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We offer an all-inclusive package.
We are in the business of simplifying everything for you. Our websites are priced on a fixed monthly subscription, starting at prices cheaper than your weekly grocery bill!
Prices vary though - we work out a monthly fee which is all-inclusive (design, development, hosting, domain registration, maintenance etc) based primarily on the complexity of your site, using a menu of options selected when we first discuss your website needs.
Generally, we provide an admin area where you can update frequently changing information yourself (such as a product database). For minor changes on other pages, we include a certain amount of maintenance work on your site each month as part of our standard service, so you are free to call us & request changes without fear of a large bill arriving.
If your require a significant amount of work beyond what we can cover under maintenance, we will advise you up front and provide an estimate based on an hourly rate.
We will not bombard you with techno speak, we will not send surprise invoices and we certainly won't disappear off the face of the earth once your site is live. All you need to do now is get in touch with us!
Words and images are important
You will need to provide us with as much information as possible about your business and what you want from your website. If this is a brand new business, you may not have a lot of collateral to provide us with, but this is not a problem - in some ways this situation can be easier, as starting from a blank page can often be less complex than building on an existing brand/website, which may come with unwanted baggage.
Undoubtedly, the most important part of a website is the content itself, the information available and relevant photos. Weak content and poor quality images can immediately ruin a website. No amount of technical wizardry will ever be able to compensate for lousy photos and poorly written content.
You need to think carefully about what you want to say to your customers - what information do you want them to have? We can help you with this, of course, but this is the area where you will need to focus the most attention. The better your content, the better your site will look and perform.
Another early step is deciding on & registering a domain name. Your domain name is essentially your web address and often forms part of any email addresses also. Usually a UK business will have a .co.uk domain name such as yourbusiness.co.uk and perhaps email addresses like sales@yourbusiness.co.uk or john@yourbusiness.co.uk.
We will include a free .co.uk domain with every site we create - you don't need to worry about any of the technical issues, you just need to choose a name - we do the rest for you, and if you are struggling to think of a name, we may be able to suggest something.
Ideally, we will register the domain name on your behalf. The primary reason we prefer to do this, is so we can ensure it is registered with a reputable registrar, who allows the level of control over the domain that we need to properly maintain the website. We always ensure our customers are listed as the legal owners when registering a domain.
If you already have a domain name, we will require you to make changes to the various settings occasionally, or if you are not technical, we may request that you provide us with the control panel login/password details so we can make the changes for you. Alternatively you may find it simpler to transfer the domain to one of our registrars so we can administer it directly - regardless of the approach, we can guide you through.
All are designs are original, not templates.
Although we will design the site for you, your input is important. In addition to providing content & photographs, you will also need to give us some idea of what you want the site to look like. It is also a very good idea to familiarise yourself with the competition.
Ideally, by the time you speak to us, you will already know which websites yours will need to compete against. You should also have some idea of what your site should look like, even if that is just a couple of examples of sites/styles you like, or perhaps something you specifically dislike.
All this information will be very helpful to us when we're proposing designs for you. In most cases, we will take all the information & any collateral you can provide, and come up with a proposed design to show you.
If your business idea is truly brand new and you don't even have so much as a company logo, we can still help you. It is quite common for businesses to start with just a website, as there really is no better way to gauge what interest there may be in your service. We can help you get started!
Once the design and functionality of your new website is agreed, the development process can begin. The development process turns the agreed design into a functional website.
Once development is complete, we will provide you with a temporary URL (web link) where you can see your new site and try it out.
It is vitally important that you test & proof-read the website fully to make sure it is working correctly and also that you experience the site as your customers might. If your website has a shop, place some test orders so you can see what the user has to go through and what that causes you to see as the site's administrator.
After domain registration, design, development & testing it's time to launch your site. We will usually agree a date with you on which we'll launch the site and usually the process of doing so is immediate. In circumstances where we are replacing an existing site that is not hosted with us, the launch process can take between 12 & 48 hours to fully complete.
There are many things you can do to promote your business.
Promoting your website will be crucial to its success, because having a website almost nobody knows about is akin to printing a stack of leaflets and keeping them in your garage. Your aim is to draw visitors to your website and to climb the search rankings. There are a number of ways we can help you to promote your website and business - our Bucaroo Case Study shows some of the services we offer.
However, you need to have realistic expectations. A high ranking on search engines is earned over a period of time - several months at least. We will ensure your site is registered with Google Analytics so you can easily keep track of numbers of visitors and other informative statistics. We have extensive experience in this area and can advise you how to use this data to improve your search engine rankings.
You should plan to devote a number of hours each week to website promotional efforts, particularly in the period following the launch. Although we will help and advise, the long term website promotional work is your responsibility. We can do this for you, but at an additional cost - please contact us for more information.