25 March 2010
These are typically one of the first questions asked by many of our clients, and they are good questions.
These questions, however, can be as vague as asking “how much will a home cost?” or “how much does a car cost?” Websites, like cars and homes, can appear simple on the surface, but under the hood can be very complex. Websites, like most everything, can be a “what you pay for is what you get” type of product, but that doesn’t mean a person who wants a family blog should pay as much as a large company’s online marketing campaign either.
In other words, there is also the question of “what should a ________ website cost?” fill the blank in with the type of website needed. This question can only be answered by having an idea of the website scope and goal, getting some bids, and doing some research.
Here are a list of questions we usually ask when bidding a website:
- What type of website is it?
Examples: blog, small business, educational, non-profit, social networking, online store, e-commerce, etc…
- What is the purpose of the website?
Examples: marketing campaign, informational, product sells, product development, personal, socializing, etc…
- What is the scope of the website?
Examples: pages quantity, shopping cart, user login, contact form or other interactive forms, photo gallery, slide show, animated effects, video, quantity of content, search engine optimization etc…
- Will a content management system be necessary?
This is better understood by asking…. will you, the client, need the ability to edit your own content?
- How much custom design work will be necessary for your site?
Examples: logos, layout, ad marketing, banners, etc…
- Will database be necessary?
Examples: product database, user login and information database, blogging database, etc…
- Who will manage the website?
- Will there be a need for security?
- What type of hosting will be necessary?
A majority of these questions can be difficult to answer at first, but with the help of a good web company… none of them should go unanswered. Also, depending on the purpose and scope of the website other questions can and usually arise.
After reviewing the above question, the best of all questions is:
- Does the website need to be found, usable, recognizable, and accessible?
This may sound like the simplest question of all and is usually answered “Yes, of course!”
If answered “No” then rejoice with happiness, this website costs absolutely nothing! Meaning, this is the key cost of a website, and it is what a website company should provide. With great customer service too of course!
26 January 2010
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Competition
Your competitors likely have one! If they do not it is very important to have one before them. Competition can be fierce, especially in a hard economy. Take any marketing edge possible to out do your competition
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Company Information
Websites are the most brilliant form of exploiting your company info; by far better then any brochure. It’s dynamic, ever changing, and, if done right, fun to look at. Everyone wants to know how your business differs from your competitor; a website is the best way of telling them.
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Better Now Then Later
One of the toughest things about search engines, such Google, is that it can take months to get good rankings. The longer a business waits to build a live website, the harder it is to get better rankings then their competitors. It is literally almost half the battle! If your competitors do not have a website then beat them to the punch!
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24 Hour Information
It doesn’t matter what time it is. Any information posted on website is available to everyone 24 hours, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. With time harder and harder to come by more and more people rely on the web to look up information whenever they need it.
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Cheap
Websites now are cheaper then ever! Like buying a car….there hundreds of options, but with more competition then ever website companies have figured out ways of making it more economical for their customers. It will likely cost less then phone book, tv, or even radio advertisement!
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Easily Updated
With content management systems there are options for quick updates to any site. When any other form of advertisement is either printed or published it is very hard to update them. Website editing is a snap and can be done by you any time. Imagine the possibilities: daily specials or coupons, company news daily, product updates, photo galleries, client feedback and the list could go on and on!
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Contact Information
People can find a way to contact you via phone, email, contact forms, instant messaging, Facebook, Twitter…if there is way to contact your business it will be on your website. No other form of advertising has this option!
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The Internet is Global
Not all website businesses need to be found globally, but it is nice to always have that option. For those that do, it is absolutely essential that they are. People that arrive to a new place, whether it be tourists or new residents, they are using the internet more now then ever to find everything! Imagine your business without a sign out front. If you don’t have a website and people are searching, they wont know you exist.
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Professional
If your business has a website and it looks and feels professional…to your customer it will be more professional. If your business is not on the web, people now days will think it is small and insignificant. All large professional companies have a website. Better to start competing now.
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It Is Happening Now
For many companies, especially those relying on local markets, it hasn’t always been necessary. Now, however, is a whole different story. It is 2010…the internet is happening now and fast. Do not get left in the dust and be wondering what happened. Imagine if there was a resistance to having a telephone numbers 20 years after phones were in operation…imagine your business without a telephone! Website are the new form of business communication.
J Man Design Group
is dedicated to designing and building websites the way they should be…cost effective and professional. Even if your company already has a website… does it need to be updated, re-designed, or re-done all together. If your not getting the results expected then it is time for a change. To find out more about what we offer view our about page or for a list of services or feel free to contact us with any questions.
5 October 2009
We’re proud to introduce one of our latest projects in the works: The Westin Williams & Family blog. Yes, yes, this isn’t for a client it’s ours the Williams family blog, but it has been a fun project and we’re especially proud of it. We’re yet to start any coding it; We are in fact just finishing up some of the design. We will be posting an update soon on the coding progress and possible challenges of developing this kind of design.
WordPress will again be our blog CMS of choice. We will be using a jQuery slider of sorts for the “Latest News” portion of the home page and also likely for pagination and possibly other fun things.
We are anticipating a few CSS challenges with the website design, but it will be fun to see it come together. The bottom half (the grass) will be a fixed div and the header and main content will be scrollable. There are a lot rounded corners which always fun to slice and dice. It would be nice if CSS3 was fully supported for this reason.
The overall goal of Westin’s blog is to show potential clients a diversified portfolio. We work very hard with every website or blog to not only be original, but also to stay within good fundamental design and coding practices.
30 July 2009
Creating photo galleries for websites can be a bit of a challenge. Every website is unique in ways that some photo galleries integrate with them beautifully, others however, depending on the quantity of photos, design and so forth the right photo gallery is just hard to find. If the budget allows it the best option is to design and develop it from scratch to ensure perfect compatibility, but lets face it not many budgets these days pay enough to justify spending the time for custom galleries.
For our latest clients site, 7L Outfitters, after scouring the internet for pre-designed and developed photo galleries we decided to integrate Slidefow as the photo gallery. I decided to write a post on some of the positive and negative points we found to this photo gallery. Also as a good source for anyone looking Nettuts+ has great post called ″50 Excellent Image Galleries You Can Use Today″ for gallery scripts and frameworks. Read more
8 June 2009
Welcome to our new and improved website re-design. We seek to improve on every working project we do even if it is our own. Check back frequently for some more and exciting updates.
