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HOW
MUCH DOES IT COST?
Well,
that's a huge variable. If you're hungry, how much does
it cost to get something to eat? Do you just want a
bottle of soda and maybe a burger from the dollar menu
at the local fast food place? Or are you looking for
a seven course meal at the most expensive place in town,
because nothing else will do? It's the same way with
website construction. A quick one-page fix on an existing
site won't run you much, but if you want the whole 78
page website torn apart and completely re-done, that's
a different story. And like building a new house vs.
remodeling, there's a point where it's cheaper to tear
everything down and start from scratch. We'll be happy
to look at your project and let you know.
Our
design and maintenance fees are $60 an hour (billable
in quarter hour increments), and that's inexpensive
for what you might pay elsewhere. A simple six page
custom website, with a three year hosting package, domain
name, and up to 20 email addresses with autoresponders
and forwarding will run about $800 turnkey, but that's
not a firm quote. We need to look at exactly what you
want on these pages and determine what type of plug-ins
and gizmos may be needed to make it all work correctly.
Our quotes are always free, and we'll spell out what
is (and is not) included in the price. Call us, write,
or e-mail us for specific information.
WHAT
DO YOU USE TO BUILT IT?
Our
main software products are Marcomedia Dreamweaver and
Marcomedia Fireworks, now part of the Adobe family
of web design products. We also have Microsoft Frontpage,
mainly to deconstruct and rebuild sites that were originally
built with this proprietary software, and we have Serif
Web Plus X2, but haven't used it much. There are a number
of back room programs we have to animate our graphics
and produce video, so those are available as needed
to complete a more involved project.
WHY
CAN'T I JUST BUILD IT MYSELF?
You
can. You can build your own house from scratch without
using a contractor, and you can pull the transmission
from your automobile and fix it in your driveway without
the hassle of going to an auto repair shop, and you
can even represent yourself in court without calling
an attorney. You can also screw it all up and end up
costing yourself more time, money, and headaches than
if you hired a professional to do it right the first
time.
There
are a number of "rent-a-template" companies
out there who offer a series of generic websites for
a monthly fee. You type in your information, select
a background and font color, upload pictures, and their
software creates your website. These templates can be
helpful for people who have the time to build a website
but don't have the technical background or the experience
to create a custom, one-of-a-kind web presence. Templates
are okay, but the biggest issues are the inherent limitations
of the template software (such as, each page can only
hold one or two pictures and they have a designated
position that can't be changed, or all navigation must
be on the left side of the screen with no exceptions)
and the fact that a number of businesses will have the
same general appearance as your business's website.
If you already own web design software and you're comfortable
using it, you know what you want on your website, you
have an "eye" for making a website look good,
and you have the free time to put everything together
and make it work ... then, by all means, save yourself
the money and build your own website. No hard feelings.
But if you're not totally comfortable with website and
graphic design software, or if you just don't have the
time to sit down and establish a professional web presence
for your business or organization, then give us a call
at (740) 384-6111. Our toll-free number is 1-800-579-9222.
We're willing to work within budgets and timelines,
and we can normally do the job cheaper and faster, especially
if your time has a dollar figure attached and is factored
into the equation.
BUT
I HAVE THIS COUSIN WHO BUILT A WEBSITE FOR A CLASS HE
TOOK IN SCHOOL ...
If
you're considering the Friends and Family Plan for website
design, I'd recommend examining your prospective webmaster's
credentials and past work just like you would with any
outside vendor. What does this person really know and
what can they do? What other websites have they built?
What do the websites look like? Are you happy with the
quality of their work? Are the previous customers happy
with the work your friend/web designer did for them?
These are fair questions you'd ask me or any other commercial
website designer. Can you get a written quote along
with a time deadline? Is the software this person uses
compatible with current HTML and XML web design standards?
Having your website built with an obsolete program like
FrontPage '97 or Sitemill will certainly be a problem
in a few years. And the most important question: Is
this person going to be around long enough to finish
this job, even if it takes several months, and will
they be available to keep your website fresh and the
content updated for the forseeable future? You'd be
surprised at how many websites don't get built on time,
or at all, or when it's time for that six month update,
your original web designer moved out of mom's house
to live with his cousin at the beach for the summer.
Not all experiences with friends and family are bad,
though. Just do your homework. If you get satisfactory
answers to all these questions, then you've probably
got a great deal.
A
WORD OF CAUTION
If
you choose to build your own website or allow someone
else (an employee, family member, or friend, for example)
to build it, make sure the target audience is identified
and that you have control of the end product. We regularly
remodel and rebuild homemade websites that, to be very
honest, were designed for the original webmaster's personal
tastes and level of capability rather than for the organization
the website represents and their intended audience.
We
scrapped and rebuilt a website several years ago for
a small law enforcement agency. The original site had
been built by a nephew of one of the officers. Aside
from a handful of broken links and pictures that weren't
sized correctly, a lot of the information the department
wanted was still on the website and was still good.
But the background was heavy metal diamond plate, like
a running board on a tractor-trailer. The (top of the
page) banner lettering was neon green with a hot pink
drop shadow and calling up the index page automatically
triggered a sound file that played "bad boys,
bad boys, what'cha gonna do", as in the theme
from the COPS television series. The department, regionally
respected for it's professionalism, was projecting a
very different image on their website. In fact, this
website was listed on official stationery and business
cards, and was referenced in written correspondence
with news media, state lawmakers, and even on Federal
grant applications. What impression would those people
have of this law enforcement agency after viewing the
department's official website?
WHAT
SHOULD I DO BEFORE I CONTACT A WEBSITE DESIGNER?
Good
question. The most important thing is to have a rough
idea about what you want. Do you already have a website
that needs some remodeling? Do you want a brand new
basic, informational website with less than six pages,
or are you looking for a web store, complete with all
the e-commerce goodies, like encrypted credit card purchasing,
automatic shipping rate calculation, and one click ordering?
Do you already have a domain name, or will you need
one? How many email addresses will you need? Do you
have a special logo or company colors that must be used
in the website? Write all this down and use it to define
exactly what you want and need. Don't forget to include
important features like search engine submission and
a rough idea on how often the site, once completed,
would need to be updated.
Next,
visit a few websites of businesses that do what you
do. You can search Google.com or Yahoo! or any other
search engine to do this. Start with local competitors
(it always helps to know what your cross-town rivals
have and don't have) then search nationally. Write down
what you like and don't like about each website you
visit. Is the website hard to navigate? Do you hate
(or love) the colors, or the use of photos, or the font
style they use? Can you get a good idea about what the
business does by reading the first page? Is contact
information readily available on every page, or do you
need to dig for it? Is a site map or master directory
available for larger websites? How about a "site
search" feature? How many pages do they use to
fully present the company's offerings? Most clients
are amazed at how many questions are answered by following
these free and simple steps. Doing your homework normally
reduces the consulting and first revision time considerably,
which results in a money savings for you.
SIGNS
OF A POORLY DESIGNED WEBSITE:
- Not
keeping it simple. Today's website users want
functionality and a subtle yet unmistakable professionalism.
Garish, overpowering backgrounds (think about most
MySpace pages) and big, mismatched fonts are the
mark of a rank amateur. Think clean, bright, and easy
to use.
- Poor
digital imaging. Pictures that are out of focus
or out of proportion, with smashed heads and long
chins, pixellated graphics, and logos and photos that
take forever to download because they were never optimized
for the internet. Somebody doesn't know what they're
doing.
- Navigation
that goes nowhere. If you click it, it should
work.
- Fonts
that change in the middle of a sentence. A nice
clean Calibri font abruptly changing to Times New
Roman halfway through the paragraph just screams "my
11 year old son made this website just before he went
out to ride his bike".
- You
can't remember where you came from. Each page
of the website should be consistently branded with
the company name and logo, as well as basic contact
information. The entire website should have a common
theme, with common colors used throughout, and a navigation
system located in the same place on every page.
- Failure
to test on every platform. Just because your website
looks good on your computer doesn't mean it looks
good on everybody's computer. There are different
operating systems (Mac or PC), different browsers
(Internet Explorer, Netscape, Opera, Firefox, Mozilla,
et al), and different screen resolutions which can
radically alter your website's appearance and may
actually cause some of your functions to stop working.
A good web designer will test your website in a variety
of platforms and conditions and optimize it for clean
and functional operation.
- Domain
name/email agreement. If your website is mybusiness.com,
then your business email address should be something
like me@mybusiness.com.
Don't use some third party email service and publish
it, like fredis2cool4u@hotmail.com
as your business contact address. Even if you want
your email to terminate in a Yahoo! or Hotmail or
Local ISP email address, a knowledgable website designer
can create a mail forwarding account that receives
everything under your business domain name, then sends
it on to your 'unpublished' email account.
- Horizontal
Scrolling. While it's common to scroll up and
down a webpage, you should NEVER have to scroll left
to right from the bottom of your screen. The usual
culprit is either improperly formatted text or a picture
or graphic that's too big for the page.
- Generic
clip art and moving, flashing, blinking, waving, oscillating
Animated GIF things. Hey, 1996 called. They
want their website back. Most of this ancient
stuff is so outdated, I'm surprised it works anymore.
No one, and I repeat: NO ONE uses this stuff
on a professionally designed business website in 2010.
- Overuse
of Flash and/or Animation. A little dab'll do
ya. Don't go overboard. Flash was never designed for
the internet anyway, and many parts of the country
still experience long download times associated with
dial-up internet service. If these folks have to wait
five minutes to view the first page of your website,
they're gone - and you just wasted your money...
- An
outdated website. As a general rule, a website
should be updated every six months, or sooner, depending
on the product or service you offer. This is especially
important if you have price or merchandise changes,
if an employee (listed on your website) leaves the
company or if you hire someone new, or if you have
newsworthy or seasonal information that will be obviously
outdated at a certain point (EXAMPLE: A Christmas
sale still on your website in April). This
is the most frequent "violation" by businesses
who actually hire a professional to design the original
site and get it up and running. Please
consider a maintenance contract or hire someone on
an as-needed basis to freshen up your little corner
of cyberspace on a regular basis. Your website is
your 24/7 worldwide salesperson. Always put your best
foot forward!
MORE
COMING LATER!
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