Frequently Asked Questions

We will meet with you initially to get a good understanding of your requirements – we prefer to do this face to face – and will always try to propose a solution that MINIMISES your costs. With a good understanding of what you want, we’ll provide a full written quotation. We will also produce a draft page if it helps in the decision-making process! We are always clear on what we expect YOU to provide and what WE will provide.

Once we start to build your site, if possible (dependent on type and complexity of the web site), we will give you access so that you can view ‘work in progress’ at your convenience – we find this helps customers to get the confidence they need that good progress is being made and to provide good, prompt feedback if changes need to be made.

When the site is complete we’ll hand it over in full as a ‘live’ site – we’ll help you to upload it yourself if you’d like. We are also happy to set up email addresses and email client accounts to match.

How long is a piece of string?!
This obviously depends on size and complexity of the project and on prompt delivery of, or input on, site content which the customer has agreed to provide.
A straightforward project can be delivered in a matter of days – something more complex may take 4-6 weeks.

We used to provide costs for ‘standard’ packages but it quickly became apparent that nothing is ‘standard’! Costs will be dependent on the number of pages, the type of content, the degree of customisation and a host of other factors. Costs will be fully detailed in our written quotation.

We make sure that OUR CUSTOMERS own their domain names (the www.mywebsite address) NOT US. We have come across too many individuals and businesses that run into difficulties because their required domain name was never actually registered to THEM!

Where customers DO ask us to register and hold domain names for them, we undertake to transfer these as required in the future at no cost.

We can advise on appropriate domain names and help you register them, or register them for you and transfer them into your hosting package.

We always use reputable, well-known third party web hosting companies for our clients web sites – we do NOT host sites ourselves. Hosting requires expensive specialist equipment to ensure that the necessary standards of security, reliability and availability are met and we would be unable to do this at a competitive cost. We can discuss your requirements with you and recommend an appropriate hosting company and package.

BEWARE!
Some web design ‘companies’ who offer hosting do so from home-based PCs running via their home ‘phone line! Make sure you ask how hosting is managed, what level of availability and reliability is guaranteed, and how they ensure that your site is secure.

You may be thinking about setting up a new web hosting account or you may already have one for an existing web site.
Different accounts offer different features…….If you are not sure what you need, or whether your existing package will provide the features that you’ll need to support the changes and improvements that you wish to make, then we are quite happy to talk this through with you.
We can discuss your requirements with you and recommend an appropriate hosting company and package.

CMS stands for ‘Content Management System’.

If you want to be able to have partial or complete control over the content of your site then you’ll want a CMS.
An Administrators Interface gives you access to all pages and elements so that you can add new information, update or delete existing, add & remove photos – the list goes on.
If you would like to see a demonstration so that you can fully understand how a CMS works then contact us to arrange something.

Customers often ask about the difference between Static, Dynamic and Interactive web site content.

Static pages provide text, photos and other content which is ‘hard-coded’ into the pages. All visitors will see the same content and if changes are required the original code needs to be modified.

Dynamic content can include ‘moving’ elements – banners, slideshows, video, audio – and page content which is automatically updated from external files (Facebook and Twitter feeds for example).

Interactive features such as Google maps and calendars take user actions and make something happen.

A responsive web site is one that automatically adapts to display effectively on multiple devices – desktop PCs, tablets, smart phones etc. The appearance will be slightly different dependent on the type of device used to access the web site.

‘SEO’ stands for Search Engine Optimisation.
When we build your site we do all that we can to make it ‘search engine friendly’ and we will submit your site for inclusion in all the major search engines. This doesn’t guarantee a good ranking but it certainly helps.
We can advise on, and assist with, additional marketing measures to improve ranking if position is critical to your business.