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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) 418-3013.
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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