FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do your services cost less than your competitors?
Ts1design believes that a good website shouldn”t cost a ton of money. We have affordable options for personal websites and corporate/commerce websites.
Unlike many of our competitors, we don”t have to cover overhead costs of building expenses, company expenditures, or have a large payroll to fill. That equates to extra savings for the you, the customer.
How much does a website cost? How much does a web design cost? Or an ecommerce site?
How much does a website cost? This is the most frequent asked question of any website designer. To establish website cost without knowing the clients needs, would be like a car dealer quoting prices, without even knowing which vehicle the customer wants.
Complexities of the website design selected, along with the number of pages needed, will determine the actual cost of your website. We are able to provide a variety of packages to fit most budgets.
The web design cost for the site will depend on a range of factors such as the number of pages, the content and complexity of the design, whether a contact form is required, or a banner design etc. You”re paying for the web designer’’s time, so the more complex the design, and the more variations that are considered, the more it will cost. For a non-ecommerce site, expect to pay anything from £50 to £100+ a page, perhaps with a set-up fee and VAT added on as well.
For a customised ecommerce site selling several hundred products, offering a typical range of options such as customer accounts, web design companies are likely to quote anywhere between one and five thousand pounds.
For Ecommerce sites, a 2007 survey from Actinic found that: ”the average price charged by web designers for deploying an ecommerce site was around £3,300”.
Do I get e-mail with my website?
You have the option of setting up several user accounts. The address would correspond to your domain name, i.e. yourusername@yourdomainname.com.
How do you take payment for the service, do require any payment up front?
Before we begin any project we take a 50% deposit then the remainder of the balance is settled on completion. PayPal is an easy-to-use application that allows you to securely send money using your credit card or bank account to any email user in the U.K. or most other countries.
We only take payments from debit and credit cards done securely through PayPal. Unfortunately we no longer accept cheques.
I already have a website I would like revamping is this something you do and how much would this cost?
Yes we can redesign a web site and costs would depend on the number of pages and images required. If you would like a quote for this please contact us with your requirements.
Can you guarantee my site will appear on the first page in a search engine?
Nobody can honestly claim to do so because of the ever-changing algorithms and formulas search engines utilize.There are hundreds of different search engines and indexes all of which have their own method of determining what ranking they will give you based on a keyword search.
Certain optimization techniques work in one search engine but are given less weight or even penalized by another. The overall strategy we employ is to try and find a happy medium and make sure your keywords are present where they need to be. Other factors such site popularity (determined by how many other popular sites are linking to you), keyword placement in your page titles, page text, alternate text for images and meta tags (special tags read by some search engines which contain keywords specific to your industry and the site content) will determine your site’’s relevance vs. the keywords the potential visitor has typed in.
With every custom web site we create, we include submissions to some of the most popular free search engines and indexes such as Google, Alta Vista, Lycos, Dmoz Open Directory Project, etc. More comprehensive strategies and submissions are available to achieve improved results.
A quick way to get on to the front page of Google is to use Google AdWords,but again this needs to be looked at very carefully to ensure that the cost (which can be significant) reaps appropriate benefits. Adwords advice and optimisation also comes under the umbrella of most SEO agencies. The cheapest option is to do it yourself; it may take far longer and score 10/10 for frustration.
Ts1Design will take chosen keywords to the Metatags and do other basic SEO tricks, but we certainly cannot offer any guarantees as to Search Engine rankings, and a client should be wary of anyone offering such guarantees, especially if it’’s at a relatively low cost.
What is hosting, and do you provide it?
Hosting is where the files which make up the website are stored on a computer (server); when someone types in a www address, they are automatically directed to this server in order to view the website. Hosting companies ideally provide a range of back-up systems, security, plus air-conditioning for stable temperature and humidity etc. Consequently.
Ts1design does offer hosting directly for more information see Ts1Host
Are your websites all W3C approved and do they validate for selected doc types?
This depends on the requirements of the client. We can and do produce 100% valid mark up where design allows however some times it simply is not possible to have every functionality a site needs such as some scripting elements and have a page validate 100%. This said we always use W3C approved CSS mark up of pages and if 100% validation is something you require certain design elements will not be available to your website
How are updates made to my site?
Design companies that charge a monthly fee will often include free updates as part of the design package. Alternatively, a certain amount of free updates may be included in the initial cost. To use a web designer to make frequent changes to a site is not particularly cost-effective, and an alternative is to use a Content Management System (CMS), which is a bit like using a word processing package. A wide range of CMS packages are available via the Internet, generally costing less than £100 – and most web designers will recommend something appropriate for your specific site and your level of computer expertise. Any CMS will take a little time to learn how to use, but they are useful for making basic changes to text and images, although more complex adjustments to the structure of the site can also be made.
Database sites (e.g. Ecommerce, Estate Agents) are a little different, in that a CMS component is often included as part of the design, being tailored to the database content and the specific needs of the site.
What is the legal situation with regard to Accessibility?
The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 has been implemented in stages, and since 2006 company websites are expected to take (reasonable) steps to ensure that their sites are accessible to disabled users. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has laid down criteria and guidelines for web designers (relating to visibility of text, verbal description for images, ease of navigation etc), and Ts1design websites are checked for accessibility against the W3C Guidelines prior to completion.
What other legal requirements are there?
Companies in the UK must include certain information on their websites and in their emails. Minimum information is: name, registered office address, email address, company registration number, VAT number, membership details of any trade or professional organisation. Prices on an ecommerce website must be unambiguous, with clear information as to whether VAT and delivery charges are included. The UK’’s distance selling regulations are detailed at http://www.out-law.com/page-424