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Frequently Asked
Questions
Question
1: Does my business need a website?
Owning a website is the cheapest
form of commercial advertising today. Your website can be seen
anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per
year. This means you have the ability to speak to prospective
customers all the time… at their leisure. Not only do you have a
constant global presence but you are also able to present your ideas
and products by way of creative means utilizing digital graphics,
visual effects, sound and other abstract features.
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Question 2: What technologies and
software do you use to create websites?
We use the latest technologies
available on the market to ensure we create well-formed industry
standards based websites and databases that will be compatible with
and supported by the most common browsers like Internet Explorer®,
Netscape Navigator®, Mozilla Firefox®, Opera® and Safari®.
- With regards to programming software, we use native HTML, XHTML
and Cascading Style Sheets (CSSs). We also make use of Expression
Web® to generate industry standards based HTML pages and CSSs.
- For dynamic interactive websites, we use PHP, ASP, JSP and
JavaScript.
- With regards to database design, modeling and creation we use
MySQL Workbench with MySQL as the database engine.
- We use Firestarter® to create flash presentations and animations
for web pages.
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Question 3: Give me a complete
breakdown of what I need to do to create my own website from
scratch.
Let’s assume you have decided to
create a website for your business yourself. You will need to follow
the following steps (this is just a brief explanation):
1 Decide on a domain name. Your domain name is the actual URL that
people will type in their browser to reach your site i.e.
www.yoursite.com. It is your website’s address. The name must be
unique and unused by any other entity. You can go to a site like
www.whois.com to check the availability of domain names that you are
interested in.
2 Once you have found an unused domain name, you need to register
it. This means you need to get the domain name assigned to yourself
so that other people will know that the domain name is being used
and therefore unavailable to them.
3 Once you have a domain name, you need to find a web hosting
company. This is a company that sells large amounts of space on
their web servers to website owners. Typically these web hosting
companies will do your domain name registration for you as a service
to you if you host your website with them. In turn, they will store
your website (pages, graphics, animations, sounds, videos etc.) on
their web servers.
4 At this stage, you will create your website pages on your
computer.
5 Once your website has been created on your computer, you will need
to upload all the details (forms, pages, graphics etc.) to the host
server via FTP (file transfer protocol) software. When the public
types in your URL (web address) in their browser, they will be taken
to your website on the web host’s server where you have stored your
web information.
6 Any time you need to perform maintenance on your website (updates
to existing pages, new pages, new graphics etc.), you will do so on
your computer and then upload the updates to the web server to make
the changes available to the public.
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Question 4: Give me a complete
breakdown of what I need to do to get a web design company to create
my website from scratch.
Let’s assume you have decided
that your business needs a website and you want Reflectasite Web
Design® or any other web design company to design and create the
site for you. You will need to follow the following steps (this is
just a brief explanation):
1 Give us a domain name you would like to use. Include a few
alternative domain names in case your preferred name is unavailable.
If your alternative domain names are also unavailable, we will offer
suggestions related to available domain names.
2 Next we will discuss your website requirements with you. This can
be a personal meeting or it can take place via the phone and
email(s).
3 Once we understand your requirements, we will tell you what the
total cost will be.
4 Once you formally assign the task to us, we will design and build
your site on a secure server where only you and us will have access
to it. It will not be available to the public. We will use this
server to demonstrate our progress for your review and approval.
This process continues until you give your final approval for your
website to go live (meaning it is ready for public consumption).
5 That’s it… we take care of getting the domain registered, getting
the site hosted and the uploading of the files to the public web
server.
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Question 5: I am wary of hidden fees.
Give me a complete breakdown of what it will cost me to have
Reflectasite Web Design® create my website from scratch.
There are only 3 types of fees
you need to be aware of when dealing with websites.
1 Domain registration fee and web hosting fees. These are fees that
are paid to the web host. The web host is a company that sells
public server space for you to host your site on. There are
literally thousands of web hosting companies and each of them offers
a different price. Typically, web hosting companies include
registration and web hosting in their fee. A reputable, top tier web
hosting company will charge an annual fee of around $95 ($7.95 per
month) for a year’s hosting. After 12 months you will need to renew
the hosting contract. Or you can purchase a 2 years hosting plan for
a fee of about $166 ($6.95 a month) with a renewal after 24 months
of hosting. This is money paid directly to the hosting company and
does not come to Reflectasite Web Design®. Although we will happily
pay the fee for you and add that to your web design invoice.
2 The 2nd type of fee is what you pay for the services of a web
design company. These are the folks who actually design and create
your website and ensure all the data is loaded onto the web server
for public consumption.
3 The 3rd type of fee is a site maintenance fee. This is used to
perform site maintenance to your existing website. See question 6
for more details on site maintenance.
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Question 6: What is site maintenance?
Site maintenance is performed on
websites to keep the pages updated with new and fresh content i.e.
public announcements, introducing new products, updating the
graphics, adding website functionality or adding new pages. Any
updates to the content of an existing website is considered to be
site maintenance.
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Question 7: What do your services cost?
Cost is dependent upon the
following variables:
- amount of web pages for your site
- complexity of graphics required for your site
- level of interactivity or interoperability with users of your site
- will your site use a content management system?
- do you require a back-end database to store your data for dynamic
web page retrieval?
- level of maintenance needed by your site
- will you have a shopping cart and will you accept online payments
via your site?
- use of animation, audio and/or video.
All these factors will impact what it will cost to design and build
your site.
However, in the interest of answering the question, we can
generalize by stating that a site that only displays content
(graphics and text) will cost in the region of $20 per page to
design and create.
Web Design fees:
1 – 5 pages $50 per page
6 – 10 pages $40 per page from page 6 onwards
10+ pages $30 per page from page 11 onwards
Scenario: to design and create a 10 page website will cost $450 i.e.
(5 X $50) + (5 X $40). If the pages get more complex through
the addition of audio, video, flash animation, shopping carts etc,
the price will increase based on your specific requirements.
With regards to site maintenance fees, you have 2 options.
1 Monthly Maintenance Plan: $150 per month covers all maintenance for
that month, regardless of how much maintenance you require.
2 Pay for Maintenance Plan: $25 per hour or part thereof for any
as-needed maintenance you require.
With regards to cost of standalone graphics, banner or logo work,
that will be on a case by case basis depending on the complexity of
your requirements.
We offer case-by-case discounts to non-profit organizations for all services
we provide.
All fees will be clearly spelled out and agreed upon prior to any
work starting. Please note that you only pay for the final delivered
product once it meets your expectations.
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Question 8: How long does it take to
design and create a website?
That all depends on how complex
your requirements are. Website creation itself is a pretty quick
process. It is the design that takes the most time. Once the design
is agreed upon and the page content (graphics and text) has been
selected, it is a simple case of putting it on the screen. If you,
the client, have a good idea of what you are looking for, it will
also go quicker. However, if you are looking to share ideas or to
consult with us prior to making final decisions on design principles
and layout, the process will take longer. The good news is that we
do not charge hourly rates, so we will work alongside you until you
are happy with the design.
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Question 9: Would I need to schedule
meetings with you in order to design my website?
Personal face-to-face meetings
are welcomed but seldom required. We are able to ascertain your
requirements by phone and email. As we make progress on an ongoing
basis, we share the results with you on our secure testing server
space that only you and us have access to. This way you are ensured
that we are on the right track. This allows us to offer our services
to any person or business on the planet. However, we welcome
face-to-face meetings as well as it enables us to meet our clients
personally. If we require photos for your site, you can send them to
us or we can come to your place to take the photos ourselves – it
all depends on where you are located.
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Question 10: Can I get my own email
addresses?
Absolutely. Web hosting includes your own set of unique email
addresses that can be configured for your purposes. Assuming your
website name is www.yoursite.com, you can have up to 2,500 email
addresses that look like this: info@yoursite.com, news@yoursite.com,
john@yoursite.com etc. You can pick any name in front of the domain
name that is ‘yoursite.com’ to make up your own unique email
addresses.
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Question 11: Why should I use
Reflectasite Web Design® for my website requirements?
Nobody likes to spend money without seeing a benefit from it. Our
promise to you is that you do not pay a cent until you are
completely satisfied that we have designed and created what you
asked for. Our desire is to meet and exceed (if possible) your
expectations with our service. In other words, you really have
nothing to lose by calling us.
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Question 12: I would like Reflectasite
Web Design® to design my website. What are my next steps?
Excellent choice.
Once you have an idea of what your website should represent or
reflect, give us a call or send us an email. We will guide you every
step of the way, sometimes leading you and sometimes just listening
to you. Be prepared to answer these questions:
- Purpose. What will your website represent? What is the overall
message?
- Time. How fast do you need your website to be up and running?
- Content. What text/verbiage will go onto your pages?
- Graphics. Do you have a specific theme you want to convey
to your viewer.
- Finance. What is your budget?
- Maintenance. How frequent will you need to update your pages?
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