Frequently Asked Questions - FAQ's
Last updated on 19 April, 2010
How much do your websites actually cost?
Of course this question is a bit like asking a general contractor how much it costs to build a house... "it all depends" might be their typical answer. Our basic websites, the ones we believe will suffice for the vast majority of small businesses, are $1,500. Depending on your needs and budget we will work with you to provide a smaller less expensive website or a larger site with the additional features you require.
The website you are currently using incorporates some custom features including an automatic advance slide show for the photo gallery and multiple pages for the Design Gallery and Projects areas. This website is also search engine optimized, an optional feature we offer. In all, the cost of this website would be approximately $2,500.
Is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) extra?
Yes. Search Engine Optimization is an optional service costing $500 for the home page and $300 for each additional page. We have been successfully doing "organic" (non-pay-per-click) optimizations for nearly ten years. This process takes time and patience, but really pays off in the long run.
You may want to considered pay-per-click options in the short term while waiting for our organic SEO to work its way up in the search engine results pages. We only target the four main search engines, Google, Bing, Ask and Yahoo.
Can I maintain my own website or do I have to pay you to do that?
Many of our newer sites are being built using Wordpress themes. Wordpress sites include a simple to use Content Management System (CMS) that you can use to make changes to some or all of the content of your website. If you can use Microsoft Word we can easily teach you how tomaintain your own website with the Wordpress CMS. Wordpress websites are typically an extra $250.00 - $500.00 depending upon the complexity of the design theme you select.
How about re-designs - aren't they cheaper?
Typically re-designs of existing websites turn into a completely new website with some information such as text and images being transferred over. This is because older websites are not coded to today's standards and it is often faster and cheaper to simply do a new website. However, some websites need minor changes such as width adjustments or updating of photos or graphics, in which case the re-design would be considerable cheaper than a new website.
What if I only need Search Engine Optimization?
This is a very common occurrence and a considerable amount of our workload - optimizing otherwise well designed websites. You can have a beautiful website with all the "bells and whistles" but if no one can find it in the search engines it is not bringing you any new business.
Search Engine Optimizations begin at $500 for the home page which includes key phrase research, re-writing of the page body text, heading, and title as well as the behind-the-scenes meta tags. This is followed by four months of free monitoring and monthly reports to show how the major search engines (Google, Bing, Ask and Yahoo) interpret our changes. We make "tweaks as necessary.
After four months we may recommend Webmastering, depending on how competitive your business is. Real estate is a prime example of a very competitive market and we always recommend Webmastering for these clients. This service runs $95 per month and includes SEO monitoring, tweaking and monthly client reports.
Our Search Engine Optimization is guaranteed to work to your satisfaction or you receive a full refund, period.
How will I be billed?
We require a 50% deposit before we begin a website design or re-design project. You will be billed for the remainder when the work is finished to your satifaction and final payment in due within 10 days of the invoice date. Seach Engine Optimization only projects require full payment in advance. We accept company checks, Visa and MasterCard.
