Your Questions Answered

Why Do I Need a Website?

There are many reasons why you might want or need a website. These depend on the nature of your organisation or business. A small local business might simply want to advertise what they offer. Maybe a printer offering their services or a gift shop advertising their wares. A club might want a website to attract new members and to act as a notice board for existing members. Some websites have many different purposes or audiences. A school would perhaps want their website to act as a brochure or prospectus for perspective parents as well as being an information point and showcase for their current pupils.

Why you need a website and what you want it to do will depend on your organisation and who your audience is. Part of our service is to help you decide exactly what you need from your website.

How Do I Choose A Domain Name?

First, what is a domain name? This is the name that uniquely identifies you on the Internet. Your address on the Internet, if you like. Amazon.co.uk is a domain name. So is google.com. You need to decide what you're going to call yourself on the Internet.

For most groups or businesses the choice of domain name is simple. If you are a UK based business you will probably want a name with the the .co.uk suffix. For businesses with a more international reach you could choose a .com address. Organisations will probably want a .org.uk or .org name. The rest of the domain name will probably simply be the name of your company or organisation. In some cases you might want to choose a name that reflects what you do. An insurance broker may want to have their website at www.cheapquotes.co.uk (assuming the name is not already used). This sort of name has some advantages when people are searching for you on the Internet, but are not always as memorable as your business name.

We can help you choose an appropriate name that isn't already in use. We can register the name for you and ensure that you are registered as the owner of your new Internet address.

What Should I Put On My Website?

To decide what needs to go on our website you need to think about what you expect the site to do for your business or organisation. Is it to be a brochure on the Internet. This is a very common type of website. You need to tell people what you do, how they can contact you, maybe where you can be found and so on.

Alternatively, you might want something more interactive. Maybe you run a club and you want people to be able to post announcements to the site. Or you want to have a discussion board where you can discuss your common interest or hobby.

Perhaps you sell something that would benefit from being sold over the Internet. In this case you will want what's called an e-commerce site. This allows visitors to view your wares and order them from your site. This is one of the more expensive sites, but should pay for itself in increased business. Just think of it like opening another branch or shop. It's just that this branch has a potential clientele of millions of people!

What is "Hosting" and why do I need it?

The charges for the website packages cover the design of the site and creating the various pages, words and images. The other half of the equation is putting them on the Internet. It would be possible to run a website from a computer at home or in the office. But, depending on your connection speed, this would be slow and unreliable. Your computer would have to be on all the time and the speed that the site was displayed would be insufficient. Visitors would soon give up and go somewhere else.

To solve this problem there are companies who have computers with fast internet connections who will, for a charge, allow you to put your website on their computers.

The hosting packages we provide cover the cost of and arrangement of this service. The hosting package will pay for one years hosting after which you can renew or move your website elsewhere.

How much will it cost me?

One of our aims to is to offer fixed price packages for those on a small to medium budget. To achieve this we've tried to keep our pricing simple.

One: decide which package you need. We can help you with this, so don't worry too much for now. Assume you'll need, say, the Standard package.

Two: do you need a domain name? If you're not sure whether you've got one, you probably haven't. Add appropriate domain package.

Three: do you need a hosting package. Unless you're a pretty well skilled computer and network administrator the answer is probably "yes". Add the hosting package that matches your design package.

For example, say you are a small UK based shop and you require a webiste to advertise your goods and services. You might choose the Standard design package, you'd need a .co.uk domain name and a hosting package. This would work out as:

Standard Package (£249) + .co.uk domain (£15) + hosting for Standard (£20) = £284

A larger business might want a more global reach and a larger site. So they'd require the Premier package and a .com domain name. This would therefore be:

Standard Package (£499) + .com domain (£25) + hosting for Premier (£30) = £554

If you're on a tight budget or are just looking to see how little you would need to get started on the WWW we'll save the trouble of working it out. It would be:

Starter Package (£149) + .co.uk or .org.uk domain (£15) + hosting for Starter (£20) = £184

How Do I Get Started?

Use our contact form to send us your details and a little information about what you require. We will then begin a dialogue via email, or telephone if necessary, to finalise your requirements and agree a final fixed price. At this stage we can decide what pages you require and what material (text, photos, graphics etc.) you want on them.

We will then produce a first draft of your website. You will then be able to view the site (before it is released on the WWW) and decide on any changes you think are necessary. Don't be afraid to ask for changes or suggest improvements. We are here to advise and suggest, but ultimately this is your website and you must be happy with the final result.

Once we have ironed out any last wrinkles the site can go live. We will have fully tested it, but will continue to listen to any input that you have and changes can still be made even at this stage.

And that's about it. You will then be the proud owner of a shiny new Internet presence. The website is then yours to do with as you will. Some people are happy to leave it alone, others like buy one of our update packages and keep the site regularly updated and expand as time goes by. Or you might feel that you'd like to have a go yourself and add new pages or modify existing ones. The choice is yours. It's your website!