The Expected Costs of Web Design

When you are having a new website built, there are a variety of costs to take into account. Exactly what they will be depend on the size and complexity of your website, who is building it and the quality of the finished product. But these are not always in proportion!

Manual Charges

The main cost of the website will be the charges for the time spent actually building the website. There is a huge difference between the time spent building a simple one page website and the time spent building a website with hundreds or thousands of pages, an admin system and top class graphics. Expect to pay more the more you want.

But the hourly charges will also vary depending on the size and reputation of the company building the website. Usually a small freelancer will offer a lot lower hourly charge than a large company, who also have the overheads of marketing, admin, legal, accountants and other departments to cover. The bigger the company the more layers of management there are who are not actually building your website, but who you are paying for!

Hosting Charges

Gone are the days when free hosting services were acceptable for websites, especially business sites! But hosting does not need to be that expensive. The basic hosting of a website, with email and sufficient 'bandwith' (the amount of data you are allowed to transfer each month) is probably £60 - £120 per year, depending on your exact requirements.

On top of this, if you are using a Content Management System, including the WordPress blogging system, you will also need an SQL database. This is probably included in the more expensive hosting options, but might be a small add on to cheaper packages.

Domain Name

The domain name does not cost much, but all of the adverts you will see will no doubt under price the cost. That is because a lot of adverts just state their charges and not the actual registrar's fee. For a domain name expect to pay about £8 - £12 for 2 years for a .uk name, but only 1 year for a generic name.

Having said that, I have heard of web designers locally charging £50 per year for a .uk name. This is just pure greedy markup on the price and an indicator to avoid them!

Annual Maintenance

Lastly, you might need to pay for annual maintenance, but most reputable designers will look after the website and make required changes for you for at least the first year. But after the first year expect to pay an annual maintenance charge. It is hard to say what this would be, because the maintenance on a 1 page site is usually far less than the maintenance on a 100 page website. Again, the exact figure will also depend on the size of the company looking after the site for you!

Other Fees

Anything else from here is then optional. You can get listed on the search engines for free, but might want to pay for advertising or extra Search Engine Optimisation on the web site.

Have a look around at a few website designers and do not be bound be geography. Our customers are spread around the UK, Europe and even South Africa and the Caribbean! If you would like us to give you a quote, just visit the janric.co.uk website and drop us an email. If you prefer just to follow our web design blog then pop over to the website.

Article by Keith Lunt, freelance website designer since 2003.

How to Add Or Embed a YouTube Video to Your Yahoo SiteBuilder Website

Now if you are currently using Yahoo SiteBuilder to build your website then you will probably want to put a YouTube video on your website at some time. This why and how you can do it yourself. Video makes up almost 60% of the traffic found on there internet and is watched by 200 million Americans each month. This is huge! Why is video so popular? Video converts. People would rather watch a video then to read text. Pour a cup of coffee, sit in front of your computer and watch and listen. That is why your website should have video on it. This article will show you how to embed a YouTube video or any other video that gives you the option onto your new website in Yahoo Site Builder.

Step 1: Go to YouTube and find the video you want to embed. If its your own video make sure you upload it to YouTube first by creating an free account. On the page your video is displaying you will find a box that says "embed," just below the videos description. Next to the word embed you will see the HTML code for that video. It looks like object width="560" height="340".... Click and copy the HTML code.

Step 2: Open up Yahoo SiteBuilder and insert an new HTML Box. You can go to insert in the top bar or right click and click insert HTML. Once you have inserted an HTML box double click on it and paste in your code. You should see the numbers in the code that gives you the width and height of your video. Write down the length and width if needed.

Step 3: Stretch the HTML box to be just a little bigger then the height and width of your video. Move the video to the place you want it on the page. Save, publish, and your done.

If the video isn't showing up after you publish it may be a few things. It may be that you didn't stretch the HTML box enough with your mouse or that you didn't copy all the code from YouTube itself. I hope this article is helpful to you.

To watch a video on exactly how you can add online video to your Yahoo SiteBuilder website click the link below:

http://howtomakeawebsite.tv/yahoo-site-builder-videos/free-website-course-add-video-and-YouTube-videos/

http://www.howtomakeawebsite.tv

Aaron Fischer is a professional online marketer and expert on using Yahoo SiteBuilder to build websites. He has wrote the only exclusive E-Book that shows people exactly how to use Yahoo SiteBuilder to make money!

What Makes a Good Web Design?

When it comes to web design, its all in the eye of the beholder, but there is also a delicate balance between unique, artistic, complex and consensus which all come into play as to what people like and respond to when they browse the web and the sea of websites in it.

unless going for art only, the consensus is the right place to start. what works? What do people like? What do people respond to? And that does not mean recycling. It means building upon the tried and tested. one has to take into account the purpose of the website and conclude the best functionality for it. the layout has to make sense and the most important things for that specific website have to stand out in a way will be intuitive and useful.

What pages should be in the menu bar, what graphic elements should surround it? A good web designer can take any web development project, even a web redesign and transform it into not only a good looking home page but a successful site in a sense of it accomplishing its purpose.

The graphic design is as important as the coding itself but has to appeal as a web design to its targeted audience. Whether a graphic designer and a website designer are working together on a website or they are one and the same person, these have to be coordinated.

Now when a budget is limited one should not rule out web templates as an option to take and redesign on its existing basis or overly the content on its structure. Web design in Los Angeles has a lot to offer, as a place as big as Los Angeles, a professional web designer is not hard to find.

The advantage of looking for a local web designer or web design company in Los Angeles is the ability to meet face to face.

An India web design company could be cheaper but communication is not always at its best. now even though there are some good remote designers, having the ability to meet the person you are hiring can give you a much better impression of who you are working with and give you confidence as to the level of work and work ethics you can receive.

Web Design Los Angeles offers what most people might be looking for but in Los Angeles you will definitely find a wide range of freelance web designers as well as web design companies with an actual office. Look for someone you can meet, whose previous work you like and can visualize your website in his style.

James Wise, A content writer for Web-Design-Los-Angeles.org
A Los Angeles web design company

Website Building Progams Let You Create a Site Without Programming Skills

The speed at which the Internet has evolved to allow even non-tech-savvy users contribute content is really astounding. A little more than a decade ago, the average web user couldn't hope to create their own professional-looking website without going to school for it or paying someone else. Today, though, easy-to-use website building programs let just about anyone create a great looking Internet presence quickly and inexpensively.

That's not to say, however, that every cheap website building program is as user-friendly as the next. With dozens of different software choices available to someone who is looking for a web design program, you still need to take care that you choose the best product for your needs.

And there's another risk that you take if you purchase the first website building program that you come across: getting soured to the prospect of building your own website. If you end up buying software that is difficult to use, you might decide not to ever try building a site again, which would be a shame. Regardless of your education level or how much experience you have with computers, there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to find a web design program that is fun and simple to use.

In fact, as website building programs become more and more sophisticated, it's likely that designers in the future won't have to have any knowledge of coding at all. Some rudimentary HTML and coding knowledge can help amateur web designers create more attractive and engaging sites today, but all of that will probably be unnecessary as programming software advances.

Drag-and-drop web design software is gaining popularity as the populace at large becomes more aware of the benefits that personal and company websites can bring. Thankfully, businesses no longer have to pay thousands of dollars to an outside entity or hire a tech specialist to create and maintain a great website. In fact, regardless of what niche your company serves, you can probably create your own effective website and start increasing your leads online in just a few weeks.

Please visit our website today to find out how you can download a free trial version of our website building programs. We make quality and affordable web page design programs that can help you create a professional, effective online presence.

Things Web Designers Should Understand

Search engine optimization (SEO) and web design domains are like two opposite poles which repel each other contrary to the theory that opposites attract each other. In order to do business online, having a website is the first requirement and then to market the online property, search engine optimization is imperative. A good online business plan supported with exceptional website design & development and built according to search engine standards is a force to reckon with. This means that design, development and SEO are inter-dependent.

Quite often, designers and SEO professionals clash due to difference in opinions. What is good from design point of view may be a disaster for SEO and what is good from SEO point of view might be a catastrophe for the web designer. Due to this, many a times search engine optimizers and web designers are at loggerheads. Web designers need to understand the fact that although "design" is a small word, it connotes big things. A design should not only be aesthetic or appealing but also intuitive and if it goes well for the user then it would definitely be a darling for the search engines too.

Few things that web designers need to understand are:

• Change is the only thing permanent - This is a famous saying which means, nothing is permanent except the change itself. The word "nothing" also includes website design and the designers need to understand this fact. Some times, designers are reluctant to change the wok they did because of SEO interference. They feel that they can't take orders from a guy who knows nothing about design issues which is true but to a certain extent. The world of a designer is limited to designing the website but the SEO professional knows exactly about the design issues that affect the rankings and other SEO efforts.

• Copying the Competitors' - Doing the analysis of competitors' websites is an imperative and a wise thing to do. On the other hand, blindly copying them for no reason is an idiotic step. If your competitor or any other website has exhibited some innovate or unique design skills on their website, we need to analyze it first from the user point of view and then assess the other design issues. Although, we can definitely derive some ideas from it but copying them for no reason does not help. Also, if our competitor is making some mistake, we just replicate the mistake by copying it.

• Difference between discussions and arguments - It is very common for both the parties to disagree on some issues but it is not at all professional to start arguing. If there is some deviation in the views, it should be discussed in a cordial environment to come to a proper solution. Everyone has their own views and the right too to make it known to the teams. It is not necessary that views may be right but a discussion helps in achieving a much better result. Moreover, it also helps to clear the doubts and supplements the personal growth.

Search engine optimization is a dynamic field and things change with a blink of the eyes and therefore require continuous research. Web design too is a dynamic field but few designers disagree and reach the saturation point too fast which is not correct. Web design is a vast field and requires lot of research so as to make the website intuitive and also look appealing and professional. At the same time, every other design should look different. But, a wonderful website with zero consideration towards SEO can never reach to the intend audience. It will always remain like a diamond in the coal mine whose value can only be assessed in the world outside.

Therefore, it is necessary for SEO as well as the web design team to work together and ward-off any issues which can be a threat to their work via discussions.

I simply love the web! According to me, it's the most happening and the best place to interact and gain knowledge. I work as an Internet Marketing Specialist at BatchMaster Software Pvt. Ltd, specializing in the development of ERP Solutions for process manufacturing industry namely - Food & Beverage, Coatings & Chemicals, Life Sciences, Nutraceutical and Cosmeceutical.

Writing is a hobby for me and I author articles and blogs on the subjects that interests me. To get in touch with me, please contact me at LinkedIn

Webpage Title - How to Title Your Web Page to Attract Visits

The webpage title (also known as "Page Titles") offers many important functions. It's one of the most overlooked aspect of website design and internet marketing.

Creating a great webpage title is a surefire way to attract precisely qualified visitors to any of your webpages. It's for this reason I always invest more time on my title tag than any other aspect of my webpage (and suggest you do the same).

Here are my best-kept tips and techniques to create the perfect title tags:

Turn your title tag into a new-visitor magnet - The title tag has always been (and will probably always be) one of the most important factors in gaining high search-engine rankings.

The keyword phrase used in your webpage title draws visitors to your website from search engines.

When the words placed in your page title matches a search query, you have a chance of getting that visitor to your site. No other phrase on your webpage carries this weight. Search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing rely heavily on your webpage title to determine the rank of your featured listing in their search results. They reward you with higher rank when the webpage title matches the overall theme of your content.

The actual text you use in your title is one of the most important factors in how search engines decide to rank your web page. And all major web crawlers use the text of your title tag as the text they feature in their SERPs (Search Engine Result's Pages).

I HIGHLY recommend using popular keyword phrases in your webpage title... especially at the beginning. This is known as prominence. Search engines put more weight in ranking words that show up at the beginning of your title tag.

The most common mistake I see is placing a company name as the title. This is a waste of crucial space as you only have 66 characters to work with (any more are cut off from most search engine results' listings). Make every character count.

Use call-to-action wording - Just because you rank #1 doesn't necessarily guarantee clicks to your website. This is a very common problem, and the good news is it's easy to fix.

Remember, Google (and most other search engines) clone your title tag and display it as a clickable link to your site. What you want to do is encourage these searchers to not only see your link, but to visit your website. You do this by writing additional teaser copy.

For example, this link might get some clicks: German Chocolate Cake

But I KNOW this link is going to gain a lot of clicks: German Chocolate Cake - Best Chocolate Recipe You've Ever Tasted

Avoid long-tail keywords - You might think twice about using long-tail keyword phrases in your title.

Long-tail keywords (as the name suggests) are search queries that are longer than average... typically 5 or more words.

For example, a long-tail keyword is something like 'German Chocolate Cake Recipe' while a short-tail keyword is something like 'Cake Recipe'.

Spammers typically try to game Google and other search engines by adding long-tail keywords to their webpage title... and this might work against you if you try the same.

My testing shows 4-word keyword phrases seem to be just the perfect length.

The perfect length - Most search engines only display the first 66 characters of the title of your webpage. Suggestion: Keep your web page titles no more than 66 characters so they show up in the SERPs without being truncated.

A waste of precious time - A lot of internet marketing gurus give us bad information about titles for webpages... instead referring to it as the title meta tag. The title meta tag is not the same as your webpage title. In fact in my testing, I find filling out the title meta tag is a complete waste of time. Instead of generating a meta title tag, just focus on a webpage title.

A before Z always wins - The title of your webpage also doubles as the default entry in your visitor's Favorites when they bookmark your webpage... and most web browsers sort Favorites in alphabetical order -- so you might have your first word in your title tag start with the letter "A".

History - Just like Bookmarks and Favorites, browsers use page titles to label pages in the browser's web surfing history. Having a descriptive webpage title makes it easier for your visitors to return to your webpage.

Bonus tip: There's no reason for you to struggle with writing a webpage title. If you're ready to write better title tags to get you more leads from search engines, you might want to grab these webpage title tips, techniques and methods.

Essence of a Successful Business

It does not matter what perspectives you are taking for making business successful, everything will be fruitless if your business failed to gain proper recognition in the market. Have you noticed any drop in your business sales or is your company going through any makeover? Or is your website failed in gaining customer interest or is your brand lost its erstwhile appeal. Your online business will undergo a lot of changes with the flow of time. Herein crops up the importance of creating a unique identity that your business aims for. For creating a successful brand identity for your company you need the right concept, right skill and right brains.

A corporate identity is the visual representation of your company; it will reflect your emotional and cultural representation of your business. It will accomplish your company message and will establish your company mission. Devote sufficient time and resource to develop a brand identity for your business. Identity is one the vital asset of any business that must be invested in, leveraged and will ensure your company success. No doubt, it will increase your business recognition and in turn will build your business.

It is best to hire the services of such a company which will provide you all website solutions together that is required for your business. It is very essential to understand the requirement of a particular business before proceeding with solutions. A proper perception of your business is required before proceeding, based on the views of representatives, its mission statement and company goals and other important resources. Remember a good website design can only be dealt by a professional designer. A carefully managed and well-implemented brand identity program will help carry the company's message to the targeted audience. A perfect design with the right branding message and aggressive communications strategy can be a lethal combo for establishing a brand and helping a company achieve its desired market share.

Brand consistency ensures that customers will easily recognize your products or services, so a good industrial website design is important to all kind of industrial business whether it is small or a big one, it does not matter. And a basic standard of website designing must constantly be maintained throughout the life of a business. It is always advisable to approach professional branding or designing companies who have proper experience in conceptualizing your business requirements and shaping them in reality. A unique professional brand identity is extremely instrumental in giving a business a much needed edge on the road to success. Remember Originality and distinctiveness is two essence of any successful business.

Jennifer Salerno is a veteran in Internet marketing and a wordsmith par excellence with countless articles on a wide range of subjects to her credit. She is an expert on industrial websites

Web Traffic For Your Web Design

The amount of information sent and received by visitors to a website or in other words the number of visitors to a website, and the pages they snap on, is called website traffic.

Web traffic constitutes the large portion of Internet Traffic and is determined by the number of visitors and the number of pages they click. Visitors' presence is logged and monitored once they start clicking on different links present on the website. Monitoring the incoming and outgoing traffic on the site help measure the success of the website; more the traffic the website gets, more popular it is. It also gives the fair idea about which parts or pages of the site are popular or are following any apparent trend in a particular region or place.

Optimizing and monitoring the site and having a portfolio website helps benefits companies in many ways. While seeking a freelancer web designer work and more recognition, various website traffic monitoring methods such as Google Analytics, AW Stats, Mint, Clicky, site meter etc. should be used. These programs allows the website owner to monitor total visitors, page views, browsers used, geographical location of user, keywords used to find the site and much more. Most of these programs are incredibly easy to use and install and are available for free or at affordable cost. The amount of traffic seen by a website is a measure of its popularity. By analyzing the statistics of visitors; site owner can judge the shortcomings of the site, the improvement areas and how to increase the website popularity.

web design
http://www.bestwebsitesdesigner.com

Web Design - Considering Your Audience For Maximum Impact

As you consider designing your website, you will face many important decision. What content will be the primary focus of the home page? What images will you use? Where will the main navigation bar be located? Before you even begin the project, you must take the time to consider your audience so that your final design will have the best possible impact.

Consider, for instance, a website that targets corporate executives. This website should not contain cutesy graphics, several sound clips and extremely bright colors. These are not considered formal, and they will turn away the business of the serious businessperson.

On the other hand, if you are creating a website for teens, you should spend some time researching catchy music, creating cool graphics and choosing bold, appealing color schemes. In this case, cartoon-like graphics may be appropriate, provided they are not designed to look too much like a children's book.

Consider Your Audience for the Look

The look of your web design is going to be the most important place where you need to consider your target audience. Your potential client or customer needs to open up your website and feel at home instantly. If the visual look is unappealing to the target demographic, your product, service or content is going to mean little. It will never be considered or read, because the potential buyer or customer will simply click away to a more appealing site. Take some time to explore other sites that appeal to your target demographic, and take notes about the features you see that they all have in common.

For a site catering to businessmen, a simple, clean design with classic colors and easy to navigate buttons is ideal. The younger audience enjoys animations, bold colors and modern design elements, even enjoying a little bit of on-page clutter somewhat. If your audience is primarily female, add some feminine design elements to the page. No matter what, though, keep the page readable and appealing at first glance.

Consider Your Audience for the Language

Whether you are writing your own content or hiring a writer to do it, you must consider your audience as you write the information that will be included on the page. Use terminology that is familiar to your target audience. If necessary, define words that would be foreign to the target market. Use the "grade level" assessment tool in your word processing software to decide whether or not you are writing on the level of your average reader. Keep in mind that the average adult does not read on a post-high school reading level.

You also must decide whether the tone will be formal or informal, and that will also depend on your audience. How is your audience used to being spoken to? Would you naturally talk to a member of your audience as a friend, or would you be more formal if you were conversing with them in person? Incorporate that tone into your work.

Consider Your Audience for the Layout

Finally, keep your audience in mind as you create the layout of the site. An audience who spends most of its time on social media sites, like college students and online entrepreneurs, may expect one sort of layout, whereas an audience who regularly visits retail sites will expect another.

Put important information where it is expected, like contact information and shopping cart access. Do not bury the items your audience needs to find in hopes of generating more sales. This will only serve to frustrate people, not help your bottom line. Remember, in every aspect of your web design, you must consider your audience and create a website that will be as effective as possible.

Interactive web design Toronto agency delivering Web design, Internet marketing and online software services. Offices in Kelowna, Vancouver web design and California.

How to Create an Effective Website

It's almost unthinkable for a company not to have a website in the 21st century. However, many sites are simply not very good, and most business owners lack awareness of how damaging this can be to their business.

On the other hand, a well implemented website can have a huge positive influence, whether it's for information purposes, generating new leads, or making online sales. Studies vary anywhere from 20% to 500% or more improvement in business through having a good web presence.

So, what steps should an organization follow to achieve this type of success?

1. It's possible that your potential market is already aware of you and your website. Usually this is not the case, in which case the website needs to be created in such a way that it will attract these prospects. Most people will find you through search engines, so we start by researching exactly what terms people are typing into sites such as Google and Yahoo. This is the "market demand".

2. Now that we know what people are looking for we can create appropriate pages and content to meet the market demand. Each page of the website should have a clear purpose, based on the type of visitor you're expecting to that page.

3. Visitors are only going to find you if you rank highly in search engines. Creating content to meet the market demand is a vital step. Like people, search engines react to constructive marketing. Certain marketing initiatives will increase you ranking above that of your competitors. This is a critical, on-going activity.

4. Once a visitor makes it to your website, it's critical that they do something positive, such as signing up for information, contacting you, or purchasing. Whatever the intent of the particular page, every section of the website should have a clearly defined preferred action for the visitor.

5. If a prospect walks into your business then you hopefully want to know how they found out about you; it's the same on your website. String analytics allow us to track every aspect of your visitors and their behavior to ensure that the website is performing optimally.

Carefully following these five steps will allow any business to succeed on the web. If you want to improve your website, then please contact us for a free analysis of your existing site and online market.

If you are interested in more information visit us at http://www.prosolutionsweb.com