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Frequently Asked Questions
- How can I choose a domain name? What domain name will be better for my website?
- What is web hosting?
- What is a URL?
- What is a static website? What is a dynamic one? What is the difference between the two?
- How does my website get listed on search engines, do I have to pay for it? Do flash movies help my website get a better ranking on search engines?
- Is it possible to modify, change the text or pictures or add contents in my website after the completion?
- Can you tell me something about payment gateway on e-commerce websites? What type of payment gateways do you use?
- What is CSS? Do I need to use CSS for my website?
- I live outside WA/USA; can you still design my website?
- Who/how will I contact you regarding my project progress?
- Does your quoted price cover web hosting and domain registration?
- How long does it take to finish a website/project?
- Do I have to sign a contract or follow legal procedure to use your services?
- Do I have to provide the content for my website? What kind of content should I prepare?
- I already have a web site; will you redesign or edit it?
- What is a template and why should I use one?
- Will people find my website as soon as it is build?
- Do you provide email services?
- How many pages can I have on my website?
- Can I have a website designed with audio or video clips?
Answers:
1. How can I choose a domain name? What domain name will be better for my website?
Choosing a domain name totally depends on you or how you’re going to use it. You can also choose a domain name according to the type of your business. We recommend you to choose one that is easy to spell. Domain names come with different extensions depending on the type it belongs to like commercial enterprises have “.com” or “.biz” extension similarly, for educational establishment “.edu”, for government body “.gov”, for military “.mil”, network “.net”, or for organizations “.org”.
2. What is web hosting?
In order to have your site accessible on the Internet you have to pay a monthly fee, which is known as web hosting. Hosting account is a place where you website resides.
We provide web hosting services at a very reasonable price.
3. What is a URL?
URL is an acronym of Universal Resource Locator or Uniform Resource Locator. This is the address typed in to view your web page on the Internet. Our URL is: http://www.avenuesusa.biz.
4. What is a static website? What is a dynamic one? What is the difference between the two?
Static website is where the presentation or information is written in HTML and hard coded into each page. There is no database involved and each page is a separate document. You can use webpage editor like FrontPage to edit the site, but you have to go into each page and edit the HTML.
A dynamic site on the other hand is the one written using more complex code and the information is stored separately from the page formatting. This helps you to update or make changes to the content independently without tampering the actual page format. The benefit of this is you will be able to change the content of the site and not the design. This will prevent you from accidentally breaking the visual mode of the website. Dynamic pages usually require Server side programming with database involved. They are constructed based on the information in a database, and the information in that database can be changed via another interface.
Dynamic sites can reduce ongoing maintenance costs. They usually cost more to develop, as they require more complex coding and a content management utility needs to be developed to help you manage your website information. They have other benefits when sites start to get very large, as they make data management much more efficient and your site more expandable. For instance, I can make an area where you can log in and change various parts of the site, such as adding information or products. This is because each page is constructed based on the information in a database, and the information in that database can be changed via another interface.
5. How does my website get listed on search engines, do I have to pay for it? Do flash movies help my website get a better ranking on search engines?
Most of the internet users rely on search engines and directories to find websites related to their subject of interest. In order to get good rank in search engines you need someone who has a good knowledge in the service of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). After your site has been published, it is necessary to submit it to search engines. Once your site has been submitted to proper Search Engines it might take several weeks, or months to list your web site in their directory. The time it takes to list your site depends on individual Search Engines database update schedule.
6. Is it possible to modify, change the text or pictures or add contents in my website after the completion?
YES you can modify the contents(text or pictures) for your website. We don't charge for the first 2 months from the launch of website. If you require frequent update (every week or twice a week), then we’d recommend you go for Content Management Sites. We can develop your web site in a Content Management System, also known as a "CMS." If you prefer to update your site page content by our designers, our fee is US$5 per page per update/modification.
a) Will you save money by having your web site developed in a CMS?
I've seen this go both ways and for different reasons with different clients. Some CMS's come pre-packaged with many great features. To add manually on to a static web site could get costly. On the other hand, a Content Management System can take many hours of customizing and tweaking it to look the way you want it to. Some CMS's have issues within the programming that don't become evident until you're well into the development stage of your web site. We've been involved in instances where a month's time was spent setting up a web site in CMS format to find out that there were problems with the programming that made it impossible to be used for the site in progress.
All Content Management Systems are not created equal! There are hundreds of Content Management Systems available and there are new ones being developed all the time. Some come with the less features whereas others are overkill for a site. It can take many hours of research and testing to select the CMS that comes closest to meeting your needs. There is no single CMS that precisely meets every site's needs. Keep in mind that in some cases a CMS can absolutely be the right tool, but they're not necessarily right for each and every web site or for the client using it.
7. Can you tell me something about payment gateway on e-commerce websites? What type of payment gateways do you use?
There are various ways to take payments online. The first one is PayPal which is an inexpensive way to start taking payments quickly, especially if you don't have a merchant account. With PayPal, your visitors can pay you with a credit card or by sending a payment from their checking account (echeck). PayPal provides a shopping cart and many other free services that are helpful to sites that are starting out. They charge 2.9% +$.30 per transaction and have no start-up fees. The downsides are that PayPal is not a very customizable solution, and it can have a “start-up” feel. However, this is changing and many mainstream sites are now accepting PayPal as more and more people have PayPal accounts. PayPal is inexpensive both because there are no merchant account of payment gateway fees, but also because PayPal provides a very easy way to integrate their shopping cart into your site, which reduces development time.
A similar solution just for non-profits is Network for Good, which allows you to accept credit card donations on your site. They charge 3% of each transaction.
Another inexpensive option is a free solution called Mal's e-commerce. Mal's is a shopping cart system that is remotely hosted. With the free version, you can accept PayPal, offline payments like checks, and credit cards if you have your own way to charge them already. It will store the numbers for you to run offline. For $6 a month you can upgrade your cart so it can integrate with a number of popular payment gateways like Authorize.net. There are other fees associated with payment gateways and merchant accounts that you would also be responsible for.
8. What is CSS? Do I need to use CSS for my website? CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) allows web designers to attach styles (fonts, colors, size, margins, etc.) to HTML documents. It works like a template allowing web developers to define a style for an HTML element and then apply it to as many web pages as they want/need. We can also use styles to display different elements for different media (screen, printers). It simplifies web site maintenance and also helps the way a page displays content for Search Engine robots on the Internet.
9. I live outside WA/USA; can you design my website?
Yes. We design websites and provide our services worldwide. All the processes can be done over the internet or the telephone.
10. Who/ how will I contact you regarding my project progress?
A project manager would be appointed to your project. The project manager makes sure that your project is completed on time and also assists to build a communication bridge between you and the team working on your project. Our project manager will be available to help you with any queries you may have, and will update you on the progress of your site. The details about your web design project would be updated to you through email.
11. Does your quoted price cover web hosting and domain registration?
The quoted price covers web design and web maintenance. It also includes 1 year of domain registration and hosting. Thereafter, you will have to pay US$15 for domain renewal and hosting fee depending on your hosting requirement like bandwidth and space.
12. How long does it take to finish a website/project?
The timescale of a website design project depends upon many factors. Since each website is different and may require varying length of time to complete it. It also depends on other factors, when the clients provide all the materials like images, text and name of the pages for the site; it’ll be easier for us to complete the site in short time period. Also if the client has a deadline to meet we will attempt to meet it for you. When we have to wait for content (text, images) to be sent to us by the client, the delay in the creation of the site might occur. It will depend on the scope of your web site. But generally it takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months to design and develop a web site. Most individual and small business web sites take 2 to 4 weeks, medium business web sites take 5 weeks to 3 months, and larger web sites can take 3 months or more.
Once Avenues USA receives all the content (text & graphics) in final form, a signed contract(opt.) and deposit, a typical website will take about 1-3 weeks. It may take longer or less time depending on the size of the project and your feedback.
13. Do I have to sign a contract or follow legal procedure to use your services?
No we do not use contracts. We try to make the procedures as easy and simple as possible. When you place your order for a special package web site or accept our quotation to supply a custom designed site, you agree to our terms of use and our acceptable conduct policies.But for the projects budgeting over US$5000, both the parties have to enter into special agreement before proceeding to the development.
14. Do I have to provide content for my web site? What type of content should I prepare?
You would typically supply us with the written content which can be from your current promotional material but it should be rewritten for a website audience since promotional flyers, etc. don't translate well to the internet. We can give you guidelines for writing the content to make it easier. Alternately, we can arrange to have your content written for you at an additional cost.
Other less tangible aspects such as design or layout ideas are handled in the preliminary meetings where you specify any preferred color schemes and sample web sites that appeal to you. If you have a logo already we will use that as a starting point.
If you are selling products online (in excess of 30 items) we will require a database of your product line, though one can be set up for you. If you have pictures for each product they will need to be delivered to us either by hard copy or electronically.
15. I already have a web site; will you redesign or edit it?
Yes we do redesign or edit an existing website. We also redesign your website taking advantage of the latest technology.
16. What is a template and why should I use one?
A collection of pre-built empty pages with the same theme is known as web template. Templates are made by professional web artists, which ensure the template to have coordinated colors and a great layout. Templates are used to avoid a lot of design work, and it saves both time and money and gives you a professional look at the same time.
17. Will people find my website as soon as it is build?
In order to let people know or see your website, your web pages should be registered or submitted in various search engines, link lists or directories. It may take some time days, weeks or even months to get your website ranked in some of the search engines, depending upon the SEO.
18. Do you provide email services?
Yes we do provide email services.
19. How many pages can I have on my website?
You can have as many pages as you want on your website. The number of pages also depends on the nature of website. It is important that each page has a clear purpose. We’d recommend a dynamic website (link to Q#4) if you have more than 25 pages for your site.
20. Can I have a website designed with audio or video clips?
Yes, both audio and video can be added on your website design. It can be done with flash other media files embedded into the web page.
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