Web Design FAQs

• A website can be a very inexpensive form of advertising
• 24/7 showcase your products and services
• Sell products and provide info about your business
• Communication tool for clients and employees
• People want to know details about your business
• Let your future customers get to know you and establish that comfort level
• A website lends legitimacy to your business
• There is no easier and more convenient method to maintain customer contact
• Your website is working for you, even when you are not
• Offer special promotions on your website
• Best and most economical way to increase your customer base
• Easier to update a website than a brochure
• Save yourself time by supplying customer info on the web available 24/7
• A website is for your customer’s convenience
• Manage Inventory
• Improve customer service
• Promote brands and corporate identity online
• Save on printing and mailing costs
• Gain a competitive advantage
• E-mail for all of your employees

We pride ourselves on our customer service. We manage a small client base and give them the attention they deserve. The complexity of the website is one factor that contributes to the length of time it take to develop your website. However, in most cases the timelines for developing a website largely depend on the client and how much time they have to invest in the process.

• Costs vary depending on the complexity, programming required, type of website etc. The following are some guidelines.
• Small Site: 3-5 pages $800 – $1500
• Med Site: 5-10 pages $1200 – $2000
• Advanced Site: 10-20 pages $1800 & up
• Flash Site: E-commerce (Zen Cart): Content Management System: By Quote

We can build a site to suit your budget. Using a template or another favourite site as a guideline are ways to save money in the design process. The client who does their research and homework can also save on costs.

Boden/Ledingham Web Design requests a 50% deposit to be paid at the time the client is supplied with a quote on the project and 50% at the conclusion of the project or when the website “goes live”. Payment may be made in cash or cheque. Payment maybe arranged to be paid with a credit card via PayPal but a 3% surcharge will be applied to the amount.

All code/graphics/images/design materials digital and non-digital created by Boden/Ledingham are the property of Boden/Ledingham until payment is received in full.

Web Design Credit

Boden/Ledingham respectfully requests that websites designed/developed by Boden/Ledingham have the credit “Website Design by Boden/Ledingham” placed at the bottom of the page. If a client prefers not to have our credit displayed on the site a small surcharge will apply. Boden/Ledingham reserves the right to include in our portfolio any projects created or developed by us.

Limitation of Credibility

Boden/Ledingham will not be liable for indirect, special or consequential damages, or any loss of revenue or profits, occurring in connection with the projects that we have developed. Boden/Ledingham is not responsible for domain name registrar / hosting company / internet service provider  /  PayPal or other outside agency issues, damage, downtime, email problems, website hacks and other security issues or any part thereof.  These services are independent to Boden/Ledingham services offered.

Copyright/Property Rights

All digital and non-digital materials supplied by the client to Boden/Ledingham for project development must be, either owned by the client or given copyright permission for publication. Boden/Ledingham is not responsible for copyright infringements found on these materials. All finished work produced by Boden/Ledingham during website development is owned by Client. Upon final payment of invoiced fees, all rights to developed materials are transferred to Client.

Deadlines

Websites that have stalled due to Client delays lasting for more than 6 months will require a 25% administration fee, payable before work resumes. If work does not resume the deposit is forfeited and the quote becomes null and void.

Deposit

The deposit collected by Boden/Ledingham is non-refundable. Once contract is signed work begins immediately on the project and the initial deposit guarantees payment of services rendered.

Boden/Ledingham reserves the right to change/update policy, services, and prices without liability. Please contact Boden/Ledingham Web Design if you have any questions about our policies. 403-949-4062

How do I change my password or forward my email?

• Log in in browser http://domainname.com/webmail
• username:youremailaddress@ domainname.com
• password: sent to you

How do I access my mail remotely via webmail?

• Log in as above
• Use Squirrel mail to get mail

How do I set up my email in Outlook?
Set up instructions for Outlook (POP3)  how to configure an e mail account in outlook express
What do I do when my email is down?

• Log into webmail and check your forwarding
• OR check your POP3 settings in your computer
• Send yourself an email to check if email is working
• Changing the passwords for your email and/or hosting will affect your POP3 settings on your computer and therefore your email connection
• Still having problems – contact your web host or email us if hosting with Boden/Ledingham

About Webmail

• Your mailbox on the server has a capacity and should be cleaned out periodically
• for POP3 users: set your mail program to delete as downloaded or delete after a day
• More instructions for setting up the POP3 to set up an email account in Outlook are accessible once logged into webmail
• It is a good idea to test your mail occasionally by sending yourself a letter.

There are several options that allow a client to maintain their own website.

We offer three options. In order of complexity they are

• An online editor that offers simple text changes, ability to add links and photos
• Abobe Contribute approx. $190 allows more sophisticated and versatile edits and the ability to see what it will look like in the editor.
• CMS which allows an editor to have an assigned level of access to the front or back end of the site. Web editors can be assigned admin, publisher, editor and author status.

Contact us for more detailed information

Making a pdf – Download

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.aspOptimizing Photos

A combination of the two might work well. Shrink Pictures to size and net mechanic to optimize. Optimizing an image makes an image a fraction of the file size without noticeable quality loss but greatly speeds up the uploading /downloading time. A very good idea.

http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimize-graphic.htm

Step1 – select an image file on your computer to upload.

Step 2 – Enter your email address.

Step 3 – Select output format.

Step 3 – click test

Resize your images

See http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

This program will size images,optimize and make them the proper colour space and resolution.

Unfortunately it also renames them so you will have to rename them again. You will have to use one of your other programs to correct density and colour and crop first.

Follow the steps click resize

This will take you to a page that has the resized image – right click – save image to downloads – retrieve from downloads folder- note image has been renamed.

FTP

You will need your username and password and an FTP program like FileZilla for the PC users and Cyberduck for Mac users. These are both free downloads.

Login usually goes like this:

• ftp.domainname.com
• Username:
• Password:
• Navigate to the public_html folder
• Navigate to the files you would like to upload on your computer
• Drag or send the files up to the host from your computer
• Keep in mind some ftp programs don’t warn you when they are about to overwrite an existing file or folder

Speed when downloading a site depends on many factors.

The size of the page.

The type of programs and code that are loaded to make the page work like Flash or Javascript.

The number and size of the images and whether they are optimized for the web.

Your computer and operating system have an effect on download time.

Your internet provider and the type of service you have purchased (high speed wireless, cable, dial up).

Check the speed of your internet provider  www.speedtest.net

When developing your site we consider/do the following:

Upon completion of your site we submit the site to Google with a site map. This basically notifies Google that the site is new and invites them to search the site. We give them the address and supply a site map to direct them to your pages. This speeds up the process from 3 months to 2-3 days. This is a free service offered by Google. Yahoo charges $299 for this service.

We enter in the code/background of the page keywords and a description of each page. Padding the page with dozens of keywords doesn’t help your ranking or search ability and can often penalize the site. The best method is to put a few well chosen keywords and a short description that is supported by the text in the body of the page.

Updating your page with fresh content signals the search engines that the site has fresh content and will help with the search engine results.

Links to your site are the best way to increase your site. Even better if the site linking to your site has a good ranking. Use your site address on all of your advertising and get your site listed on directories associated with your business. Sites such as the local chamber of commerce, local tourism sites, suppliers, hot frog, trade associations. Put your thinking cap on and get your site listed on the web.

You linking to other sites is a nice thing to do for the other site, but doesn’t benefit your site’s ranking.

The more hits you have on a site the better so the longer your site is up, the more places that link to your site, the more people visit the better the ranking.

Good clean WC3 compliant code that is search engine friendly is a definite asset.

Why is it difficult to obtain good results in the rankings?

• No one can guarantee top position in the search engine rankings.
• Search engines are always evolving and changing their criteria.
• Each search engine uses different criteria.
• They don’t publish the easy way to get good results.
• The number of sites competing for search engine results are staggering and growing everyday.

Register for a Google Adwords account

• You can have several “Campaigns” under your account
• Can define your location for search results to country/province/city
• Can define language of search results
• Choose Keywords
• Need help with keywords https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal#
• When you enter your website address Google suggests keywords based on your website content
• You can also filter unwanted search results with unwanted keywords such as “free…”
• Google will give you the range of CPC prices based on keywords
• You can set the limit of each CPC cost you are willing to pay and a total amount per day. If you aren’t using your total amount for each day, the surplus rolls over for the next day.
• Can change/manage your details at any time: change the amount, keywords, budget, as well as cancel/suspend the account.
• There is a $10 set up fee – you can pay by credit card and one can pre-pay as well. A budget of at least $2/per day is recommended.
• More info https://support.google.com/adwords/#topic=3119071
• http://www.google.com/adwords/beginnersguide/en-US
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EvusC9MDnw&feature=related

To set up a business account:

• See https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_registration-run
• And choose Canada and Business
• Select Website Payments Standard
• Fill in form – select business type
• The email you use will be the contact email for all PayPal transactions
• GST is configurable within PayPal
• https://www.paypal.com
• Log in
• Click merchant services
• Click Tax Calculator on right under Shipping & Taxes
• Under – Set Up Domestic Sales Tax Rates, click add new sales tax
• Click all provinces
• 5%,

In order to extract the money from your PayPal account you need to link your PayPal account to a bank account. There are withdrawal fees… approx. $1.50 per withdrawal.

The developer will need the email address in order to set up PayPal on the website.

PAYPAL FEES

Fees are 2.9% + $.55 per transaction

Large volumes receive discounts as well as non-profit organizations

This link details fees for Canada: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-fees-outside&countries=CA

1yr…$75

2yr…$125

3yr…$175

Plus a charge of $4.50 month for additional hosting fees. SSL is recommended for consumer confidence and liability issues. Should you accept credit cards will you definitely need one.

About 128 Bit SSL Encryption

Our site uses a 128 bit encryption to encrypt and protect the security of our customers information. When using secure pages, such as our checkout page a closed lock icon will appear on the bottom of your Web browser window. Also the URL bar will change to https: from http: to indicate you are on a secure page

All transactions made through a page using SSL are encrypted to protect the security of personal information and payment details provided by customers.