Frequently Asked Questions

• Simple one or two page web sites can run as little as $300 to set up. The cost really depends on how complex your web site is and how many of the site elements... such as text, logos, and photos... I have to create, versus the number of those elements you create and send to me.
• More complex sites with shopping carts, feedback forms, and other labor intensive features could cost upwards of $1,000... but... a site I charge $1,000 to create would easily cost over $2,000 anywhere else.
• Once your web site has been created and posted on the Internet, the annual cost of a domain name, and web site hosting should run around $60 per year.
• I offer maintenance plans starting at just $10 per month. Other web site design companies charge upwards of $50 per month for site maintenance and some are over $100.

• Every web site in the world resides on a computer that is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day. It is possible to set yourself up so that you are directly connected to the Internet, but it's a very technical process, so most people prefer to pay to have their web site 'hosted' at an Internet Service Provider or ISP.
• The better ISP's have spent thousands of dollars on good security hardware and software to guard against viruses and hackers damaging your web site.
• All of my current clients use GoDaddy's least expensive hosting plan, which is less than $50 per year. If your site grows so large, or includes so many photos and graphics that it eventually exceeds the basic hosting level, the next plan up is still less than $100 per year.

• A domain name is a unique internet address that anyone in the world can type into their browser and be directed to your web site.
• The vast majority of domain names end in .com but the increasing popularity of the internet has lead to the creation of additional address options such as .org, .info, .gov, .us, .biz, .tv, .ws, and .mobi.
• The current yearly cost for a domain name is around $10.
• If you don't already have a domain name, I'll need a list of potential domain names so I can determine which ones are available and which are already taken.
• You can even have multiple domain names pointed to the same web site... sort of like having multiple addresses that all end up a the same mail box.

• Each hosting plan comes with one email account. You have the capability of setting up as many as 99 separate email addresses under one email account, but they'll all be sharing the same email storage capacity so there is a practical limit to the number of email addresses you can specify.
• Additional email accounts are currently running around $20 per year.
• Keep in mind that you'll still need an ISP (Internet Service Provider) such as Yahoo or AT&T in order to reach the Internet and check your email.

• Search engines such as Google and Yahoo base their page rankings... where your web site shows up when people search for your product or service... on a complex formula know only to them.
• Each search engine employs automated programs... generally referred to as "spiders" or "bots"... that search the Internet 24 hours a day and report back what they find. I try to use appropriate "keywords", "meta tags", and other elements to assist the "bots" and increase my client's search engine rankings. This process is known collectively as "SEO" or Search Engine Optimization.
• I also speed up the process by creating a "Site Map" for each web site I design and then submitting the site map to the five major search engines. This can significantly speed up the process of increasing your search engine ranking.
• Search engines have gotten very sophisticated, so old practices like "keyword stuffing" can actually lead to reduced search engine ranking. Serious offenders can even be banned from a search engine for repeated violations. The moral is to beware of "good advice" regarding ways to increase your search engine ranking since some of the advice you may get will actually harm your ranking!

• Internet marketing is a combination of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)... to achieve the highest possible search engine page ranking for your web site... and the ability to sell your products or services through the web site once you've been found.
• If you only have a few products to sell, you'll probably want to use PayPal "Buy Now" buttons, or a simple PayPal shopping cart, since that is the simplest and least expensive way to sell a small number of products.
• If you have more than a few products to sell, you'll probably want to go with a GoDaddy shopping cart or have me design a shopping cart for you.
• If you don't sell a physical product that can be shipped... like I do... or each order is a custom order a simple "Request For Quote" form might do the trick. A number of my clients use such forms with great success. Check out my client "Custom Caps, Shirts, Etc". to see what I'm talking about.

• Email "spammers" are becoming increasingly sophisticated at harvesting email addresses from web sites. If you don't employ extra security features, the spammers will quickly get your email address from the "Contact Me" link on your web site and you'll start receiving junk email messages from them. The longer your web site is on the Internet, the more bad guys will have your email address on their mailing lists. Fortunately, I have the capability of scrambling email addresses so that they still work but they can't be "harvested" by most spammers.
• If you have a form on your web site and you don't employ extra security features, you will start receiving submissions from the web site form that only contain gibberish. The spammers are hijacking your form to send their spam! Once again, I have the capability of putting up to four separate security measures into each form so the form can't be hijacked and you won't receive any useless form submissions.

• A basic GoDaddy Quick Shopping Cart ® that allows for the sale of up to 20 products, is around $10 per month. If you have between 21 and 100 products, the cost will be around $30 per month. If you have over 100 items to sell, the cost will be around $50 per month. The advantage of the GoDaddy Quick Shopping Cart is that it doesn't have transaction fees and the monthly cost is slightly lower. The disadvantage is that you are stuck with their pre-designed templates. We may be able to find a template that goes with your web site but if you really need the shopping cart to match the look of the web site, I'll need to design it for you.
• If you would like me to design a custom shopping cart that will allow you to sell as many products as you want, the cost will be as follows:
  • My time to set up the cart. This is something we would need to discuss before I could give you a quote.
  • A one-time set-up fee of $79
  • Minimum monthly access fees and transaction fees that will change based on the amount of business you do.

It is a rare web site that requires no ongoing maintenance. I do have clients that I rarely hear from but most have ongoing changes to calendars of events, monthly or quarterly specials, additions to their photo galleries, featured products, etc. For those clients, I offer several annual maintenance plans:

A basic plan for $120 per year.

My basic maintenance plan provides up to twenty minutes per month of my time to make changes. If I don't hear from you for several months and then you send me a project that requires and hour to accomplish, I'll consider us even. If you send me an hour's worth of changes each month, we'll have to discuss an upgraded plan.

An expanded maintenance plan for $360 per year.

The expanded maintenance plan provides up to one hour per month of my time. Once again, I'm not going to time you to the minute and time pretty much rolls over from month to month.

Do your own maintenance!

I can set you up so that you can do some or all of your own site maintenance. You can do anything from simple changes to altering the look of virtually any site element you have the technical skill to alter. This is something we would need to discuss since there are several ways to accomplish this.

I can set you up so that you can do some or all of your own site maintenance.

You can do anything from simple changes to changing the look of virtually any site element you have the technical skill to alter.

This is something we would need to discuss since there are several ways to accomplish this.