How does pricing work?

I normally require 50% of the project cost up front before starting any work. The final 50% is due upon project completion. I send invoices for you to keep for your records.

Payment is due as soon as possible but I normally give clients up to a month to make payments. After a month, there is a $100/month fee for late payments.

We accept the following methods of payment:

• Paypal
• Cash
• Check
• Visa
• Mastercard
• Discover
• American Express

What is SEO? Do you offer that?

SEO (search engine optimization) is pretty huge right now. Just go to Google and type in SEO and you will get a gazillion companies promising to rank you number one on Google. Truth is, Google keeps their ranking formula a secret, so there is really no one that can promise you that. However, Google does provide some basic SEO best practices on their website.

SEO is a web marketing strategy designed to get your site ranked as high as possible on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. So for example, I own a web design firm in Wilmington NC. When someone goes to Google and types in 'Wilmington NC Web Design', I want my website to come up first, right at the top. At Impulse Web Solutions, we follow the Google webmaster guidelines and implement industry standard techniques to help your site get noticed by your target audience.

Other options for SEO include Pay Per Click advertising and Ad Campaigns. Basically you tell Google what keywords you want to appear for. Then, when someone clicks on your site Google charges you. If you have ever done a search on Google (who hasn't right?) you will notice some links appear at the top in a blue box, then some links appear right beneath that and then some links show up on the right. The ones on the top and right are paying to be there using pay per click advertising while the other ones are what we call organic links and are not paying to be there. Pay per click advertising is great for a new site to get some hits, but eventually that will get expensive and what you want is to be an organic link. You want to rank high because you have a great site, not because you paid to be there.

Less expensive methods include optimizing your page content and HTML code to be more search engine friendly. At Impulse, we provide a basic SEO package that includes the following and is a one time cost of $100.00:

-Site submission by hand to the top 3 search engines - Google, Yahoo and MSN
-Google Account and Webmaster tools so you can monitor your site's progress
-Sitemap development and submission to Google and Yahoo
-Access to monthly reporting tools Google Analytics Account for monitoring site stats
-HTML code optimization and meta tag design for optimum visibility
(Note: Sites over 10 pages will be charged $10/page for HTML code optimization)

For an additional cost, I can also help you setup Adword and Pay Per Click campaigns with Google. Visit my site for more info.

Link: Google Webmaster Guidelines

I want to be able to update the site myself - can I do that?

Many clients come to me and want the ability to update all or some of the pages of the site on their own. Sometimes they may have changing prices, new sales events and specials, they want to display different ads in different seasons or they just want to have that sense of control over their site text.

Many tools are available on the market today for what are called Content Management Systems or CMS.

One method I use is to create a 'backdoor' for a client with a listing of pages. Each page has a content box and that content box is where text edits can be done. They hit 'Update', the data is sent to a database and then the site updated on the front end.

Another option is to purchase a copy of Contribute, a product by Adobe (formerly Macromedia). Contribute connects to your web server, where the files are stored, and lets you edit the content of the site pages using a nice GUI editor, similar to Microsoft Word.

These are just two examples, but I know there are many other type systems on the market today. If you are a web developer and know of another CMS system, please feel free to share your ideas here on this forum.

Link: More about CMS on my main site

How much does a website cost?

The best way to answer this question is to think about buying a new car. The more bells and whistles (chrome rims, 4-wheel drive, spoiler, flames painted on the side) you want on the car the more it costs.

Same goes for web design - the more bells and whistles (Flash movies, CMS, dynamic pages, fancy navigation menus) the more the site costs.

I try to first extract from the client what the basic needs are: homepage, about us, products, services, contact us.

These are what I call the 'Fab 5' - the foundational pages of a website. These type of sites aren't normally that expensive, maybe $500 - $750. But then when you start adding Flash, more pages, the ability for the client to update the site themselves (CMS), etc., the bill starts going up.

Another factor of course is how much the web design firm charges per hour, per page, per mockup, etc. I know one guy who is very good who charges $500 just for the mockup. I know some companies where you can get an entire 'Fab 5' site for $500. But then again, just like everything else, you get what you pay for.

So, how much does a website cost?

1. Will depend on the web design firm's standard charging rates - not everyone charges the same.

2. If you want to pay for what you need as compared to what you want.

3. Do you want all the bells and whistles or will a basic 'Fab 5' suffice?

To get a web design quote, please use our web design quote form to contact us.