20 Questions Before We Go To Work On Your Web Design
Describe the typical customer:
The type of site designed needs to be appropriate for the visitors.
If people using the site are mostly elderly, perhaps a larger font would be better (for example).
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What would make you say that this website is a successful one?
A little realism is in order. Odds are it will take quite a while to build up your traffic and your sales. Most folks can make a decent living but do NOT expect to get rich quick on the Net.
However, feel free to describe what you would like your site to accomplish. If it IS getting rich quickly, we'll do our best to make sure the site works towards that goal.
Often, the revenue and numbers of visitors are dependent on your budget - if you have money to buy advertising, more people will be aware of what you offer, for instance.
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What is the image you'd like to present?
Cool? Sophisticated? No-nonsense?
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How many different products or services do you plan to sell online?
This will help us determine the type of database and shopping cart you will need.
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What kind of products or services?
BizShop will not design, host, promote or administer sites with overly sexual, morally offensive, misleading or illegal content.
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Do you have literature and/or photos of your products/services that can be used?
If so, this will help build your site more rapidly. We can set up so you can upload things or you can mail/fax them in.
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What is your timetable for completion?
A website is never completely 'done,' as it should be always growing and updating. Still, we are happy to work with your deadline. Typical sites can take from a few hours to a month to develop, depending on how complex and how quickly we get all the information from you.
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What is your budget for the website design?
Typically, small business websites cost from $350 to $2000 to develop, depending on complexity. The most common price (with shopping cart, database etc.) is around $750.
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What is your monthly budget for hosting and webmaster maintenance?
Small businesses should plan on $30 per month, nonprofits on $20 per month. Webmaster services - where we take care of managing the site, updating content and promoting our site for you - starts at around $40 per month, in addition to hosting.
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What is your monthly budget for marketing and promoting your site?
If you have a monthly budget for marketing, we can drive visitors to the site more easily. Some search engines require payment to be listed. Buying advertising banners or search engine adwords can boost traffic.
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Is there a logo for the site?
We can optimize your logo and pictures to make them load faster. We'll provide an upload script.
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Is there any special colors or graphics you'd like to see on your site?
You're the boss! We can suggest color schemes/graphics if you like. Be aware that web colors do not generally look as good as print colors.
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Do you own the copyright to all the graphics you want to use?
Either you must own the text and graphics to put on your site, or have obtained permission to use them. We can help with this if you want.
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Are you going to need any private or restricted access areas on your site?
Give us the usernames and passwords you'd like to start off with.
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Are you set up to take credit card payment?
This will typically cost between $300 and $1000, depending on provider you go with. You'll also need an SSL certificate, which runs from $70 to $450 per year, again depending on where you get it. Alternatively, we can set you up with PayPal, good if you are only going to be taking orders online.
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Are you set up to take checks by
phone/fax/email?
We can set this up for you. You can buy blank check stock at any office supply store.
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How much time to you spend online each day?
This can give us an idea of your level of expertise.
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How much extra time do you have to devote each week? (Don't worry if none, we can take care of everything.)
Our webmaster services are designed to take care of everything for you - though we also set it up so that you can make any changes desired yourself.
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Are there any sites that you particularly like? What part of the design do you like?
We certainly won't copy the other sites, but if you see a neat feature we can make yours work that way too. If you like a color scheme, we can set you up with one that is similar.
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Is the site now or has it ever been on the Web? If so, what is the URL or web address? What can you tell us about it? Do you have the username/password for it?
We can harvest the site from the Internet - often even if it has been removed for some time. If you have the username and password, that makes this easier. If you have things you don't like about your current site, let us know and we can fix them.
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Name:
Address:
Address:
City:
State:
Zip:
Phone:
Fax:
Email:
Online? Submit through our website.
Offline? Print and mail or fax in! Addresses are in the infobox on the left.