On this page, I will try and answer as many of the questions I regularly get asked by prospective clients interested in having one of my designs for their site, simply click on the relevant question to see the related information. If you have any queries not answered here then please do not hesitate to contact me.

To get your new design live, you will need to provide the following ..

• Domain name to be registered OR
• The name of the design you want to use
• FTP information for current site (supplied by your sites hosting company)
• The business name you want on the site and your logo if you have one
• The titles you want for each section
• The corresponding text and photos (if appropriate) for each section.
• The contact details you want put on the site
• The information you would like the visitor to provide when they use the contact form

Logo

If you have a logo you want incorporated into the site, then this should be supplied in the largest size you have and I can use pretty much whatever file format you have available (see list below).

Text

The best way for you to supply the text is actually just to send it as an e-mail message. You do not need to worry about formatting the text in any way.

Images

Where images are being included in the site, it is always best to send me the largest version you have. This will allow me to work from the highest resolution allowing greater accuracy which is especially important when creating special effects.

Appropriate logo / image file formats include..

• .jpg
• .gif
• .tif
• .psd
• .png

'Flash' is an extremely powerful software that has been developed specifically for the creation of interactive websites. This can be used simply to make a nice effect with a set of buttons or, as with many of my designs, to create a complete, self contained site.

The design cost includes changes to text and images on the existing pages of your site. i.e. If you order a site with 6 pages, text & photos on all 6 pages can be changed as and when appropriate. Additional pages incur a small, one-off charge, but once set up, can then be updated for free as with all the other pages.

One of the biggest complaints I hear when talking with prospective clients is that their current designers charge silly money for even basic updates.

Because of this, their site has become out of date and they have stopped promoting it.

I, like many of you, am a sole trader who relies on word of mouth for my business. I believe that offering exceptional value for money and service is the best way to keep existing clients and promote my work to new customers.

My normal hours are 9:00 - 17:00 Mon - Fri but if there is an urgent change required I will normally be able get this done outside these hours. I try and get all changes done as soon as possible but ask for as much notice as possible for things like special promotions.

If you have an urgent change then you can call me and I can usually sort this for you at the time.

When registering and hosting your site through me, you have access to a free web statistics log however, you may want to use a more sophisticated, third party tool. These require code added to the pages of your site which you can provide via e-mail for me to add. Please be aware however that many of the free (and some of the paid) tools require a logo to be displayed which may affect the rendering of your site so please discuss this with me especially if you are to be paying for this service.

Hopefully you will find that your site works for you but no matter how good the design, tastes change as might your requirements and you may decide you want something completely different. As an existing customer, I offer a 20% discount on current template designs and this can be done as often as you like.

We offer an SEO (Search engine optimisation) service but make no promises or guarantees about your site's search position however, using techniques we have developed ourselves, this service will definitely make a difference to your site promotion.

You will need to let me know what name you want registered. You can check what names are available by visiting the hosting company Uk Domains.

Once you have found a name you like, you simply let me know and I sort the rest.

This is a very important point !

Many companies register domain names to themselves rather than to you so if you want to move it at any time they can dictate how much they are going to charge you.

I believe this is highly unscrupulous and I always register my client as the owner.

I am listed only as the administrative contact so you have complete control over the domain should you want to move it.

Please note however that as these sites are template based, I retain copyright of the design.

I will contact you a month or so before your site is due for renewal. Presuming you want to re-register the domain, you simply pay me the registration & hosting renewal cost (currently £100 for a further 2 years) and I take care of the rest.

Domain registration

To ensure that there are no 2 sites with the same name, every website name needs to be registered. The usual registration period is 2 yrs.

Hosting

Having a website name registered only gives you the right to use the name and does not mean you have a site up and running. In order to allow people to see your site, your sites files need to be made available on the internet. Specialist hosting companies provide space on their servers that allow this to happen and also have the security systems in place to ensure your site is not hacked into.

Hosting will need to be arranged for you and I can still offer the 50% discount if you transfer. If you want to set up a hosting package with the company you registered the name with then you will need to arrange this with them and let me have the 'ftp' information they provide

Many of the designs could be adapted for other uses and will gladly create sites for non-instructors.