Frequently asked questions
The Questions:
Q2. Can I afford a website?
Q3. Do I need an interactive site?
Q4. Should I opt for an ecommerce solution?
Q5. How many pages do I need?
Q6. Should I hire a "local" web designer?
Q7. Would you undertake to design any type of site?
Q8. Do you use standard templates when designing websites?
Q9. How much input do I have?
Q10. Can you use my business’s existing logo, brochure design, and other materials for my website?
Q11. Will I own the art and design or copyright on my site?
Q12. What is the time scale for website design?
Q13. Will you maintain my web site for me?
Q14. Should I pay for Search Engine Optimization?
Q15. I am interested in your service, so what do I need to do now?
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The Answers:
Q1. Do I need a website?
A. A website would give 24/7 exposure for you business. Distributing information about your products
and services online can save you time and money by reducing the number of queries you need to
deal with directly. Your company image can be strengthened by a professionally design website. If potential customers don’t find you online they’ll find your competitors who do have websites.
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Q2. Can I afford a website?
A. After considering the benefits of having a website, the question you should be asking is "can I afford not to have a website?" The actual cost of a site will vary depending on a range of factors such as: how many pages you have; whether you need an interactive site; whether you want to sell products on your site; the complexity of the graphic design for the site. In general terms, costs vary from a couple of hundred pounds for a simple corporate identity site up to thousands of pounds for a large interactive ecommerce site.
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Q3. Do I need an interactive site?
A. An interactive site can be a good way of engaging visitors to your website. It can also be useful for personalising their experience on your site. However, there is an added development cost associated with such sites and they may not be suitable for all businesses.
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Q4. Should I opt for an ecommerce solution?
A. Ecommerce is basically doing business online. This usually means an online shop, but may also be business-to-business commerce. For some companies ecommerce provides an additional source of sales with relatively low setup costs and negligible additional running costs. You have to ask yourself would customers buy my product/service from a picture/description on a website? Or would they only want to buy my product after seeing the real thing? For example someone is likely to be happy to purchase a DVD movie online, but want to try-on a pair of shoes before buying.
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Q5. How many pages do I need?
A. The number of pages you’ll need will depend on the amount of content you wish to place on your site. A simple identity site might just be a single page to say who you are and giving contact details. If you want to include details of your products and services then you may require an additional page for each product/service (depending on how much information you wish to give). You may add pages allow users to give feedback or contact you with questions, to discuss your service procedures etc. Any information you would normally give customers in leaflets and brochures, or phone conversations can be placed on your website.
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Q6. Should I hire a "local" web designer?
A. This depends largely on your approach to business. If you’d prefer to meet someone face-to-face to discuss your requirements and review progress during the web design project, then you will need to find a local firm. However, if you’re happy to communicate by email and telephone there’s no technical reason why your designer couldn’t be on the other side of the world! This one’s down to your preferred approach really.
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Q7. Would you undertake to design any type of site?
A. No, we put ethical considerations first. We’ll refuse to build sites whose content is illegal or that we consider unethical (even if it is legal).
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Q8. Do you use standard templates when designing websites?
A. No, we feel that each client should get a unique site that is specially designed to suite their business and capture its image and ethos.
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Q9. How much input do I have?
A. This largely depends on how much involvement you want to have in the design process. This could be anything from giving us bare-bones information about your company and leaving the rest to us, to becoming involved in decision making about the minutiae of your site. There are trade-offs at either extreme. With minimum involvement there are additional costs associated with us writing copy for your site. Full involvement requires a more complex management and review process and subsequently increased overheads. We prefer to work in the middle ground with client providing their own site copy (after all you know your business better than we do). Their involvement in the design process is through regular review and feedback at predefined points in the process.
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Q10. Can you use my business’s existing logo, brochure design, and other materials for my website?
A. Unless you’re looking for a complete image make-over we would actively recommend using existing promotional material as the basis for your website design. This helps to maintain a consistent corporate image and identity.
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Q11. Will I own the art and design or copyright on my site?
A. The copyright of any material produced specifically for your site by WebAlchemist will be transferred to you on completion of the project. However, the site may include pre-existing material (images, scripts, etc) that have been produced by third parties. You will have a license to use these third party materials within your website but you will not own the copyright to them. We will make it clear to you which elements of your site include such third party materials.
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Q12. What is the time scale for website design?
A. This depends on your timescales, our existing commitments and of course on the size and complexity of the website. It would usually be possible to turn around a relatively simple site in just a couple of weeks.
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Q13. Will you maintain my web site for me?
A. Firstly, for a site to continue with its current content, it doesn’t need to be maintained. So, if you don’t think you’ll need to change your site once its setup, then you don’t need maintenance. We are happy to maintain you website for as long as you would like us to. We can do this in either of two ways: A regular maintenance contract the cost of which will depend on the typical number and complexity of changes made each month; on an hourly basis as and when you need to make changes.
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Q14. Should I pay for Search Engine Optimization?
A. We take basic steps to ensure that every site we build is fully visible to the search engines but if you hope to attract much of your sites visitors via search engines then its probably worth getting the extra work done to ensure a good position in search engine rankings.
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Q15. I am interested in your service, so what do I need to do now?
A. To express an interest in any of our services simply email us or use the form on the contact page. Give a brief description of the work you would like us to do. We’ll then get in touch with you to discuss your requirements. Once we have clarified your requirements we can given you a fixed-price quote for your site and agree timescales for the completion of the work.
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