How much does a website cost?
This depends very much on what you need. I quote separately for every website and we will agree a fixed cost with you before starting work. As a guide as a simple 4-6 page template site could cost as little as £180. Bespoke sites start from £250 inclusive of one year’s hosting.
What are the maintenance costs for a website?
You will need to budget for:
Hosting: A small website (2GB of bandwidth) would cost around £25 per year.
Domain name renewal: Your domain name will usually last for one or two years. Registering a domain name usually costs from around £6.00 for two years.
Updates Some websites need updating more that others, it is up to you how you choose to manage your updates but I can offer advice. I charge £25 an hour for updates.
How long will it take?
This will vary according to the complexity of your website. As a guide a template site will take approximately two weeks from when I have received all of your information. Bespoke sites can take a little longer, but I’ll produce a timeframe after our initial consultation.
Do I need to buy a domain name?
No I can do that for you. However if you would like to check what’s available you can do so by visiting Penguin Internet. Simply scroll down to the domain name checker.
Can I organise my website by email or over the phone?
Yes, if it is not convenient to have a face to face consultation we can do the whole thing by phone and email; it’s entirely up to you.
How do I increase my search engine ranking?
There are numerous articles addressing this question and no simple definitive answer. In general, the best way to improve your site’s ranking is to include unique content targeted to your audience. Think carefully of the key terms that your audience will use to search for content like yours. It is important to be a specific as possible when deciding on your key terms. For example my website is more likely to feature in the search engines under Web Design Altrincham or Web Design South Manchester than it is under just Web Design Use your key phrases within your website text and pages. having your key phrase in the title of your website and the headings will also help.
Web design Altrincham
as a main heading will have be given higher priority than
Web Design Altrincham
The way that that your website is coded can also affect your ranking. I will discuss this with you when the time arises, but in essence it’s a case of using appropriate tags and titles. You also need avoiding images to display text as search engines are unable to read these. Links to your site from similar organisations are beneficial.
It’s important to be patient; it can take 6-8 weeks for a new website to become visible after it has been registered with a search engine.
An in depth article on Search Engine Optimisation can be found on Wikipedia
What is web hosting?
Web hosting is the process of putting your website onto a computer which is connected to the internet. Larger companies can buy their own machines, whilst smaller companies tend to buy space on shared machines. I host my websites with Penguin Internet which is a UK company based in Cardiff. Customers can choose to pay an annual or monthly fee for web hosting.