Website design, hosting and ongoing management

How long is a piece of string? The cost of a website can vary depending on various factors, just like the cost of a house may vary depending on size of the house and the quality of the materials and fixtures. It depends on your unique needs and what exactly what you want your website to do for you.

If you are starting out and don't have a lot to invest in your online presence we can break your project down into parts by starting off with a simple website, and then adding functionality or more pages in another development stage.

The time it takes to produce a website depends on the size and complexity of your site and the quality of content that you have ready to go (or how long it takes you to get finalised copy to us). Once we know your goals and the content is ready, designing and building a basic website typically takes around 4 weeks.

If you are starting out and don't have a lot to invest in your online presence we can break your project down into parts by starting off with a simple website, and then adding functionality or more pages in another development stage.

Whilst we like to be flexible and responsive to your needs, we also like to deliver what we promise within the time frames and budgets we have allowed.

If you ask us to add new features to your website while we are building it, we’ll most likely ask why? If we all agree that your new request will help us achieve our objectives then we will be more than happy to oblige. We will need your written agreement on the cost for the extra work and any extra time required to carry it out.

If your new feature is something you would like to add to your website, but is not directly tied to your original objectives then we will suggest to schedule it for a second iteration of the website once it has been launched. This will require a new proposal.

Yes it will. We design all our websites to look great all devices (computers, smart phones, iPhones, iPads and tablets).  You can check out to see if Google thinks your current website is mobile responsive on Google’s mobile friendly test.

WordPress is open source content management software and currently powers over 29% of all websites on the Internet. The project is contributed to by tens of thousands of developers all over the world and is growing from strength to strength.

WordPress allows us to develop flexible and customisable websites to modern standards and observes web development best practices. Furthermore, the community of web developers that use WordPress reaches far and wide and allows us to tap in to this collective intelligence and bring that wealth of experience and functionality to your project.

All our websites come with a built in video help library with videos on how to use WordPress and some of the other tools we use. We can include video tutorials on tasks specific to your website and one on one tuition if you choose.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to update your website then we can organise to do that for you.

Your content is a critical part of your website. It is important that it is written in a way that your visitors will understand and it should entice them to explore further.

Just like good cheese, creating content takes more time than you think. We find that content creation is the most under estimated processes when building a website. We will endeavour to guide you through this and provide advice during the process. We would strongly encourage you to include some copywriting time in this project to help craft your content specifically to speak in a voice your visitors will identify with.

If you are writing the content yourself then we have a content process and a Content Creation Guide, which we send out in a series of emails to help you get started writing your content.

If you feel that you don’t have the skills or the time to write content for your website we can arrange for a professional copy writer to talk to you and write content that will be appropriate for your website and for your clients.

We expect content to be delivered in a web-ready form. This means that it has been proofed for spelling, grammar and accuracy.

However, we understand that content is an ongoing and evolving thing. If we have already uploaded your content to the website and you wish to change it, we can teach you how, or we can do it for you. If we do it for you there will be an additional charge.

Good quality images really enhance a website. The old saying "an picture is worth a 1000 words" is really true, especially when people are skimming through your website and not reading all your lovingly crafted words.

If you are going to use images on your website you need to own the copyright for the image, have the permission of any people in the photo, or use an image that has creative commons licence applicable to your situation. We can tell you where to find stock images that don’t cost the earth.

Videos are a great way of engaging your visitors. Videos need to be ‘held’ somewhere online. We strongly recommend using video hosting services such as Youtube or Vimeo for your videos. They can then be easily accessed on your website.

We can put you in touch with professionals who can record professional videos for you.

Once your website is launched, we will provide 30 days of support to make sure any bugs have been ironed out and that you are confident using your new website.

After this you will need to subscribe to one of our ongoing website care plans to make sure your website is looked after and maintained. These website care plans include updating your software, regular backups, security checks and making sure your website is online and open for business 24/7/365. More information on our website care plans is available upon request.

Provided you subscribe to one of our ongoing website care plans, we will be your first point of call should something go wrong with your website.

We will determine whether it is something the hosting company needs to fix, or something that is covered by your website care plan. We will provide training and video tutorials to assist you in using your website once it is launched.

For more information visit Avoca Web Design Website Care Plans.

We will install Google analytics software on your new website and show you how to log into your Google analytics account where you can see a wide range of statistics about your website including number of visits, page views than the amount of time people are spending on your website.

Once you subscribe to one of our website care plans you will also receive more detailed analysis about your website performance and recommendations on how to improve.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is all about getting your website higher up in the search results on search engines such as Google. The higher up the results you are the more traffic (and customers) you’re likely to get.

There are many aspects that go into achieving good SEO, and one of the most important is the copy (words) on your website. Focus on well written, keyword rich and appropriate content is the key.

To get consistently on the 1st page of a Google search takes time, effort and money. It also depends on how much competition you have. We can advise you on strategies or direct you to an SEO expert.

All our websites come with the following:

• Basic keyword research in our content planning process so that we can all be aware of the major keywords as the website development progresses.
• A strong foundation for SEO. (Building your website is a lot like building a house. You need strong foundations and good quality materials.)
• Easy to use SEO tool so we can make sure that every page, post and product is optimised for it’s own keyword or key phrase.
• We check your site at launch for broken links, missing titles, image alternate titles and other things that might effect the SEO of your site.
• If this is a website redesign project we make sure all the old links are redirected to the appropriate place on the new website.

We are happy to talk to more about extending your search engine strategy. We discuss what you need (search engine optimisation and online marketing plan including; SEO, Google Adwords, social media strategy and more) and advise you or help you find the right expert for what you need.

The time it takes for your website to appear on page 1 of Google depends on a number of factors. It depends on the search phrase people are using to find your website and the number of other websites that are also available for those search phrases.

Nobody can truly say how long it will take for your website to appear at the top of search engine results pages (including people who actually work for Google), however there are a number of factors that can improve your chances. Building your website on WordPress is a good start as WordPress has some great Search Engine Optimisation fundamentals built-in. Creating unique and interesting content on a regular basis for your website is also critical to increase your visibility amongst search engines.

Launching your website and then forgetting about it is a surefire way to get lost amongst the noise. Your website should be a dynamic and evolving online presence for your business.

We use Rackspace’s rock-solid, hosted email service if required. This gives you a 25GB storage allowance and 50MB maximum attachment size. It gives you webmail access and control over spam filtering. You will be able to connect via POP or IMAP. (We can explain which one might be best for you and how to set this up on your computer.)

You will get 1 email inbox and unlimited email aliases (forwarding addresses) included in the website hosting. Any additional email address will incur a small annual charge.