Here's some frequently asked questions. Click on the question to go to the
answer.
If you don't find the answers you need contact
us
Who will maintain my site and how much will it cost?
How will you help people find my website?
Andy Levett has spent the last ten years working as a designer/editor on a daily newspaper. The qualities required in this job are accuracy, visual and emotional appeal and hitting deadlines - exactly what you want for your website.
In recent years Andy has become increasingly interested in web design and learned HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver, Flash, Fireworks, Photoshop etc.
Alison Bramham trained as a journalist and reported for newspapers in Horsham, York and Middlesbrough before moving into Public Relations where she has worked for the last seven years. She is married to Andy.
Yes. Your quote normally includes a domain name and hosting for the first 12 months. However if you make your own arrangements we will offer an approriate discount.
A domain name is the address of your website such as www.yourname.co.uk. If you want to see if your chosen name is available click here.
A web host is the computer - known as a server - where your website lives. There are free hosts around who generally put their own adverts on your site (if they claim to be ad-free there is generally some other less obvious catch such as selling your email address to spammers).
Yes. Our professional backgrounds include writing copy and editing other people's so if you provide the information we will do as much or as little as is necessary to turn that raw material into a harmonious informative whole. There's no extra charge for this and we believe it is one of our biggest assets.
Step One - Contact us by email or using the order/inquiry form.
You have two choices.
Either: Send us a short description of your project. Together we can review the details, specific requirements and the end result you want for your site. We'll then provide you with a quote for the total cost of your site creation.
Or: If your proposed site fits the criteria of option 1 or option 2 in the prices section of this site you can use the order/inquiry form to provide all the information we need to start work on your website straight away.
Step Two - We need your insight.
You have vital information about your business, your customers, your likes and dislikes that will make your site a success.
In order to make the exchange of information quick and easy, please fill in as much information as you think is relevant on the order/inquiry form.
It will help you define your goals and vision for your site while giving us insight into your individual taste and style.
Step Three - Make a deposit
We require a deposit of £75 or 10% of the site price, whichever is the greater. (For large projects we reserve the right to agree a different payment schedule). You can use Visa, Mastercard etc through Paypal or, in the UK, a cheque.
Step Four - Provide us with feedback
We will put some or all of your pages (depending on site size) onto a temporary server so you can see what they look like and suggest any changes.
For big projects we will provide you rough drafts for viewing at an early stage. Your feedback will help us to determine which direction to take.
Step Five - Launch
Once everything has been approved by you, we will require the balance of your payment. We will then upload your site to the Web and double check its functionality.
If you want to do your own site maintenance and updates we recommend Macromedia Contribute. Revisions before launch are, of course, free as are subsequent occasional minor changes such as prices.
For more substantial changes we will provide a firm, competitive quote before beginning the work.
If you have a holiday cottage site or similar, updating the availability checker is currently free. Notify us of bookings by email and we will normally update your site within 24 hours. Subsequent years maintenance cost £50 per annum, including production and uploading of new pages (for 2007, 2008 etc).
Once you have provided images and text, typically one to six weeks depending on the size of the project and our other commitments.
We will give you an estimated completion date at the start of the project and regular email updates.
Our prices include submission to the most important search engines - Google (most popular, provides searches for other big names like BBCi) and Yahoo.
To ensure your site gets a good ranking on search engines we optimise keywords and page titles.
If you are considering other strategies such as pay-per-click advertising or banner advertising on other sites we can advise, construct and implement an effective campaign.
Once you're on the search engines as detailed above that's half the battle but there's other things you can do.
Take a look at these ideas. Some may not apply to you but others could be useful
Add your URL to everything.
Make sure your Web site is listed on all your business cards, letterhead, advertising, other websites etc.
Sign your emails.
Most email programs have a signature option. Add your web site url to the signature so that it is included with every e-mail you send out.
Place an ad in a newspaper or magazine.
It may be appropriate to change or increase your existing advertising strategy now you have a website.
Place an ad on the web.
Pay-per-click services like Google's adwords select and Overture are highly-targeted and easy to control.
Cross-link.
Scan the Internet for other web sites that are related to your business or that would benefit from your business. Contact the owner and ask if they would provide a link to you on their web pages, offering to provide a link on your web pages back to them. Links to you on sites the search engines regard as high-quality are very important to good search engine rankings.
Write articles.
Write about fresh and exciting ideas that relate to your business. Submit them to article archive sites whose traffic is newsletter and ezine publishers. Your articles should contain your web site address and a brief bio.
Join a forum.
There are thousands of Internet groups that relate to all different kinds of interests and businesses. This is a great way to get acquainted with people who may become valuable contacts for you in the future.
Design a flyer.
Design an eye-catching flyer and include tear-off tags with your Web site information. Put it on noticeboards in your community. Try supermarkets, community centres or libraries.
Have a window or bumper sticker designed.
Include your business name and web site address to adorn your vehicle. Maybe send some out to clients or offer them as a freebie from your site.
Spam - unwanted and indiscriminate emails - seems to be getting worse all the time. People use email harvester robots that search websites for email addresses then those addresses get bombarded with junk emails.
To stay one step ahead of the spambots email addresses on this site - and the site we create for you - are semi-encoded using a special Dreamweaver extension that makes no sense to most spambots but still functions for your clients. Also, good web hosts block known spambots from accessing their servers.
Here's some more general advice from Yahoo:
Never respond to unsolicited email (i.e., spam). To the individuals who send spam, one response or "hit" among thousands of mailings is enough to justify the practice.
Never respond to the spam email's instructions to reply with the word "remove" unless you trust the company sending the email. This is a ploy to get you to react to the email and will alert the sender that your email address is open and available to receive mail, which greatly increases its value. If you reply, your address may be placed on more lists, resulting in more spam.
Never click on a URL or web site address listed within a spam email. This could alert the site to the validity of your email address, potentially resulting in more spam.
Never sign up with sites that promise to remove your name from spam lists. Although some of these sites may be legitimate, more often than not, they are address collectors. The legitimate sites are ignored (or exploited) by the spammers, and the address collection sites are owned by spammers. In both cases, your address is recorded and valued more highly because you have just identified that your address is active.