Frequently Asked Questions

General

1) How much does it cost to design and develop a website?

We are often asked how much it costs to design and develop a business website; the answer depends upon the extent of the design, the number of pages, the depth of search engine optimisation required, whether a content management system is required, whether e-commerce is required, whether a database is required and so on…

Simply put, the cost of designing and developing a website will depend upon the hours spent building it. We can of course estimate the cost based upon similar requirements that we have fulfilled in the past and we will always try to fix the cost where we can. However, even this can change if the client comes back and wants changes to the original requirement, or changes the design over and over.

For large projects we prefer to work to a specification and sign-off that specification before a project is started. This allows us to be very accurate with the charges. This will incur a charge for the development of the specification, however, we always refund this cost against the charges for the entire solution.

With the smaller websites the cost of a specification is prohibitive; however, there are some key points that you should consider which will prevent any deviation from the fixed cost estimate.

Think about the pages that you might require and let us know. We may advise more or less when we communicate but if you have a good idea to start with it will help us all.
Have a list of sites that you:
1. think are relevant and similar to what you want
2. like the design of
3. believe are your main competitors
Do you have a domain name or do you need one? Let us know up front.
You are the expert in your field not us, thus you will be required to provide the copy for the pages on the website. Think about the copy and about what you want to say to your potential clients. Maybe you will need assistance and if we are aware of this in advance we can help.
Do you already have a corporate identity, logo and stationery etc? Bring that with you when you meet us; we will likely require the corporate colours, logo etc. for the website.
Have you thought about keyword phrases? For example a keyword phrase for this website is website design in Cardiff. This simply means that if an Internet user enters this phrase in Google, hopefully they will find our website. If possible, identify a list of keyword phrases that are important to your business.

Be cautious of those offering a fixed low price without first getting detail about the website from you. This can only realistically be done if template designs are used on top of a pre-built system, making the process measurable at the outset. These types of pre-built systems can be very badly developed, can incur search engine penalties for duplication and can also be very rigid as a direct result of having to be generic. If you want a unique, search engine optimised website, you do not want one of these systems. Always ask the developer if the system is based on a template system.

2) Can you buy/transfer a domain for us?

Yes, we will either buy your domains for you and register them to you or your business; or we will transfer your existing domains to our server and, again, the ownership is registered to you and the domain is just handled by our server.

3) Can I transfer my domain to another provider?

Yes, of course you can. We do not ever wish to lose a client so we would like to know if there is anything we can do to keep your business, but you own your domain and website, thus you can move hosts anytime. We do not have an automated process for domain transfers so you will need to drop us an email asking us to move the domain, at which point we will send you the appropriate instructions based on your domain type.

4) Do I own my website?

Yes, you own the website and are entitled to a full copy of the solution. The website is a compiled solution, as such it contains two parts:

Part 1: The solution and the design This is the website as a complete project, including the design. If you took the complete solution and placed it onto another server in a similar environment it will work absolutely perfectly. The solution is a complete entity and might include a website, database, shopping cart, payment processing etc., thus it will need configuring, but technically it does not have to exist on our servers. If you have your own servers we can help you configure the database and domain if required.

Part 2: The code You can think of this as the brain of the artist, how it sees things working, how it puts it all together to create the right solution and the intellectual experience of the developer etc. This is intellectual property and is owned by Designer Websites Ltd.

You should think about this in the same way as if you purchased a copy of Microsoft Office from PC World. You get a solution, but you don't get the code that created it because that is worth many, many times what the solution is worth. There are many developers out there who would happily pay for one of our solutions if it meant that they could scrutinise the code that created it, so that they can learn from the experience that put it together. We are vigorously protective of our intellectual property and would never want it getting into the hands of our competitors, after all, it is our experience, technical know-how and ability to build great solutions that gives us our great reputation.

5) Why should I choose Designer Websites Ltd for our website development?

FREE ANALYSIS | FREE WEBSITE REVIEW | FREE KEYWORD RESEARCH | FREE PROPOSAL

When you come to us for a website we will analyse your requirements, look at your competitors, research your keywords, make appropriate suggestions, review your old website if you have one, and we will do all of this at no cost to you. In most cases we will provide you with a fixed price proposal, however, for some very complex projects this is not always possible. Because we do so much work in advance we need to ensure that the cost to you is keen and that the development of the website goes smoothly. This ensures that you get great value for money and means we get ongoing clients who are happy dealing with us and coming back when their business grows and has further requirements.

Apart from the it makes business sense reason, we also have these reasons:

We are all degree qualified software engineers and also are Microsoft Certified Professionals
We have been developing professional websites since websites were first invented
We have hundreds of client websites that we can show you, our experience is second to none
We can develop web based solutions with any level of complexity
Our designs are bespoke and not templates
We truly are search engine optimisation experts

6) I want a quality website – how do we move forward?

We usually encourage you to meet us either at our office or at yours, during which time we will go through your requirements and provide you with the free proposal. We then ask you to send a purchase order, which can simply be an email saying go ahead, after which we will send you an invoice for the deposit of 50% of the development costs. We then design and develop the website to your satisfaction, get the copy for your website from you, purchase or transfer any domains that you require, setup your email accounts and place your new website on our live servers, at which point you will get an invoice for the final 50% and the hosting fees. It's a very straightforward process and can be done within a week for a small websites.

Website Optimisation

1) What is search engine optimisation?

Put simply, website optimisation is making a website more popular on the Internet within its competing discipline. To do this we need to look at the levels of competition on the Internet in your business discipline, identify keyword phrases for your business and optimise your website for the chosen keywords. Essentially if you want your website to be found by you chosen target audience, you must optimise your website.

2) Why optimise my website?

The reason is also pretty simple; there are hundreds of millions of website out there and it's likely that you will be competing with thousands of these, if not tens of thousands of them. Just like any business it is very hard to compete globally yet the Internet provides this level of coverage and you will be competing on this level unless you optimise. Sometimes competing globally is required and this is possible but is also much harder than you might think, and is getting harder by the day!

Simple example: if you are a small business based in Cardiff and you type into Google website design, let's say you get ten website design companies; the top two are for companies in Scotland and the next two are in Ireland, but the next one is in Cardiff – which one are you likely to do business with?

Another example: in the scenario you are still in Cardiff and you have typed wedding cake designer and you have ten results for companies all over the country but none in Wales, what do you do next? You change that search to wedding cake designer Cardiff or wedding cake designers wales, in fact this is now how most people search.

So whilst competing on a global or national level is far more appealing, the reverse usually yields the best results in terms of sales. With this in mind we advocate any business to be the best in its locality first and foremost, and then after achieving great results and a high level of exposure on the Internet we can look at a wider audience.

For this reason this website is optimised for website design Cardiff, which yields the best sales results for us. It does not exclude us from competing nationally and we have dozens of clients outside of Wales to prove this, however, it does give us a much higher profile in our locality.

3) What are keywords and why do I need them?

Keywords are the words or phrases that potential clients might enter into the search engines in order to find what they are looking for. So we would assume that they entered something like website design or website optimisation to find this website. In order to compete more efficiently on a local basis then we would long-tail the keyword phrase with Cardiff or in Cardiff e.g. we might use website design Cardiff or website design in Cardiff.

Yes, you certainly need to include keywords in your website. It is important to know the levels of competition already on the Internet for these keywords in order to appropriately build them into you website in exactly the right places for exactly the right number of times. Tip: the more content you have, the more often you can repeat the keywords and still keep the copy on your website readable.

4) Does it cost more to have a search engine optimised website?

Not always. It really depends upon how competitive your keywords are. We provide the keyword research to our clients free of charge, we then advise how best to proceed. In some cases a lot more work is required than first anticipated by the client.

5) What is link building?

Building links to your website from other websites is also very important for websites wanting a high profile on the Internet. This has to be done very carefully and very ethically so as not to incur penalties from the search engines. Do not use paid links or link farms as these are very frowned upon by the search engines. Ideally you want to build links over time naturally from appropriate sources like clients, suppliers, partner companies, local directories etc.

6) Is social media link building good?

Hmmm, tricky one. It can be because the search engines love the social media culture, however, if done incorrectly it could be deemed unethical. Our advice is this: if you are blatantly fudging links to your website into social media websites for no other reason than to have a link, DON'T! If on the other hand you have become part of an online community and regularly contribute to that online community then what you are doing is perfectly ethical, so why not.

Various types of linking have resulted in websites being banned by the search engines, many totally unexpected by the website owner because they have asked a link building company to care of it for them. Why does this happen? Well unfortunately it's in some people's nature to cheat where possible and they do this by exposing some form of loophole for the search engine algorithms, trying to second guess what they will rank highly. This can end up badly as the likes of Google do not like their methods to be abused and thus take aggressive action.

The search engines are in the business of providing the best service they can to Internet users. If you search for website designers then that is exactly what they want to show you. If you always ensure that your linking is ethical then you will never get on the wrong side of the search engines.

Ecommerce Websites

1) What is an ecommerce website? Do I need ecommerce for my website?

Ecommerce is simply selling online and processing a payment. If you sell products then you likely need a shopping cart and some way to process the payments. You may sell a product, a training course, a service, or just your time; if a payment needs to be processed then an ecommerce website is required. It is not particularly expensive or complicated and we will walk you through the whole process.

A typical ecommerce website is Amazon.com, Play.com, Next.com etc.

2) Do I need an SSL Certificate for my website?

If you are recording details for your website users, particularly sensitive details like credit card details or bank account details, then yes you will likely need an SSL Certificate. Ecommerce websites have 2 main options for collecting payment; offsite or onsite.

Onsite: SSL Certificate required

You collect the details for the transaction and the credit card details onsite (directly on your website). Then you transmit the purchasing information to the payment provider; this transmission needs to be encrypted and thus an SSL Certificate is required. This solution looks more professional and gives the user confidence buying from your website. You can also record the transactional details into your purchasing database in whatever format you desire.

Offsite: SSL Certificate not required

If you send the user to another website to collect their payment details then you will not require an SSL Certificate because you will not be transmitting sensitive information through the Internet. There are a number of payment providers out there who offer this service e.g. Sage Forms, PayPal, WorldPay.

We can register the SSL Certificate for you and tie it to your domain. This is a very straightforward process and we take care of it all for you.

3) Does my ecommerce website require a database?

Yes, you will very likely require a database.

A scenario where you will not need a database: You have a single product/service that will never or rarely change and you do not wish to record the payment transactions. In this case you would have a static website which would take the user to another website like PayPal to collect a payment.

In most other cases you will require a database to manage your client data, products, categories, website content and transactional information.

When your website needs a database we do all of the work for you; you won't even know it is there and will interact with it through an easy to use content management system.

If it interests you, we utilise Microsoft SQL Server. We sometimes use XML for website data if it is more suitable.

Content Managed Websites

1) What is a content management system?

A content management system is a set of web pages that interact with a database to allow you to easily change the content of a web page. A simple example would be that of an ecommerce website which sells gadgets; on such a website the owner would want to be able to manipulate product images, prices, descriptions, add new products, delete old ones etc.

2) Why have a bespoke content management system?

Content management systems are great for sites that need to change products, prices etc. on a regular basis. However, all too often designers push content management systems onto business owners who shouldn't really have them. They do this because it is the easiest way for them to generate a website; they utilise a pre-built CMS and just plug-in a design, which is also likely to be a template. This is not only easier for them but is also more profitable than building one from scratch. The chances are a designer will have a solution that he can give you off the shelf, with a few hours of tinkering around with a design they can have a website completely ready for you. Do they charge you for a few hours though?

A bespoke content management system is built very specifically for the areas of a page you need to author and contains only the functions you require. There are a number of reasons for this:

Allowing a non-developer to author a web page can be catastrophic for the rendering of a web page if a very simple mistake is made. This is very common.
The search engines like clean non-dynamic (static) page content where possible. The search engine spiders can trip up where content is dynamically created and in many cases cannot read the content of a page, thus these pages may not be indexed on the search engines. This is also very common
Non-bespoke CMS systems are rigid; by their very nature they have to be generic and suit all businesses, thus much of the system you will never utilise, much of the flexibility you require for your business website will not suit other businesses, thus it will not be available to you. However, the designer will attempt to convince you that the CMS is very flexible.

Pre-built CMS systems were originally designed to assist self-build's. Some business owners are very technically minded and like to give it a go themselves, especially where they are a start-up business and have a very small budget for marketing. These systems are fine for that but sadly many so-called web design firms use these systems to sell websites to unsuspecting business owners – don't fall for it. It is not the best solution for your business; in fact they can be quite detrimental as far as the search engines are concerned.

Bespoke content management systems are not expensive!

When we build a CMS for your website we first analyse your requirements, your business model and advise you about an appropriate solution. For example, if you have a car leasing website you will likely need to change the vehicles and pricing structure very frequently, but the other pages and the overall layout of the website is very unlikely to be changed often enough to warrant a CMS. These elements can be changed from a single page in the CMS, making the CMS very small and easy to use, and cheap!

Many people are sold on CMS websites with the phrase search engines like changing content. This is true in context, but they don't like the content to be dynamic; they want new pages, new news items etc. For example, you could have a new page about a new service you provide or a new news article about a change within the company etc. If you want a website with fresh new article content frequently then you need a blog.

As with all things technical, speak to an expert. Designers are great at making things look pretty, logo designing etc., but not necessarily so good for business website development.

3) Does my content managed website require a database?

Again it depends how much content you want to manage. Usually you will require a database to be able to login and manage the content. In some cases you may only wish to update a single page, say a news and events page for example. In this scenario you could simply have a text based file which can be uploaded to the server for page updates. In this scenario you will not necessarily require a database. In most other cases where you want to manage client data, multiple pages, product data, prices etc. you will require a database.