FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
What is your process?
The very first and most important thing you have to do is determine why you want a Web site. What purpose it is going to serve? What are your goals? We will contact you to discuss your goals and the different options available to you, based on your budget. We will then put together a Project Proposal, complete with an outline of the project plan and a price quote estimate.Once we’ve discussed your goals with you and have come up with a plan for your Web presence (above), my first step in the site design process is to determine the site’s navigation, or flow. We do this by listing all of the separate parts of the site, and arranging them into a storyboard or flowchart to ensure that all the pages flow together correctly and convey the right message. This is where the content is decided upon and we determine what content already exists and what needs to be created.
Next comes the creative design process, where the "look and feel" of the site is determined. At this point, we've become aquainted with your company's image and the various marketing materials you currently use. We will have discussed your vision for the site and what your graphical requirements are. We will have talked about some sites that you really like (and some that you don’t), and what your competition is doing with their sites. From all of this, we will design your site.
After the site’s design is finalized, we will create any additional graphics that are necessary, manipulate existing graphics for the web and optimize them for the fastest download speeds.
With all the graphics ready, we will build HTML templates for all the major sections of the site and start programming your site’s features. At this point, we will give you a chance to review the templates and make any revisions necessary. Once approved, we will start plugging in the content and getting everything all hooked up. When complete, we will thoroughly test the site, making sure all the links and features work well in all the browsers.
The last thing to do before sending the site out to the World Wide Web, is to add some search engine tagging strategy, or Meta tags. These are lists of keywords and descriptions of your pages so the search engines will know how to categorize your pages.
Once the site is live, we submit it to the search engines and Web indexes, and announce it to any special target audiences that might apply to your site. ErnieV can also help you develop a marketing plan to make your site known to your current and potential customers.
Do I get the editable flash or swi files when I buy a flash site or intro?
As a rule of thumb, I do not sell my editable flash files or swi files. ErnieV can however update a finished file or set of files for a minimum fee.
Do I need any special plugins to show flash files on my server?
All of the current browsers come with the flash plugins as part of their installment. If someone with an old browser, without the plugin, tries to access a flash file a popup screen will allow them to install an up-to-date flash viewer.
How do I install a flash intro or site?
Just upload all files to your website's root directory and make sure you upload the swf files in binary mode. If your webserver requires an index.htm or default.htm page as your start page just rename the index.html page to whichever form is required. All of ErnieV's flash intros load a index2.html page when finished, hence your main site page should be index2.html. If you ever need help installing the files contact ErnieV.
Who owns the site when it is done?
This is a good question to ask, as some web site services retain all the rights to the sites they build and they may charge you a fee if you want to take the site and move it to another ISP or host.
When you hire ErnieV to build your site, you own the site when it is all done. You can move it to any server, reproduce it on a CD to distribute to your clients, change it or add to it...whatever you want — it’s yours to do as you see fit!
What about site maintenance?
Most sites need regular maintenance — to check for broken links, to make sure that the code is keeping up with new technology and browsers, to update products and services or other content or feature updates. ErnieV can maintain your sites for you or we can train you in the technology needed to do the maintenance yourself.
How do I get my own web address (www.yourname.com)?
Also known as a Domain Name or URL, your web address is how people find you on the web. The domain name is the identity of your business on the net. A domain name costs $35.00 a year (two year minimum) plus whatever fee your ISP charges to set it up for you — usually around $35.00. Since there are so many companies on the web, the name you choose might not be available, and you might have to get creative. Try to make it memorable and easy to say and type.
Once you have a name in mind, ErnieV will check to see if it is available. Your name must contain no more than 26 alpha-numeric characters and no characters such as the "&" or "<".
Where will my site live?
If you already have a site hosted with an ISP, you can continue using them if you like. Or, if you have an ISP that you use for email and dial-up access, you can contact them to see what they offer for site hosting options.
Costs and services tend to vary significantly from one company to the next, so this can be a confusing decision to make. ErnieV works with several ISP’s and hosting companies and can help you find the best hosting service for your site and situation.
What browsers do you design for?
People are browsing the Web using all kinds of browser and operating system configurations and this is one of the most difficult challenges a Web developer faces. Except in cases where we are building an intranet site or designing for very targeted audiences, all of our sites are developed with cross-browser compatible code. Whenever possible, we use features that are available to all browsers or at least degrade acceptably to the older browsers.
Which search engines do you submit to?
Ninety percent of your search engine traffic is going to come from the following search engines and indexes:
We hand-submit each page of a site to the search engines listed above to ensure successful placement. Depending on the site and its audience, we may submit it to a handful of additional targeted services.
What tools do you use?
ErnieV uses a handful of favorite tools to get the job done right:
For designing, creating or manipulating artwork, we use Adobe Photo Shop 6.0 and Jasc Paint Shop Pro. For making animations we use Macromedia’s Flash 6.0 and other tools for optimizing web graphics. ErnieV can intergrate existing logos and colors into the design.ErnieV uses tools that require writing code by hand — which means optimized web pages that load as fast as possible, work the way they are supposed to, and look great in all the popular browsers.
|
