Design
Your web site needs to look good, be easy to navigate and provide your visitors with all the information they were looking for. This requires four things:
- An eye for what is attractive without being overwhelming; a creative streak that wants it right.
- Technical capability to implement whatever it is that is dreamt up - if you've seen it on the Internet, Cobourg Internet can do it.
- An understanding of what is practical, what works. Good site organization and navigation is essential - good looking intros that cost a bundle don't do anything except impress how much you spent on the design. Not only must the site work, it must work well for all visitors, PC or MAC; Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome or Safari; high-speed or not; techie or not.
- An understanding of what brings visitors - what makes Google, Bing and Yahoo find your site, This is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. This is best done during site design - not after when it may be too late.
You get all this with Cobourg Internet - have a look at some existing sites here. Ask any of these customers.
If you are knowledgeable about web site design, you will know how long it takes to do various things. For example, original graphics and "Flash movies" take a long time so are relatively expensive. However, when you consider that introductory movies and extensive graphics are not used in the biggest and most used sites (except perhaps by advertisers), then you wonder why you need to spend money on these items. Sites like the major banks, Google and Yahoo - all keep it simple. However too little can be boring too so most of our sites use JavaScript and some use Flash and PHP to improve the visitor experience. Note that great care is taken to minimize spam and other security problems. I design useful, low cost sites - and end up with happy customers. Have a look at my sites for examples, I think you'll find them attractive.
Tools used
I have a high powered Dell computer with a colour calibrated NEC Monitor. I have a separate external hard drive for daily local backups. Power is secured by an APC UPS. A scanner and two printers complete the hardware.
Software includes
- Dreamweaver CS5 for HTML coding
- Photoshop CS5 for creating and editing graphics.
- Flash CS5 for a little bit of Flash
- Ipswitch WS-FTP pro for uploading the site
- Read Iris Pro for OCR
- Microsoft Office including Publisher and Access.
- Miscellaneous utilities for editing, format changing etc
Price
There are two ways generally used for pricing in the industry. One is to spend time up front specifying the scope and quoting a fixed price to that scope. I would prefer to do that since it is low stress not having to hurry or count the minutes. Instead, I charge by the hour - measured in 5 minute increments.
The hourly rate for Cobourg Internet is $30 per hour. Invoices include a detailed listing of work done and time taken.
If you have your own graphics or photos, these can be incorporated at a low cost.
However, if you want an idea of costs, the following should give you some idea.
Typical Site Costs:
- A single page - your own domain name, set up, layout of your text, links, adding a couple of your photos:
Host (Standard plan) $96, Domain (.com) $15, Design (3 hours) $90. Total $201 for first year, $111 for subsequent years with no changes. - Four or five pages - your own domain name, 1 to 10 e-mail addresses, set up, layout of your text, all navigation, links, full statistics:
Host (Prime plan) $126, Domain (.com) $15, Design (8 hours) $240. Total $381 for first year, $141 for subsequent years with no changes.
Traffic
Search Engine submission and Optimization (SEO) is included.
Getting lots of traffic is important, and we can help - one very important item is to make sure Google finds your site easily.
Many web designers will tell you that there needs to be a lot of work done to make the site visible and/or popular with Search Engines but techniques that worked some years ago such as adding meta descriptions and keywords no longer have any effect. The fact is that sites should be designed from the beginning with SEO in mind and that's what we do.
Sites by Cobourg Internet
As well as this site, have a look at some of the other Web Sites designed and maintained by Cobourg Internet here.
Cobourg Internet will design a web site for you and make sure that Google and other search engines find it quickly.
Client Information
Updates
To keep Cobourg Internet Clients up to date, a monthly newsletter is sent to them. Subjects include viewing traffic statistics, new features available, search engine optimization, spam management and more. In addition, a support page lists many of the documents covered in the newsletters.
Invoices
Invoices are issued monthly at month end.
Pay Invoices Online
If would like to pay by Credit card, let me know. When I email your invoice, it will include a PayPal Pay Now button which takes you to PayPal's secure site. They accept Amex, Visa and Mastercard as well as PayPal account payments. Available only for emailed invoices.