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Anyone can start a web site, but most aren't viewed for more than a few seconds. Careful planning can help you to clarify your goals for your site so it will be more likely to get traffic that stays and returns. In planning, you need to:
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 Any business that isn't constantly re-analyzing its business practices is likely to fall into decline. Whether this site is for business or personal use, your site will have more clarity if you define your purpose by answering the following questions in detail: Questions...
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Whether or not you consider yourself in competition with anyone else, looking at web sites from others with similar interests and objectives will help you to decide what you need or want on your own site. When looking at your competition in a new light, you may discover new ways to prosper your own business or site. More... Do some searching in phone directories for competition to check out on the internet. Look up the sites of your competition or those of similar purpose.
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To help your customers and web site visitors know if your business is a good fit for their needs, it is imperative that you are able to provide a consise answer to "Who am I? What is my product? Who is my client?" Your web site needs to appeal to the correct customers for your product. More...
Think about the market demographic of your customers. How does your image appeal to them? Think about your current image and answer the following questions:
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What exactly is your market niche? Are you maximizing your potential with this market? Are there other markets you could expand into? How is your presence reaching your market? More...
Knowing your market well will help you figure out if you (and your web site) are reaching those you hope to serve. Answer:
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 Only after you know who you are, who you want to reach, and how you wish to portray yourself are you ready to begin thinking about a layout for your web site. You will want a web site that is user friendly and attractive for your specific needs. The best way to get an idea on how you want your site to look is to visit the sites of your competitors and to identify sites you think mimic the type of image you wish to portray. More...Do web site searches using a search engine such as google.com, info.com, or bing.com for your products or services to find your competitor's web sites. Take note of the following, trying to determine what style you think would fit your site so you can convey your desires to your designer:
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 Based on the information you provide, your designer will create a custom layout to try to meet your needs. It is imperative that you provide a quick, detailed review of the layout to prevent additional time being taken up for consultation. To keep costs low, two hours of consultation are included in your package. More...Our goal is to keep within this consulatation time. We will keep track of time spent reading and responding to your comments and always try to be brief to complete our design together without additional rework creating additional consultation time.
We have spent many hours putting together this information for our clients so they have a good idea of what they want before we begin. This prevents the need for rework and provides greater satisfaction. Just as some husbands and wives can never agree on a paint color for their house, some clients can never agree on their web site design (especially if handled by a committee). We, therefore, require a single contact person to be the responsible decisionmaker for our contract. This person should bring to us the client's final decisions for us to implement into the design. |
 We have access to many free images available for use in our web designs. However, you may wish to provide your own photos or graphics which you feel better portray your image. To prevent rework, if you have any images you wish to use, please provide them at the commencement of your contract.More...If you have an idea of how you would like images placed (such as preferring a background image to a background color) please let us know the type of image and placement.
If you do provide images, please be certain you have legal title and right to use these images on your web site. We will not be held liable for any damages ensuing out of using images you provide. Many web sites have additional images for sale very innexpensively, should you wish to look for a specific image to meet your needs. Simply do a search for images to use on web sites. Remember to get proper permission to use any photo you provide. Insertion of 3 images per page is included in the contract. Additional images can be inserted at an additional cost of $20 per item. Images must be reworked in order to load properly and be placed properly to fit on a web site. Without rework, a web page could take minutes to appear, which few people would stay on your site long enough to see. |
 While we can create eloquent prose for your web site, only you understand your business well enough to know what you want your web pages to say. For example, can you imagine being able to write all of the information contained in this site? As you go through gathering the information to provide for your web site design, we strongly encourage you to think about the wording you wish to use on each page, especially if one of your main goals is to provide information to your clients (such as this site provides).More...When you are ready to submit a signed contract, please submit all wording you wish to provide for each page.
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 As explained on the Home page of this web site, hosting your site is not included in the design. While it may seem easier to you to simply go with a designer who also owns the computer server that holds your web site on the internet for viewers to see, few, if any, web designers have the large outlay of cash for the extensive equipment and backup equipment that web hosting companies provide. These web hosting companies also have trained technical staff on duty around the clock every day to make sure their equipment (and your web site) does not go down.More...While these large web hosting companies also offer some design services, if you understand their contracts, typically they don't provide much at all. Usually, all they do is stick some of your information into their same templates that they use for all of their clients. If they do actually provide good web site design, it comes at a very high cost.
One way companies who provide design and hosting make a large portion of their income is in monthly fees. Few companies change much on their website within a year. Typically, a design company can collect huge fees for doing nothing by including monthly maintenance fees. We believe our clients are best served by providing additional design services at a low fee if and when the client has a real need to make changes We choose to do what we do best, provide good quality, low cost custom web site design. And, we let the big web hosting companies provide the staff and equipment to do what they do best, hold your files. We will load the files onto your host's server computer. You need to contract separately with a web hosting company. As long as you don't have a web site with a huge online store, most any web hosting company will do fine. Large online stores require dedicated server computers to sort and provide a large quantity of information quickly. The web host will need to register your domain name and provide web hosting. Typically, your domain name is a yearly registration fee of $2-$10 and your web hosting is a monthly fee of $5-$10. Note when looking at web hosts that some offer a lower introductory fee, but will then charge their standard rates for the next year's renewal, so be sure you plan for all fees for the future. We have used iPage.com, iPower.com, and goDaddy.com with no problems. |
 In order to contract with us, we require both a completed questionnaire and a signed contract. The questionnaire is completed and submitted online by pressing the questionnaire button in the left column on this page. The contract can be found on the pricing page and needs to be printed, filled in, and mailed along with payment.More...Our goal is to have our clients completely understand the web design process. Please read all of the details in the contract and on this web site, as it was designed to help you fully understand everything you need to know to be satisfied with your web design process and the outcome of your site. If you have any questions, you can contact us at info@enticingdesigns4u.com.
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