needs and expectations are. Jot them down on paper and really think about it. If you have something specific in mind,this will help me a lot to understand it. If you don’t have anything specific in mind yet, that’s okay too, just write down the functionality you hope to gain from the website build. What do you hope to gain? To serve your customers better, to get new customers through your door, to build good PR, to be able to communicate with groups, to get a message out?

If you were building a house, you would start with a set of plans. Let’s do the same for your new website. The plan is actually a storyboard. It doesn’t have to be beautiful and it can have all kinds of notes and markups on it. That’s actually the whole point–make the set of plans quickly with a pencil and then build the actual site slowly and accurately on the computer. This way we build it once, not several times. Of course there will be edits and changes but we want to try to minimize them with good planning.

The next step is to gather the content. Ultimately you will want text and pictures, preferably well-organized (I know, I know). Electronic versions of these are best. Scanned pictures are not as good as crisp sharp digital photos taken with a good camera. Logos and backgrounds can be found on the web. Electronic documents are best for text–I can copy and paste text from a Word document for example. Photos are best as actual photo files in the following formats: jpg, bmp, png, gif, and a few others. Photos embedded in a Word document are kind of a pain to deal with. In any case, gather it up however you can and make some notes about where you think things could and should go.

Feel free to contact me even if you haven’t done all the homework–I can even help you do it!

Your next question is of course, “How much is this going to cost?” Here’s a quick little analysis:

Domain Name–about $20 per year. If you have a name in mind and it is already taken, you may have to buy it from the owner. This could cost a lot (thousands) or a little. If you already have a site up, you may already have this covered. I can get you the name you need quickly and easily.

Hosting and Site Maintenance–figure at least $20 per month for this. I’ll take care of updating your content, backups, program and plugin updates, and making sure everything is working.

Web Design–initial cost for site development. This really depends on how extensive your site will be, but a good starting point would be $300. 

Site Revisions–incidental updates are included in Site Maintenance above. More extensive revisions are at additional cost.

Special Features–some things just cost to implement–to buy the particular template or subscribe to a service, etc. We’ll have to work this out if and when it comes up.

What about those special deals I hear on the radio? Please, listen to the “fine print” about “surrendering the rights to the site unless otherwise purchased.” Also remember, “If it sounds too good to be true…” I’m not really competing with them anyway as I’m offering a superior service. I just want you to know that you are better off working with someone that actually cares about you and your site and will move heaven and earth to see to it that your site is a smashing success.

If you do want to build your own site at the lowest possible price, I can help you set up a site that you will design and maintain. If you would like more time and expertise, I am happy to accommodate.

Feel free to fill out the Web Contact Form available on my site or send me an email or give me a call.