Web Design - The Process

OK so someone suggested you need a web site. Well who's idea was that!
It was probably me.

Now you're panicking - what's involved? How much is this going to cost? Can I still eat chocolate? What do I have to do? What do you do exactly? What if I have an idea? Does my wife/husband/partner/civil unionite need to know? Will it be painful? Can my dog be involved? Does it involve surgery? Do I have to know anything about computers? Why is this any different from print advertising? Why do you have print design and web design as differing fields? Do I really need to shave my legs? What is the difference between print images and images for the web? What does image quality have to do with it? What does love have to do with it? Where am I?

Good grief what a load of questions you have. I've probably told you to come here for some answers.
Lets take it in steps....

1. Your Domain Name
The first thing you will need to think of is a great sounding domain name. The Domain name is the name that starts with www. For instance www.cathydee.com is my domain name. I would have preferred www.snorkstonky.com but no one would take my dog seriously as a web designer. You can have a choice of endings - .com - .co.nz - .org.nz - .biz.nz and many others still being invented as you read but the www. remains the same. Once you have chosen a few selections for a name we need to make sure no one else that name. We do this by looking up your chosen name on www.freeparking.co.nz. It's best to think of a couple of names so you wont be disappointed to find out that someone else before you has come up with that great sounding domain name.

2. The How's and Whys
Now we need to sit down and talk about your business. What is your business, who is it aimed at? Do you have a brand/logo or would you like me to design one for you? Do you need a shopping cart? We'll take a look at some related sites and see how others have dealt with their web design. I send you off on a mission to search the web and take note of any startling sites you love and may wish to purloin a few ideas from. We'll get thinking about images - yours or mine? Images are very important - they should be clear and striking.

3. Work for You
This is the hard part for you. You need to break your business down into compartments. For instance mine was broken into Home, Web Design, The Process, Photography, On a Whim and Contact. Your's will vary according to the business you are in.

Next I need the writing to go into each of your compartments. I wont write it for you though I can edit it. Think about the images to go with these pages.

4. Work for Me
This is the hard part for me. Once you have compiled all the information, and delivered it to me along with a bottle of champagne and some chocolate, I'll get designing on paper first and then in an image program. I'll email through to you around 3 design ideas for the site from which you get to choose and edit a little along the way. We'll have a meeting or two and eventually decide on the final design layout.

5. Site Construction
I'll construct the web site and upload it as an attachment to my site for you to view, but no one else can see it yet. This is still at the developmental stage and can be edited and changed as much as we need to. I'll make sure your site is search engine friendly .

6. Site Host
We then need to get a Site host. These are the nice people who possess the enormous computer that houses all the web sites ready to send them out into the world for public viewing. I reccommend freeparking who can do a lite host for $149 per year including your domain name!

7. Uploading Your Site
After the final approval from you I'll upload your site and then spend ages registering your site on every site engine I can find that will register them for free. This means when people go looking for a site on say, The Lesser Spotted Chocolate Eating Wide Mouthed Gawping Frog, your site will be the very first that pops up on the search engine. Well it would if your site mentions this very rare and little known species.
Then you get to hand over lots of money and I become hysterically happy.

8. Celebrate in Style
You can have a site launch party and don't forget to invite me. I don't get out much these days but I promise to behave.

Good Grief, I hear you say, "Is that all there is to it?"

well, yes, actually.

9. Pricing
Your web site will cost anywhere from $800 for a simple 5 page site through to $3000 for a more complicated site.
For an extra $100 per month I can perform all your updates, site optimisation and photography as necessary.

Package deals:

5 page brochure site - $800
+ Domain name & Site hosting ($149)
hosted with Airnet

• design
• construction
• uploading
• optimise pages for Search Engines
• submit site to top World Wide and NZ Search Engine
• access statistics

15 page brochure site - $1500
+ Domain name reg ($45 per year) & Site hosting ($17 per month)
hosted with Airnet

• design
• construction
• photography by Cathy Dee
• uploading
• optimise pages for Search Engines
• submit site to top World Wide and NZ Search Engine
• access statistics