Web Design

Website Development

Many clients ask: What's included in custom "Website Development"?, "How does the process work?", "What order will we go in?". This page explains the steps from start to finish and gives you an idea of what you can expect when working with us.

Remember, this is just a guide, your project may have needs that are not addressed here. If you're ready to request your free, no-obligation quote, visit our Website Design Quote page.

Project Phases

  • Decision / Planning
  • Graphic Design
  • Website Development / Coding
  • Testing
  • Website Launch
  • Project Completion

Hosting & Addons

  • Optional Addons

 

Decision / Planning Phase

Website Development Quote

If you have not already done so, you will want to take some time to think about what you wish to accomplish with your new website. Determine if you will need any special functionality or interactivity with your visitors; consider the type of design style which appeals to you and then be sure to let us know.

When you are ready, please request your free, no-obligation website design quote.

Needs Analysis

Based on the information you provided when requesting your website design quote, we attempt to determine your needs, what you are expecting from your website, and try to get a feel for your industry. This is why it is important for you to be as detailed as possible when requesting your quote.

We may have questions for you to help clarify certain issues and we will express those before quoting on your project. As well as require a deposit for your website, all deposits are *non refundable*

If we believe that your website development project could benefit from our services and skills, we will quote you on your project.

Website Development Contract

Once we have come to an agreement on project details, timeline and price, we will prepare a website development contract for you to review, sign and send back with your deposit. (Contracts are not required for projects under $1,500.00.)

Initial Start

The signed contract and total due are required before we schedule a time slot for your project. We will then provide you with a copy of the fully executed contract, a receipt for your order and your project start date. All projects are scheduled on a “first come, first served” basis.

Domain name registration / Website Hosting

If needed, we will immediately secure your desired domain name (pending availability) and include the first 2 years of service. The domain is registered in your name with your information and you will be the only registrant contact on file.

If you require hosting services, we recommend OUR OWN LINUX hosting services. Many of our clients host their websites with us and they have great server uptime, lots of features as well as good customer support. We include your first 3 months of hosting service with us free of charge when you have your website developed by our company.

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Website Development / Coding Phase

Programming / Coding

All website development programming/coding to run any special features/visitor interactivity on your website is completed and tested.

Website Pages

Based upon your contract and the final design you selected, we create as many static or dynamic pages as needed to complete your site.

Website Navigation

Navigation links or drop down menus, and rollover effects, if desired, are completed.

Site Map

Creation of a site map page is done which includes easy one-click access to all pages of your site.

Site Content

Incorporation of your logo, photos and text content is included in all projects. Custom logo design is available for an additional fee, please inquire if interested.

CSS Stylesheet

CSS Stylesheets are used to define font faces, styles, sizes and colors for consistency throughout the site.

Website Favicon

A favicon is a small image that displays in the address bar and on the favorites menu when someone bookmarks or adds your website to their "Favorites". Creation of a favicon is included in all custom website development projects.

Response Forms / Email Contact Forms

We always recommend at least one contact form for your visitor’s convenience. Using a contact form, a visitor can email you directly from your website without needing to open their email program. This is especially convenient if a visitor is not using their own computer when their email program is not available.

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Testing Phase

Search Engine Readiness Check

Meta Tags, Page Titles, Page Heading, Alt Image Tags, Link Text, and Page Body Text evaluation and adjustment where needed throughout the website. At no time can we guarantee when or where the search engines will place your website within their search results or directory.

Browser Compatibility Testing

Your website is tested on a variety of operating systems and browsers to insure proper display and functionality.

Grammar & Spell Check

Before the website is launched, a grammar and spell check is performed to insure there are no mistakes.

Dead Link Check

A thorough check for misdirected links and missing files is performed just prior to as well as after the launch of the website.

Forms / Programming

Any email contact forms and/or programming features included in your project are tested to confirm they are functioning as required.

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Launch Phase

Final Payment

Final payment is always due before we take the website live on your domain. Upon receipt of final payment, you will be emailed a final/paid in full receipt.

Launch Website

All necessary website files and scripts are copied to your domain and databases are setup.

Error Testing

After the website is live, any interactive programming and scripts are tested to verify proper function. Since the design and testing phase often occurs on a different server, it is very important to once again verify that everything is working correctly after taking the website live.

Website Files

After launch and testing of the website, you are provided with a zipped archive of all website files.

Instructions & Documentation

When necessary, any documentation needed to use the administration functions of your website is included in PDF format.

Search Engine Submission

Hand submission and automated search engine submission occurs after launching, testing and fixing any issues there may have been.

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Completion Phase

Minor Adjustments / Changes

Minor adjustments to the website are included at no charge for up to two weeks after the website has launched (maximum of up to 3 hours labor). Minor changes include adding changing text, adding or changing photos, etc. Any major revision requests will require additional discussion and possibly incur a fee.

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Hosting

We recommend OUR OWN LINUX hosting services. Many of our clients host their websites with us and they have great server uptime, lots of features as well as good customer support.

Hosting Signup

 

Hosting Features:

  • Online File Manager
  • Email accounts @yourdomain
  • Web Based Email Interface or POP3 Access
  • Online Web Stats (invisible hit counter)
  • Website Backup Utility
  • MySQL Database Management
  • Add/remove sub-domains
  • Custom error pages
  • FTP Access
  • Auto responders
  • Many more features ...

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Optional Addons

  • E-Commerce Store
  • Flash Effects & Animation
  • Secure Forms with Database Back end (SSL Encryption)
  • Website Editing (CMS)
  • Site Search
  • RSS Feed Aggregator
  • News/Article Posting
  • Photo Gallery
  • Guestbook
  • Community Forum
  • Events Calendar
  • And more!

Optional Addons pricing will vary. To obtain pricing, please inquire about the specific addon you wish to include. Optional Addons may be limited by what programming languages your host supports.

 

Get started today with a free project estimate - Website Design Quote

 

 

E-Commerce Development

What's included in custom "E-Commerce Development"? Our E-Commerce Store program is a full-featured, powerful e-commerce solution capable of running easily on shared and dedicated servers and a variety of server platforms.

We customize the look and feel of every store with custom professional website design with the full sales capability of our E-Commerce Store.

Based on the award winning open source osCommerce Milestone 2.2 with extensive modifications for added features, improved usability and increased administrative function.

Requirements: PHP 4.0 or higher, and MySQL 3.23 or higher

 

View some of our E-Commerce Clients:

 

Store Features

From the visitors point of view.

  • Categories & Sub-categories of Products
  • Thumbnail & Detailed Product Photos
  • Add to Cart
  • Add to Wishlist
  • Product Notification
  • Tell a Friend
  • Affiliate Program
  • Read / Write Product Reviews
  • Simple & Advanced Search
  • Product Recommendations
  • Product Accessories
  • News Desk
  • FAQ Desk
  • New Products
  • Sale Products
  • Best Sellers
  • View Cart & Secure Checkout
  • Account Registration & Login
  • View Purchase History
  • View Order Status
  • Multiple Payment Options
  • Multiple Shipping Options
  • Optional Addons

 

 

Administrator Member Groups

Define Admin Member Groups

This allows you define groups with full or limited admin level file access to your store administration. It is not necessary to define additional groups/admins if there is only one store admin.

Update Account

Update account is used to update details on your admin login account such as name, email address, password, etc.

File Access

Setting file access permissions for admin member groups is as easy as point, click and submit. This allows you to limit the permissions and abilities of other admin groups.

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Configuration

My Store

Setting important store details such as the store name, address, email address, store tax zone and other important settings accomplished here.

Minimum Values

Allows you to set the minimum allowed character values for important entry fields such as customer name, email address, password, telephone number, etc.

Maximum Values

Allows you to set the maximum allowed character values for important entry fields such as customer name, email address, password, telephone number, etc.

Images

This setting allows you to set the height and width of product display images throughout the store.

Customer Details

Allows you to toggle on/off the collection of various details on customer account creation.

Shipping/Packaging

In this section we define important variables such as the country and postal code origin, and other important shipping setting.

Product Listing

Allows you to toggle on/off display of certain items in the product category display view.

Stock

Allows you to define items that control the checking and subtracting of items from stock level before and after checkout.

Logging

This setting is strictly for developer use. It allows you to store page parse times and database queries in a log for later use and troubleshooting.

Cache

The cache controls allow you to "cache" certain dynamically generated content areas on disk to reduce database queries and speed up page load times.

E-Mail Options

E-Mail Options define if the store should send email notification and what method it should use to send them. These settings are primarily for developer use.

Downloads

You may define settings for downloadable digital products in this area such as expiry days and maximum number of downloads.

GZip Compression

You may enable gzip compression for faster page load times if your server supports it.

Sessions

This setting is strictly for developer use. Advanced sessions settings may be defined here.

WYSIWYG Editor

"What you see is what you get" text editor settings. This allows you to modify various settings that control text entry boxes within the administration section.

Affiliate Program

Various settings that control your affiliate program (if any) are located here.

Site Maintenance

The site maintenance area allows you to turn your store on and off whenever needed. This can be helpful if you need to perform a lot of product updates all at once.

Accounts

The Accounts section allows you to toggle the "Purchase without Account" setting on and off. This allows your users to purchase without creating an account if you have it enabled.

Links

This allows you to configure various settings for your links exchange program, if you choose to have one.

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Product Catalog

Categories / Products

This allows you to add/edit/delete categories, sub-categories and products. You also have the ability to specify sort order to display your most important categories and products first.

Product Attributes

Product Attributes allows you to define attributes to be applied to specific products, such as color, size, style as well as additional cost if necessary.

Manufacturers

If desired, you may define manufacturers in this section. This allows customers to "search by manufacturer" if desired.

Reviews

Edit and delete reviews submitted by your store members.

Specials

Easily add special discounts to specific products by percentage or dollar amount, and set them to automatically expire on the date you choose.

Shop by Price

Shop by price allows you to set ranges of prices to display in the "Shop by Price" box visible to customers.

Cross Sell Products

Allows you to link products together to be displayed under another as an accessory or recommended product.

Sale Maker

Sale Maker allows for advanced sale making abilities such as discounts in one category or across the entire store, discount only products within a certain price range, as well as the ability to define start dates and end dates.

Featured Products

If desired, the featured products module allows you to define products to display directly on your storefront. This is useful to immediately display your most important products when the visitor arrives.

Products Expected

When adding a product, you can make it available immediately, or at a specified date in the future. This admin option simply lists the "products expected" that you have set to be active at some point in the future.

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Information System

Info Manager

The Info Manager allows you to easily add/edit/delete informational pages in your store. Anyone comfortable with a word processor can easily administer information pages directly from their browser.

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News Desk

Article Management

If enabled, the News Desk allows you to add/edit/delete news articles or other important notifications for your site visitors.

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FAQ Desk

FAQ Management

If enabled, the FAQ Desk allows you to add/edit/delete Frequently Asked Questions for your site visitors.

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Modules

Payment

All payment modules and payment module settings are controlled from this area. A wide variety of payment methods and gateways are supported.

Shipping

Shipping methods and settings may be adjusted in this section. UPS, USPS and Fedex real time shipping quotes come standard with our E-Commerce Store.

Order Total

Mainly a developer resource, this module allows for you to define the order in which fees or discounts are applied to the order total. For instance, is tax applied before the shipping fee is added or after the shipping fee is added?

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Gift Vouchers / Coupons / Certificates

Coupon Admin

The coupon admin allows for the creation and deletion of gift vouchers / coupons. Coupons may be sold in the store as "Gift Certificates" or given away as incentives by the store administrator.

Gift Voucher Queue

This queue shows the gift certificates/vouchers that have been purchased and given by your members. No voucher is sent until it is approved by you, the administrator.

Mail Gift Voucher

As the administrator, you have the ability to send gift vouchers to any of your customers as an incentive, or for any reason you wish. The customer can use the code to receive a discount on their next purchase.

Gift Vouchers Sent

Gift Vouchers Sent shows all voucher/certificates sent with statistics and information including amount redeemed, amount outstanding, etc.

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Customers & Orders

Customers

This is the entire searchable customer database. Administrators have the ability to edit accounts, delete accounts, view all orders by customer, and email the customer.

Orders

The entire searchable order database. Administrators have the ability to view orders, edit orders, delete orders, print invoice, print packing slip, change order statuses, and contac the customer.

Create Account

This function gives you the ability to create a customer account manually. This is very useful for retailers that accept phone and mail orders.

Create Order

You may select a customer account and create an order for them. Options include selecting payment method, selecting shipping method, selecting products, applying an optional discount, and the ability to manually set pricing, overriding store pricing, taxes and shipping fees. This option works great for clients with special pricing contracts.

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Affiliate Program

Summary

If you choose to have an affiliate program, this lists the important statistics such as number of affiliates, total banner impressions, total affiliate transactions, total affiliate sales, commission rate, conversion rate, etc.

Affiliates

Displays details of all affiliates who have joined your program.

Payment

The payment section includes details on all affiliate payments.

Sales

Affiliate sales shows the details of all affiliate sales.

Clickthroughs

This section shows a report of all affiliate clickthroughs recorded, time, date and product.

Banner Manager

The Banner Manager allows the administrator to upload banners and define them for a specific product, or for the main page.

Contact Manager

The Contact Manager allows the administrator to contact all affiliates via email.

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Location & Taxes

Countries

All country names and corresponding ISO codes are defined here.

Zones

All countries are divided in to zones and defined in this section.

Tax Zones

In this section taxable zones are defined so the store knows which zones need to pay taxes.

Tax Classes

Tax classes are generally "Taxable" and "Non-Taxable". When adding a product, you must select a tax class in order for sales of that product to be taxed appropriately.

Tax Rates

Tax rates for taxable zones are defined here. If needed, you may define multiple taxable zones with different tax rates for complex tax situations.

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Localization

Currencies

Multiple currencies may defined if you wish to accept payment in other currencies.

Languages

Multiple language files can be defined to allow your store to display in other languages.

Order Status

Custom order status settings can be defined if you wish to set order statuses to something other than the default store settings.

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Design Controls

Template Admin

If you have more than one store design you may select alternate designs here. This setting allows you to immediately switch from one design to another using a templating system. * Additional fees apply if you need more than one design.

Infobox Admin

The Infobox Admin allows you to turn on and off various boxes throughout the store.

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Links Manager

Links

If you choose to use the links manager on your website, this section allows you to approve, deny, add, edit and delete listings.

Link Categories

You may define categories and sub-categories to organize your links directory.

Links Contact

The Links Contact manager allows you to email any or all of your linking partners to keep them up to date.

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Reports

Products Viewed

This is simply a paginated list of products showing the number of views, with the most popular products sorted first.

Products Purchased

Similar to the above, this is a paginated list of products showing the number of sales per product, with the highest sellers sorted first.

Customer Orders Total

The total sales per customer sorted by most to least. This is good for an at-a-glance view of the biggest spenders.

Monthly Sales/Tax

This shows sales per month, per year with the following figures: Gross Income, Product Sales, Exempt Sales, Taxable Sales, Tax Paid, Shipping & Handling, and Gift Vouchers. All fields are easily exportable to an Excel Spreadsheet by saving as a CSV file and opening in Excel.

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Tools

Database Backup

Easily backup your database to the server, or download to another computer for safe keeping.

Banner Manager

If you display banners, you may use this tool to track displays and clicks.

Cache Control

If your store has caching enabled, you may delete cached versions of code from this section. Mainly a developer resource, this is helpful after code changes are made to allow for the new files to display appropriately.

Define Languages

Not available for installations running on shared servers due to security implications. If you are running on a dedicated server, this option allows you to update the stores language files directly from the store administration. Strictly a developer resource.

Send Email

This tool allows you to keep any or all of your registered customers informed. Simply input your text, select an individual customer, or all customers, and click send.

Newsletter Manager

This modules allows you to create and save newsletters for sending immediately or at a later date. This module sends to customers who have opted to subscribe to the store newsletter in their account, or when joining as a member.

Server Info

Mainly for developers, this is a screen with important serves details for debugging.

Who's Online

The Who's Online feature allows the store administrator to view customers browsing the site and shows IP addresses, last click, last URL, time of arrival and name (if registered and logged in).

 

Get started today with a free project estimate - Website Design Quote