Web design in
st neots, huntingdon, cambridge, peterborough, cambridgeshire, london,
east anglia, all of the uk
Here are some questions that you might want to ask us.
Why do I need
a website
The internet is a huge directory to which more and more people are
turning to find any sort of information. If you are a
business, charity or organisation you really should have a website
so that people can easily find out what you do and how to contact
you.
Businesses without a website are missing out on a lot of potential
opportunity for trade.
What will a
website cost?
Provided that you don't opt to go mad on the design, a
website is actually quite a cheap way of advertising.
For an indication of Page Perfection charges, please see
our
pricing page but it is important that you read all our
terms and conditions for a clearer idea of our pricing
structure. From this you will see that cost is dependent not
only on the size of your website but on your input.
If you choose to provide all text and photos it will be considerably
cheaper than if you want us to do so.
What are the
Page Perfection payment terms?
We don't usually ask for any up-front payment. Our
normal arrangement is to invoice you once the site is up and running
but please see our
terms and conditions for full details.
Why shouldn’t
I do my own web design or get a friend to do it?
With web design experience or the desire to learn there is
no reason why you or a friend shouldn't build your site but, be
warned, it is no-where near as straightforward as it may seem!
There are plenty of people about with graphic design ability and
there is web design software that can take a lot of the hard work
out of using those skills to build a presentable website but will
the site then work as it should in the various browser types and in
different screen resolutions (see
q9)? Even more
importantly, will anyone be able to find your site?
There is no substitute for technical knowledge and experience.
Why should I
use Page Perfection?
. You will find our customer
service second to none! See our
Testimonials.
. We will listen to what YOU want and design to meet
YOUR requirements.
. We take great care in our work.
. Not only do we have years of experience of web
design and general computer technology but we are also able to offer
advice on how best to promote your particular business, through your
website.
. Our designs are CSS (Cascading
Style Sheets) based and follow guidelines set by the governing body
of the web - the World
Wide Web Consortium. They meet at least level 1 'accessibility'
requirements and are cross
browser and screen resolution compatible, with the added
advantage that they can be easily redesigned when you feel it's time
for a change.
. To ensure your site is found when searched, we keep
up to date with Search Engine Optimisation
methods and include this service at no extra charge.
. Our rates are not the cheapest but are very
reasonable for the quality of work.
Don’t all
professional web designers follow the same rules?
There is a tendency for professional graphic designers to
venture into web design without any real technical knowledge.
They may design great looking sites but those sites are often based
on outdated, much simpler, methods of web design which can fall far
short of the W3C standards (see q7 below) that you should expect
from a professional designer.
Some designers do no Search Engine Optimisation
on your site, meaning that it has little chance of being found
through a search.
The danger is that you could pay professional rates for an amateur
job that's not doing what it's meant to do - properly advertising
your business on the web.
What’s so important about following W3C guidelines?
W3C lays down rules to make the internet run as smoothly as
possible and to make it accessible to all users. With the ever
growing number of sites on the 'net it is gradually becoming clogged
and is slowing down. W3C sets standards for web design that,
as well as making sites user-friendly for disabled people, aims to
reduce bandwidth use, ensure
cross browser compatibility and improve user experience for all.
What's
‘accessibility’ all about and why does my site have to comply?
The Disability Discrimination Act makes it
illegal to have an inaccessible website.
Please see our
accessibility page for further detail.
What's 'cross browser
compatibility' and why is it important?
'Internet Explorer' is built into 'Windows' and is thus the
most widely used internet browser, but there are several other
popular ones, e.g. Firefox, and some that are specially designed for
disabled users. Because people not only use different browsers
(which use different technology and treat coding differently), there
are various versions around (despite most of them being free, people
don't necessarily upgrade very quickly) and a site needs to be
readable in as wide a range as possible.
I don’t see
anything I particularly like in your portfolio; how will I know you
can design what I want?
Design is subjective so we ask you to provide the url (web
address) of a couple of sites that you like the look of and let us
know your preferred colour scheme, in order to get an idea of your
taste.
Although copyright law (see q19) means that
you cannot replicate another site or do anything too similar (unless
you have permission from the site owner) we will work closely with
you to incorporate some of the design features that appeal to you
into something unique that meets your requirements.
Please see our
terms and conditions for further information.
I’m concerned
about using a company that’s not in my area. How will we communicate
effectively?
We have designed sites for several people who we have never
met, some of whom have limited computer experience. This has
not been a problem because we are happy to spend time on the phone
with you.
We have web-space available to put design mock-ups on-line and for
the website to be temporarily hosted during development, which means
that discussions can take place while both parties are viewing the
work and simple amendments can even be made at the time.
Can I have
interactive content, such as a forum, on my site?
Tell us what you want and we will let you know if that's
something we can do for you. The answer is likely to be 'yes'.
Do you do
e-commerce sites?
Yes, this is something we can look at doing for you.
I would like
to get a quote, where do I go from here?
Our
pricing page gives a rough guide to costs.
The next step is to think about what you may want on your
site and what you expect from it, then take a look at questions
2 and 10, including our
terms and conditions .
After you have some idea about your requirements please
contact us.
Your terms
and conditions seem a bit rigid - why is that?
We need to both cover ourselves and protect our clients. In
practice we are far more flexible than they would suggest.
What do I
need to provide for my site?
Your cheapest option is to provide us with all content -
text and photos - including your logo and anything, such as
brochures or publicity materials, on which you would like to see
your site based. This should be in electronic format, wherever
possible.
Option 2 is to provide all but the photos (if you want any), which
we can source for you.
See questions 17 and 18 below for options 3 and 4.
I’m not sure
what I should include in my website; will you advise me?
We are more than happy to give advice and assistance to
ensure that your website contains all appropriate information.
Although our
terms and conditions ask that you provide your input under page
headings we will advise if we think alternative headings or
placement of content is more suitable.
I’ve no time
to put together the content for my website; can you do everything
for me?
Although you may be very busy, you know your business
better than anyone so it is always best if you can make the time to
think about and put together at least a rough wording for the site -
we can précis it or tidy up the grammar and spelling, if necessary.
We can do it all for you but there is no way that we can give more
than a very rough indication of cost for such a service.
Copyright – what, if anything, do I need to know/do about this?
Copyright law forbids using text or graphics from another
website or any other copyrighted material without permission of the
copyright owner.
In situations where you provide images, text, animations or any
other content for your website you are legally responsible for
ensuring that this material does not infringe any copyright.
If we become aware of a copyright infringement by a client we will
refuse to use the items supplied and will make a charge for any
additional work involved in updating the site with replacements.
Where we supply photos, we try to use open source material, wherever
possible but certain images provided by Page Perfection in the
construction of the website may have been purchased, under licence,
from stock image suppliers. These images are generally only licensed
for use on a single website and may not be used in publicity
material. The website owner is legally responsible for ensuring that
this does not happen. If you wish to use any images from the site
for other purposes please contact us for clarification.
What else
will I need, apart from the site itself and can you arrange any
necessary extras for me?
If you don't already have one, you will need a domain name
and you will require hosting for your site. We can arrange
these for you - please see 20 and 21 below.
Can you set
up a domain name for me and how much will it cost?
We use UKReg for all domain registrations as it is
advisable to have registration and hosting with different suppliers
(in case there is a problem with the hosting service).
UKReg
has been in business for several years and has proved reliable as
well as being one of the cheapest. For a .co.uk domain name
they charge just £2.95 pa (min 2 years) + VAT.
We are happy to set up the domain for you, at cost, on the
understanding that our
terms and conditions apply.
Do you
provide hosting for my site and, if so, what is the cost?
We can supply reliable hosting (guaranteed up-time of
99.95% but is usually 100%) that we independently monitor.
The cost varies from £35 to £100 per annum, depending on the size of
your site and whether you need e-mail. Only a very large site
is likely to be at the high end.
I have
existing hosting. Can I continue to use that?
Yes but please note that uploading to some web hosting services can
be a painful process and we may have to make an additional charge if
we encounter difficulties.
I shall need
an e-mail address, is that included?
In order to supply you with an e-mail address or addresses
we will need to provide the hosting service. Just let us know
if you want e-mail when requesting a quote.
Will I be
able to update my site myself?
We do plan to introduce a content management system at some
stage but, for the present, we tend to discourage client updating
because it can easily throw the coding out.
As this is our choice, we are prepared to do the occasional, small
amendment to the text or change a photo, free of charge, certainly
in the first year.
In practise, we find that although clients may start out with the
intention of updating their site frequently they are far too busy to
actually do so.
What about
future support?
The website is provided as a fully functioning, completed
work. Unless otherwise agreed and apart from the occasional small
update, mentioned in 23 above, Page Perfection is not responsible
for future support.
Ongoing support can normally be provided upon request, for an agreed
fee, or updates can be done as and when required, at the current
hourly rate.
If you are using our web hosting service and a problem occurs with
that we will, of course, assist at no additional charge, although we
reserve the right to make a charge if the problem turns out to be at
your end.
What’s
Search Engine Optimisation and/or how does Page Perfection deal with
this?
Page Perfection keeps up to date with SEO techniques and
will do its best to ensure that your site is ‘search engine
friendly’. The process includes producing an xml sitemap, which
search engines use to index web sites. Most search engines will
eventually find your site but, to speed up the process, your site
will be manually submitted to three of the most popular UK search
engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN.
N.B. We are not responsible for any on-going web site promotion.
Should you require this service a separate contract must be agreed.
Will my site
appear in Google as soon as it’s up and running?
We have a good record of obtaining high rankings but we
cannot guarantee this. Despite adverts to the contrary, no-one can.
The process is entirely at the
discretion of the search engine company management.
Please note that, although with manual submission it tends to be
quicker, it can take several weeks or even months for a site to be
listed. Other factors, completely beyond our control, such as high
quality links into the site, now play a big part in page ranking. We therefore recommend that, once your site is up and running, you
pursue such links.
We can offer consultancy on effective website promotion for your
particular business, which may include non-web-based methods.
See our
SEO page for further information.
Please feel free to get in touch if you have further questions that are not answered here.