Having a professional website, even if very simple, has become a necessary marketing tool in this day and age.  It is a very economical way of advertising your services compared to rising costs of newspaper ads ... and it obviously covers a much wider marketing area.  To many potential customers, if you have a website, it lends to your credibility as a company.  And you can afford to offer much more detail about your products and/or services on your website than in a newspaper display ad.  Put your website address in your newspaper ads and give your potential customers a comfort level before they even call you.  (Saves you a lot of time on the phone!)

But, publishing your website to the world is a bit like getting on a stage.  It better be good, enhancing your image.  If your website lacks professionalism and/or frustrates the viewer, it will only detract from your image.

I will prepare for you anything from a very simple inexpensive website to a more elaborate site, whatever you feel you need.  If you have ideas of what you want, that's helpful and saves time/money;  if not, tell me about your company and your needs and let me make some creative proposals.

What is our edge over most other web design services?

• You will get a unique, custom website with the opportunity to contribute your opinions, not a "cookie-cutter" or template plan.

• Very reasonable fees for development of site and on-going maintenance ... per hour fees with no monthly contract or monthly maintenance minimum.

• Prompt, personal service during site construction AND for updates on-going.

• Although we'll be working with my design concepts, this ultimately is YOUR website.  If we disagree on something, I'll explain why I feel it should be a certain way; but you will have final say.

What makes a good website?

A good website is one that keeps the viewer on the website!  It keeps his interest and allows him to easily find all the information he is seeking.  Ultimately, it should leave the viewer with a comfort level, a sense of confidence in the organization presented in the website, and a desire to pursue the company's offerings.

Here are some of the criteria that I believe are essential for a quality website ... and I build into each and every site I create.  Many of them are based on the reverse of things that bother me the most in the many poor websites I've seen.

• A good site is geared to the specific type of business ... all the way from the initial theme, design, colors and graphics, to the wording and presentation of text.  Thus, a website for a daycare center would be very different in concept from a website for an attorney's firm or a manufacturer of medical equipment.

• A good site will be professional enough to leave the viewer with a sense of confidence and trust.  It will not look like a cookie-cutter site, or like one of the freebie template sites that some novice put together.  The use of animated graphics, sound and "cutesy" things are often overdone; used sparingly, in the right time and place, they can enhance a focal point.

• A good site will utilize good design elements of balance, color, contrast and focal points ... much as an artist does in creating a painting.  This includes proper use of "white space", or blank space.  The goal is to make each page attractive while still presenting all necessary information, with emphasis on key focal points.  Many sites have too much clutter and no contrast or focal points.

• A good site will be easy to scan and find key sections of information.  It will be easy to read, with strong contrast between text and background, and with appropriate sized text.  One should not have to scroll off the page, back and forth, in order to read paragraphs of information!  And, nothing is more frustrating than pictures and text overlapping each other so text can't be read!

• A good site will be easy to navigate.  This is a key point for, if a viewer gets lost on your site, can't find his way back to what initially interested him, he will leave your site.  All link buttons should be well-positioned, clearly named, and should remain available anywhere on the site.  How various layers relate to each other should be logical. 

• A good site should be free of errors.  Poor grammar and punctuation, misspellings, typos, and broken links ALL damage your credibility.

• A good site will have all pictures optimized to appropriate small file size (20-40 kb) so they will load quickly, while still retaining good viewing quality.  People will give up if pictures take too long to load, and will be frustrated with pictures so tiny that they cannot see detail.  My software is able to retain quality and proper photo size when it compresses the file size.

• A good site gives the viewer easy opportunity to contact you from almost anyplace on your site.

• A good site includes appropriate key words and coding that make your site findable on internet searches.

Website services include:

• Initial customized website design (with options and approval of site owner)

• Set up of web hosting services (quality host at reasonable cost)

• Design of custom graphics, logos, headers (see examples on the Graphic Design link)

• Scanning, editing and uploading of company and/or product photos

• Technical or creative writing and/or editing

• Links to your e-mail and other industry-related sites

• Website updating and maintenance as desired (fees are per hour, no monthly minimum contract)

• You will be given all information (user name/passwords) pertaining to your hosting service and domain.

Links to some web sites I've created recently are listed here:

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