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Frequently Asked Questions
- Do I need a website?
- What can a website do for me?
- Can I afford a website?
- Why does website development cost what it does?
- Why are logos so expensive?
- What is the difference between you and other web designers?
- Why don't you list your prices?
- What should I look out for while shopping for a web designer?
- Should I go with a standard XHTML website or a flash website?
- What do you mean by "standard XHTML web page?"
- How do you define an "eCommerce web page?"
Do I need a website?
Yes, regardless of the type of business or organization you are, you should have a website. Websites have become just as essential as having a phone, fax machine, or a brochure. Internet advertising is the third largest form of advertising in the world and the fastest growing. Studies show that 75% of Americans spend an average of three hours online each day. More and more people finding that the Internet is the most convenient way to look for a company's telephone number, email address, or information about products and services. This has an effect both on and offline. In 2008, shoppers spent $130 billion online. For businesses that have a traditional storefront, the impact has been even bigger. Forrester Research conducted a study in 2007 that shows that more than half of all consumers research products online before buying at a brick-and-mortar store. They also estimate that 16%, or almost $400 billion, in in-store sales are influenced by Web searches and research. In addition to the statistics, websites come with numerous benefits. Please see What a website can do for you for details. By not having a website for your business, you are not reaching all your potential customers.
What can a website do for me?
There are many benefits to having a website for your business or organization. Here are the main ones:
Get More Business: With a website, your business is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year so that visitors can learn about your business, products, services, and the like.
Gives Your Business Legitimacy: These days people expect businesses to have a website. In a recently conducted local sample poll, 87% of those surveyed said that they expect a business to have a website, with 66% saying the lack of a website "negatively affects" their opinion of a business.
Balances The Playing Field: With a well-designed website, a small business can project the image and professionalism of a much larger company.
Saves You Time And Money: You have a storefront without the cost of rent, employee fees, and other bills associated with owning a traditional storefront. You don't have to worry about employees being rude or making mistakes. In addition, you can save time by posting answers to standard questions so that you or an employee do not waste time repeatedly providing the same information either by phone or in person.
Websites Have The Ability To Reach Far More People: A website allows visitors from all over the world 24/7 access to a business so that they may find the information needed to make a purchasing decision. Convential advertising mediums, such as newspapers, billboards, radio and local TV ads, simply cannot reach further than the immediate area. Because this is true, a business is increasing the value of their dollars spent on advertising when investing in a web presence.
Website Medium Is Versatile: Traditional advertising mediums are limited in terms of either size or duration. Websites can be whatever a business needs them to be. A website can be only a few pages, or it can be infinitely large. Pages can be added or subtracted at will. The medium can also accomodate other mediums such as video, audio, and more.
Websites Magnify Effect Of Other Advertisements: An example of this would be you are limited to what you can put into an ad in the newspaper. Having a website allows you to simply direct potential customers to your website in your newspaper ad. When the person interested in your business goes to your website, there will be much more information available to them. In a way, you have just circumvented the limitation of space in your newspaper ad.
Can I afford a website?
Prices vary a great deal. There are many different variables involved in the pricing for developing a website. However, the primary variables involved are the specifics of the proposed web project, the experience (often determines rates) of the designer or developer, and the fee for hosting the website. Once the website has been produced and launched, it is really quite reasonable in terms of affording monthly web hosting and maintenance fees. For more details or a price quote, please contact me. But when you consider the benefits that even the simplest website can provide a business, the question should not be, "Can I afford a website," but rather "Can I afford not to have a website?"
Why does website development cost what it does?
When designing a custom website, designers undergo an in depth process to plan and prepare a website to go live. The process can be broken down into four phases: Research, conception, development of layouts and graphics, and processing for the web. Research consists of meeting with the client to understand the needs of the project, thoroughly researching the market that the client is involved in (understanding common practices, style, etc.), researching the competition, and potentially looking into any technical processes you are not already familiar with at the client's request. Research needs depend completely on the project at hand. Conception consists of using the research knowledge you've taken in and using it to come up with a design that will best fit the client's needs (perhaps the most difficult task of all the steps). Then physically developing graphics, layouts, and processing the web pages so that they function correctly on the web are the last two parts. This consists of work time in programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver. If the website requires eCommerce solutions, the designer must also program the web pages to communicate with the shopping cart and complete other functions. The process of designing professional websites is a lengthy, complex one.
Why are logos so expensive?
Much like designing websites, logo design takes much time and thought to produce the 'right' logo for a corporate identity. The process is broken down into three phases: Research, conception, and the development of the actual graphics. Unlike other kinds of media, logos must communicate the intended message or idea using just one image. Here's the best way I can describe it: Imagine you have to describe everything a company stands for and you cannot talk, use any sentences, or use more than a single image. Pretty tough, isn't it? Designers must capture the essence of the subject they are depicting in this single image and many times it takes many hours of intense thinking in order to produce such an image. Researching the subject matter becomes critical to potentially understanding a subject you have never come into contact with before being hired for a design project.
Here is the actual design process one graphic designer went through to design his logo: Jacob Cass
What is the difference between you and other web designers?
There are many different answers I could give you here. But the main difference between me and other web designers is that I'm a conceptual designer who uses my communication skills to better communicate who an organization is and what they do. Many sites on the Internet today tend to resemble each other and makes for quite a stale online experience. This is because communication isn't necessarily the designer's primary focus when designing these websites. Sometimes these websites aren't even custom at all. They are templates, which means the site wasn't designed for that business at all. With me, you will get only completely customized designs that are specifically meant to communicate who an organization is and what it does. Because I aim to communicate, I am not necessarily bound to traditional layouts and can thus give you a unique design that gives you an edge over your competitors.
Why don't you list your prices?
There are a couple reasons I do not list my prices. First and foremost, I don't believe in website packages or other pre-determined pricing methods. Every web project is different because every business and organization is different and need to be treated as such. Because every business is different, their websites come with different requirements with different levels of involvement on my part. Obviously, the more required involvement on my part, the more the production of the website will cost.
Second, everything seems to come down to money. Many times people opt for the designer who is the 'lowest bidder" rather than the designer who is right for the job. Also, people who have never commissioned a website before may be surprised at the cost of a quality designed website and how much work actually goes into developing a quality website. For this reason, I prefer to have the ability to talk with potential clients about the difference in value that they are getting with me as opposed to other potential designers. I feel like listing my rates makes for a much higher probability for potential clients to make 'cold' decisions that are based solely on price rather than value. Please see Shopping for a web designer.
What should I look out for while shopping for a web designer?
Here is a short list of things to be aware of while shopping for a web designer:
Designers or developers who can quote prices without knowing your requirements first: Be aware of these freelancers and agencies. There are a lot of them out there. If they can quote you a price without knowing your requirements, they are most likely offering an inferior product. They are most likely going to be giving you a pre-made template that looks like all the other websites they have "designed."
Cheaper is not always better: If life teaches us anything about purchasing products and services, it's that you generally get what you pay for. The same is true with web design services. If you pay cheap, you typically get a cheap looking product. Many times cheaper designers peddle an inferior service that includes costly add-ons later. Many times this includes templates or other open source products that were not developed by the designer. In this field, as in every other field, cheaper is not always better. If you're going to invest your money into something, be sure it's quality in that it's done correctly. Sometimes paying a little more up front can save you a lot more down the road.
Check out the designer's portfolio of work: Before choosing a designer, be sure to check out their portfolio of work. Does the designer's style match your vision? Does their work look professional? Don't be afraid to be very critical of the designer's work. Don't settle for less as you are contracting someone to create the digital face of your business and it may be the first impression a person has of your business.
User confidence: User confidence can be defined as a trust that is established the first time a visitor arrives at a website in order to browse for information, shop for products, or find out who you are. Be sure a designer's work is clean, easy to navigate, and gives you confidence that your visitors will be comfortable on your site. Here's a good way to look at this: If you were a visitor on one of the designer's previous websites and they were selling a product or service on that website, would you feel secure in giving them your credit card information? This is often the difference between people buying products online and leaving the website.
Should I go with a standard XHTML website or a flash website?
I strongly recommend going with a standard XHTML website. The reason I say this is because of this one very simple fact: Studies have shown that the standard user will wait approximately 8-11 seconds for a web page to load before leaving that website. In other words, if your website does not load in that time frame, you've just lost a potential customer. Despite what flash designers will tell you, even the talented ones, flash websites are typically slower to load than traditional websites. Yes, flash designers can make file sizes small in order to make load times shorter. Yes, very few people today use slower connections to the Internet like dial up, which helps accomodate flash. But what they don't tell you is that the end user has more control over your website than the designer does. They can turn flash off on their browser so that they won't even see the website. A similar case would be if the user does not have the correct flash software to run flash. If they do have flash enabled, they may be downloading files whiles trying to view your website, which will severely limit the web page's ability to load due to bandwidth restrictions. Standard websites can also load slowly, but with the proper optimization of images, standard web pages can load more quickly, even with restrictions on bandwidth. I'm not trying to be anti flash as it is a great medium and it does have its purposes, but I'm a firm believer that websites should use flash sparingly.
What do you mean by "standard XHTML web page?"
In short, any web page that does not require extensive programming for things like shopping cart integration. If the web page does not need to be programmed for eCommerce purposes, I consider this to be a standard XHTML web page. Extensive flash or programming work of other kinds may require additional charges.
How do you define an "eCommerce web page?"
This is any web page that requires extra programming for eCommerce purposes (selling products online). Programming web pages with custom settings to communicate with shopping carts from online credit card processors like PayPal can become quite intensive and time consuming. So, basically any web page that has a "Buy Now," "Add to Cart," "Donate," or similar buttons that produce similar functions would be considered an eCommerce web page.
