Frequently Asked Questions
We like to have a consultation (in person, over the phone, or just by email) so we can develop a full understanding of your needs and assess the time required to build your site. We also offer a free quote via the contact page. We assess the size and number of pages your website will have and discuss the use of different themes, colours, images and logos. If you have helpful links, sketches or any other information (digital or otherwise) you think may help define your vision you are most welcome to share them. A layout will be created for you to view, we discuss any necessary changes, and input information. Once you are happy with the website it needs to be published to the web; we can help to purchase you a domain name (www.yourwebsite.com) and hosting package (where your website files are stored online) suited to the size of your website. This will incur an annual hosting fee. Any subsequent updates or tweaks will be free for one month; from then on our hourly update rate is $25.00.
As we deal with clients on a first-come-first-served basis, you can expect to wait about 6 weeks from an initial consultation to a finished product. Some jobs can take only 2 weeks, while clients needing a more extensive service may require around 2 months' work. We endeavour to meet any deadlines, but if you have a very urgent request it will incur a 40% surcharge. If you are able to supply information/images around the beginning of a project it will not take as long.
The simple answer is 'no'. To offer a Flash-based website would make the time and cost of any web project significantly higher, (many corporate Flash websites can cost over $20,000!) and we want to keep offering a service that is within the budget of an individual or small business.
If your layout or service needs a logo we are able to design one for you as part of a package, as well as creating a design that is uniquely yours. If you want to use photographs and cannot supply them we may suggest browsing iStockphoto, a place that provides royalty-free stock photography and other imagery starting from US $1. We enjoy working with local photographer Mark Boyle, who is also able to arrange quality professional photography of products, fashion, food and anything else that you might need.
We offer installation of blogging tools for those who'd like to start a weblog, news feeds for clients who need to add updates, galleries for clients who want to upload their own photos at any time, or the installation of a customised message board/forum. Alternatively, if you are confident in your own web editing you may be well suited to a template package so you can control your content.
We can submit your website to Google and other engines for free. We use descriptive tags in the code of your website to match up with common search terms. Usually within a few weeks of your website being online, any direct search will bring you straight to your domain.