Getting an Affordable Web Site Design

By M Goudelock

If you are on a tight budget, there are many ways to get an affordable web site design. You can spend some of your bucks to avail of services but there are also ways to get your own website for free. All you need is to look for these free websites and have the skill to customize graphics and codes.

Several sites offer web designing at an affordable price. They offer solutions according to your budget. They can set up a website with your company’s logo. Several templates will also be designed with several color schemes that you can choose from. It often includes search engine optimization, custom web design, flash elements, domain names, updates and maintenance, email addresses, web statistics, and support. Other websites that cater to hosting a site can offer better design but it comes with advertisement. Others can offer a venue to tinker the codes thus allowing customization. Some will design your website and do web promotion and hosting. They also provide consultation services. Some design web from scratch, check browser compatibility. Designs are unique and have the capacity to be viewed even if it is still on the construction phase. Submission to search engine is free. Graphic design, banner design, web site promotion knowledge, usability knowledge, and submission services are also included. Endorsement of the web will be made so customers won’t be faced with the hardships of adjusting alone. These services are however not free.

Some sites offer free hosting, but it does not come with your own chosen domain. It often comes with advertisements and signatures of the web designer. Some are not customizable. Some designs do not match your web browser or still need some adjusting with the code. Some free web site design has limited memory capacity. Others would require an upgrade to avail the other services. Some will force you to put pop-up ads or banners on web pages for the free service. They will often require you to receive emails from sponsors. Others do not allow building website for commercial purposes. Some sites hosted for free often do not have search engine optimization.

Some internet connection providers offer a website for free as part of the package. They even have other packages like family, personal or business packages. These offers have different website packages depending on what you avail of. This allows you to build free websites ad free.

If your purpose for wanting an affordable web site design is only to make your business or cause known, and you don’t really need a domain name, then there are free sites to host your website.

If you want a domain name, there are sites which offer purchase of a domain name. You just have to register it and use the free web host. This way you only have to purchase a domain name.

Purchasing an affordable web site design is now possible. All you need now is your own idea and you are all set to have your very own web site.

Looking for an affordable web site design? We offer professional and attractive Web 2.0 designs for low prices. Beat your competition and gain more clients, get your free quote at http://www.innovativewebsitesolutions.com/affordable-web-solutions.php

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=M_Goudelock

5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Web-Design Firm

By Andy Crestodina

Full disclosure: I sell websites. Every day, I meet with companies who are looking for a web-design firm, and naturally, I’d like some of them to choose us.

But I’ve also noticed something during these conversations: often, people don’t ask the most important questions.

A meeting with a web-design company is an interview. You want to make sure their business is legitimate, and you want to get a sense for the personality and culture of the company.

Most of all, you need to understand their approach to the unique challenges you’re tackling with your project

In 5 minutes, these 5 questions will tell you more than any hour-long presentation could:

Question 1: What is your approach to usability?

More than any other question, this will help you quickly differentiate between experienced web designers and novices.

Asking about usability will help you understand the company’s focus-namely, whether or not they have the most important thing in mind: the visitor.

A company without a good answer to this may build a site that they like, or one that you like, but that visitors find confusing or difficult to use. You want a web-design firm that thinks at the highest level: user-centered design.

The best people working in web design today will light up when you mention usability. They will be grateful for the question, and they’ll be glad to share their opinions, experience, and the latest research.

Best Answer:

“I’m thrilled you asked! We believe in user-centered design, and we conduct usability testing whenever possible. We’re visitor advocates and will defend their interests with concrete evidence and research.”

Question 2: Can you show me examples of projects with similar goals?

Ask for examples of sites with similar goals and features.

Need an event registration tool? Talk to people who can show you one. That way, you can ask why it was built in a certain way, what the challenges were, what results have been measured, and how those results met the project’s goals.

Suppose they haven’t built a similar site before. Are they up-front about it? Do they have any ideas? What challenges would they expect?

Is design your main concern? Rather than searching for a firm with a portfolio piece that seems to fit with your needs, look for a company that can show you a wide range of designs. This indicates a healthy creative philosophy: a company that listens to its clients, considers the brand, and doesn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to the design process.

Best Answer:

“Of course. Let’s take a look at a few now.”

Follow-Up Question:

Is there a limit to the number of design revisions?

Question 3: Can I meet the team?

This question will instantly reveal if the team is in-house or outsourced.

A lot of companies farm out the various parts of a project. Perhaps the firm you’re considering is a reliable partner company. Or maybe it’s an ad hoc team of freelancers who have never worked together before-and who may not be there down the road.

Or is it a team at all? The “company” you’re speaking with could in fact be one person offering to sell the project, do the analysis, design the site, program it, and manage the server. Is this person likely to be an expert in all those things?

For any site with serious goals, you should look for a team of specialists. If the team is in fact just 1 or 2 people, ask about their capacity to handle your project. Are they going to be busy selling new clients while working on your site? How important is your project to them?

Best Answer:

“The entire team is in-house and works together on similar projects all the time.”

2nd-Best Answer:

“There is a partner company involved, but everyone has worked together on similar projects.”

Follow-Up Question:

Have team members worked together before? How many times have they done this?

Question 4: What if I want to make changes later?

One of the most fundamental differences among web-development firms is their approach to ongoing changes.

Every website will change over time. Some companies charge hourly for these changes, while others set up a content-management tool that makes it easy, fast, and free to update text, upload images, and add pages.

Best Answer:

“We’re going to set up a tool that lets you (or anyone with access) manage the site. You’ll never wait or get an invoice for basic changes.”

Follow-Up Question:

What kind of changes will cost money?

Even if your site includes a content-management tool, certain types of changes will require a professional programmer or designer. Ask if your content-management tool will allow you to add new forms, change animations, or create new types of page layouts.

Question 5: How will we measure results?

It’s not a bad thing if the answer to this question sounds a little technical.

Listen for terms like bounce rate, unique visits, page views, time on site, inbound links, search-engine rankings, conversion rate, etc. If you start hearing jargon you’re not familiar with, ask for explanations in simple English.

Best Answer:

“We measure unique visitors, bounce rate, and conversion percentage. Our goal is to generate leads, so these are the most important metrics. We use an analytics tool to do this, and we will show you how to track these measures as well.”

Follow-Up Question:

What numbers should we expect?

Of course, there are so many variables that it would be hard for even an experienced expert to get too specific in answering this question. But if a company has done similar projects, they should have at least a general sense for benchmarks.

Bonus Tips

* Check references. Or better yet, meet possible web designers through referrals: people you know and trust who have worked with them in the past.

* Ask if the pricing is an estimate or a firm, not-to-exceed number.

* Make sure they are good listeners. This can be an instant deal breaker.

-Andy Crestodina
Principal/Strategic Director
Orbit Media Studios, Chicago IL

Andy leads business development for Orbit and connects clients with the firm. Within the company, Andy oversees sales, strategy and client service. Andy employs his extensive knowledge of marketing, interactive media, usability, and search engine optimization to develop the most practical and viable web solutions for both current and potential clients.

In addition to establishing relationships with new clients, Andy leads Orbit’s design and production collaboration with agencies throughout Chicago and he is on the Technology Committee for the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce. Andy is a graduate of the University of Iowa, where he studied Mandarin Chinese and became certified to teach.

Andy also writes writes articles on interactive marketing strategies for The Orbiter, Orbit’s monthly newsletter.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andy_Crestodina

5 Basic Rules of Good Web Design

By Scot Crone

When designing your website, great care should be taken to ensure every last detail of the site performs at an optimum level and actually serves its purpose. Here are five simple rules of good web design that anyone would do well to remember when considering building or designing a new website.

1) Don’t use flash intros

Flash intros are still commonly seen as the first pages many web visitors view when they arrive at a website. Flash intros or splash pages as they are also known, are normally short flash based movies with moving images and text; featuring information about the site and many times words like “welcome” or “click to enter website”. In point of fact, they are just a distraction and inconvenience to web visitors that serve no real purpose. Don’t force your visitors to have a reason to click on their browser’s back button! Give them the valuable content of your actual web site… that is what they are looking for after all and get rid of the flash intro / splash page.

2) Don’t use too many banner ads

These days even internet novices are astute enough to ignore banner advertisements so don’t waste your valuable website real estate on annoying flashing banner ads. Why don’t you just provide more valuable content instead? Then mix in some relevant affiliate links within your website’s body content… this helps your website visitors feel that they want to buy instead of feeling like they are being pushed into buying.

3) Easy to use and intuitive navigation

An absolute essential as far as web design is concerned is the provision of a straightforward and clear navigation menu system. It should be so clear in fact that even an 8 year old could use it. Steer well clear of complicated flash navigation menus or multi-tiered dropdowns. If your visitors find your site hard to navigate they will leave your site and they probably won’t come back.

4) Give visitors a clear indication of where they are

When visitors are browsing deep within the inner pages of your site and are enjoying being there you should ensure they know which part of the web site they are actually on at any given moment. By giving visitors a clear indication of where they are they will be able to browse all relevant information on your website or indeed navigate to any other section of your website with ease. Don’t willingly confuse your visitors because confusion can lead to them leaving your website.

5) Avoid using background music on your website

If you really want your visitors to linger long on your web site, reading your content, the very least you should do is ensure that they aren’t put off by annoying background music looping on your website. If you really feel you must use background music at least make sure visitors have some control over it – give them the option of volume or muting controls at the very least.

Scot Crone is a search engine optimisation consultant who works for Totally Ace Web Design Bath Totally provide professional web design, internet marketing and digital printing in Bath UK.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Scot_Crone

Getting Clients – Your Website Needs to Earn It’s Salary and Get Clients

By Jennifer Davey

We are now living in the Internet age.  It’s essential for every business to have its own website.  But a website that actually gets clients is not a simple as it seems.

A bad website is worse than no website at all.  Not only will a bad website waste time and money on things like design and hosting, it will scare possible clients away from your business.  To make your online presence work it is necessary to know what goes into a professional website.

Your website needs a purpose.  That purpose may be an actual sale, getting names on a mailing list, or getting visitors to fill out a form for more information.  Once you decide what your website’s purpose is, get your visitors to take action.  Every page on your website must TELL your visitors to place their order, or fill out that form, or sign up for your mailing list.

Many visitors to your website will want to contact you.  It is essential that every page contain your contact information.  Make it easy for your web site visitors to contact you.  The last thing people want to do is search around for a phone number or email address.

Take an honest look at your website.  Is it easy to navigate through the site?  It’s amazing how many sites are out there today that are cluttered and hard to navigate through.  Even some big name corporations have unfriendly sites.  When people get frustrated they leave.  Make your site welcoming by making it easy to get around.

If you are looking into website design, chances are you have heard of SEO.  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Search Engine Optimization is all about getting web browsers to find your site and put it up high on their list.  When you search for something through any search engine, such as Google or MSN, you type a phrase into the browser and click.  Up comes a long list, sometimes pages upon pages long, showing the results of your search.  Most searchers don’t go past a few pages before they either quit or find what they want.  The goal is to have your website up at the top of the list.

Search Engine Optimization is a gigantic subject that we can’t possibly cover here.  There are books and resources available everywhere.  However, we can cover some basics.  Every web page has a title bar at the top.  The title bar needs to contain the name of your company along with the page the viewer is on.  You also want to make sure your content is rich with keywords for your business.  Sites that look fancy and have a ton of graphics are not always the best for SEO.  Keep your site simple and focus on good content.  Don’t cram keywords into the content.  Good content about your business will usually suffice, but it pays dividends to go over the text and make sure it has what you want.

There are other ways to improve your SEO.  Using Meta Tags and Alt Tags are a good way to increase SEO.

Do your research before creating a website.  There is so much information available online and at the library that you can spend months doing research.  We don’t think you’ll need that long, but you do need to go into website building with a plan.

Jennifer Davey is a Small Business Coach and Marketing Strategist. Jennifer coaches small businesses, self employed professionals, and solopreneurs in strategies for getting clients and making more income.

Learn what you need to know to get client’s, by reading Jennifer’s FREE report “What You Need to Know to Be Successful at Getting Clients”, available at http://jjscoaching.com/free-marketing-tips/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jennifer_Davey

Tips to Choose the Most Appropriate Web Designer For Small Business

By Manish Rawat

Websites are essential for a business irrespective of its size and industry. Consequently, while selecting for a web design company, first determine your necessities and then decide upon hiring a company. For small businesses, budget is a supreme reason for concern. Therefore it is better to hire a web design company only after analyzing few important points that are explained below;

Access the requirements

Hiring a website design company helps in executing and developing existing sites for your small business. The purpose of sites is not only restricted to online broaching but well designing and executing solves other business purposes as well. The maintenance can be done in-house when hire a web design company. After determining your business requirements and objectives, you can easily decide whether to hire web design services for longer run or for short term.

Evaluation of the potentiality

It is suggested to do proper research to evaluate the potentiality of a web designer you are going to take services from. Once the decision is taken for a web design company, the next thing you need to do is to look for the charge company is asking.

Evaluation of the services

The next important criterion you need to give emphasis on is whether the selected company fulfills your business requirements or not. Their services must include entire process of designing. Also, they should address other elements like marketing, copywriting etc.

Determine the capabilities

The web design firm should understand your specific necessities, should have proper knowledge about the industry, and work collectively in offering services to its clients.

Check reference

It is always advisable to determine the company’s capabilities with the references from past clients and you can judge whether the selected firm would meet your requirements or not. You can later work on fee, fix the problems, respond to queries and provide suggestions.

The selection for a website design company should always be done on the basis of above mentioned factors. A very attractive web site with poor content will fail to achieve its goals and prove heavy on the cost of designing. All in all, a bad or an average website may hut your business reputation altogether.

Pixelcrayons offers small business web design & development services at affordable price. It offers the best solution for all small business web design & and affordable website development.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Manish_Rawat