We might not have all the answers yet but we are constantly adding to this page,
our goal is to make sure that you understand the involvement of producing a website and
in turn make it a simple process. Please feel free to email us with any questions that were not answered here.
Click on the left question links to jump to the answer to our "FAQs"
In short think of a huge, cybernetic warehouse which stores hundreds or thousands of sites making them accessible for view and read only yet keeping files and data secure from editing, deletion or destruction. This place is called a host and the action of storing and displaying website content is "hosting".
Even though it might seem to be the best route at first to take this upon yourself, I wouldn't recommend this path for everyone, only those who have a strong computer background and a complete understanding about web file structures, networking and absolute knowledge including FTP. In addition some hosting companies have a complex control panel system that can leave you chasing your tail for days. Sometimes it is not worth the frustration, but again only you know your limits and how much time you can spend babysitting your web baby? We can build your web site and offer upload assistance to your hosting account if you decide to host your own site.
Nothing digital or man made is eternal, but we can try to keep our items safe by making a back up, did I say back up? I can't stress enough about backing digital data up, even if you venture to have your own host, don't rely on them always back up your site, period.
We at ABC Web Pages make it a habit of making backups and sometimes a backup of a backup. Nobody should have to endure the pain of losing personal digital pictures to a hard drive and that experience has served us well.
The first thing you should have before starting a website is a domain name. You can register a domain name with a domain registrar or certain hosting companies. First you check availability and try to keep your name short. Then choose the (top level domain, tld) meaning .com, .net. , .org. and many others, the more desirable names end with .com but it all depends what type of site you have.
If it weren't for these names we would have to type in, "ip" numbers example; 256.23.32.21 now this would be great for a few sites, but try a million sites all over the world plus these numbers change unless you buy a dedicated ip, but who has time to memorize ip numbers?
Domain registrations last one calendar year but can be registered for more than a few years at a time. If you buy a website from us we can register, a domain name for you free (one year only).
Personal, corporate, flash, static, sales, e-commerce and they all come with different language codes such as html, php, java, joomla, word-press and this goes on and on.
It really boils down to usability, navigation and how fast you want your site to download into the viewer's computer. Not everyone has a combination of a super fast network and computer so you have to keep your sight lean (meaning graphics and other media should be optimized for web viewing) to try to keep the viewer from becoming frustrated from waiting on the page to load and navigating away.
Like the regular oil change for your car, website maintenance means keeping it fresh and renewing elements, content, pictures, media etc. Most sites will require a few text edits and maybe the addition of graphics, pages or links to other sites and that is the whole purpose of having your website maintained.
Most graphic and picture editing requires the knowledge of software for this particular task, then the experience to embed it and then upload your site via FTP. ABC web pages, provides future site maintenance assistance at an affordable hourly rate.
First: Do some good old fashion R and D (research and development) on your own. The best practice is to navigate to your competitor's website and see, touch, look and feel for yourself. Remember to put yourself in the place of your customer and ask yourself questions such as do they need to see a few or a lot of pictures, how do I want to present my products etc.?
Second: After you have decided on what particular website you like, give us a call or send us an email. We would research the technology that you are after and give you a quote. We are not stating that you are going to copy nor are we looking for legal issues, this is just the easiest way to narrow down the choices. (Samsung does it to Apple, and Apple did it to Sony and all is fare in business and war)
Or
We could mock up a design from your input, but this would require a 50% deposit and a service contract since this means that you are hiring us to work for you.
We will gladly explain the production process to you and there is no need to meet us face to face.
Some technologies can be extremely expensive and one of our goals is to save you money by finding a different approach. One thing to realize is that some fancy bells and whistles on sites require custom made scripts, and just the code can cost several hundred to thousands if not millions of dollars. (ask the makers of Java)
Not necessarily to display video content but to utilize it as your video host.
Streaming video and audio can put a strain on your host's servers also adding bandwidth to your site. Some hosts will claim unlimited bandwidth but there are always limits, streaming media adds hardware strain on the servers and can cause your site to load slower or worse, cause your host to make you upgrade service or in some extremes cancel your account.
*We also provide free 1 year hosting with the purchase of a website from us, but this is complimentary and we reserve the right to provide, deny or cancel this service.
Depending on the design and complexity of the site the answer in most times is yes.
Static sites are the best candidates for those thinking of expanding to more pages and future products and services.
Some flash sites however offer restriction, not because we can't but it costs more money in labor to decipher or rewrite code than to just build a site from scratch.
Most people if not all know this already but… A link is a small embedded code in your webpage that will connect you to another site or particular place on your sight. Some links can also be created as an anchor point as we have used it on this FAQ page.
In addition links can be modified to launch to another site, for example if you just want to reference the viewer to another site but don't want to lose him in the process, you would have the link open a new window, keeping your website in the background.
Maybe you might want to share a particular file on your site or want them to view it as a PDF file or download it etc.
*We limit hosting to website content only; there are plenty of large file storage and sharing websites for those who have the need to share large files. We can however put a link on your page to these online storage and sharing hosts, with the exception of illegal media distribution, pornography or anything that breaks local, state, national or international laws.
Absolutely, once you we are done with your site production you are free to move your site to your own host. Remember that a website package you purchase from us will also include a *free complimentary 1 year hosting.
We suggest you host with us for the simple reason that you can save money on the first year alone in hosting fees. Secondly keep yourself from the headache of having to learn website management, as there is a learning curve in hosting. Lastly you'll have to learn ftp (file transfer protocols) which sounds harder than it is, but if you accidently delete or misplace a file or folder it will cause your website to display incorrectly or not show at all.
We can give you the absolute best pricing on future website maintenance, including the addition of more site pages, links, media, graphics and pictures if you decide to stay with us.
Sounds like a bad question right? I still come across people who only use or know about Microsoft Internet explorer.Without promoting or opening up a can of worms, there is also; Mozilla Firefox, Chrome, Netscape, Safari and a few more.
Web browsers are the makers and breakers of a website because your site might not display correctly on certain browsers. Some people have no clue of updating their browsers for example from internet explorer 6 to currently 8 (beta 9 is currently in production) or are limited due to the operating system they use, their budget etc.
So with that being said, *ABC Web Pages will design and optimize your sight for universal play.
Be aware that not all computers are built equal and not everyone has your particular size monitor, so we will suggest you stay within a certain website size, to display the content with no issues across the cyber world.
We can create a page with music playback capabilities but we can't host it for you. Copyright and other legalities among other technicalities keep us from hosting music sites.
A work around this issue it to embed a youtube link to play the music without the video or have the whole embedded video display on your website, the worst that can happen is youtube canceling the video vs. having the FBI knocking at your door.
We can recommend specialized streaming music hosts for you too.
Without getting to technical is the amount of data passed to and from the hosting server to the requesting computers. You will also notice internet slow down due to bandwidth restrictions from your isp during peak hours. This measurement is more rightly referred to as data transfer, but the use of bandwidth by hosting companies is so pervasive that it has become accepted by the general public, meaning that a high traffic website will also require to be on its own dedicated hosting plan.
There is also "Bandwidth throttling", a technique used in communications networks to manage network traffic and minimize congestion.
Bandwidth throttling is often used in Internet applications, in order to spread a load over a wider network to reduce local network congestion, or over a number of servers to avoid overloading individual ones, and so reduce their risk of crashing. Similarly, an Internet service provider can use bandwidth throttling to reduce the impact of specific services or applications, such as the torrent protocol, and could also potentially use it to provide preferential bandwidth access to higher priority users at peak times.
Photo gallery's come in all kinds of flavors from sliding, twirling, and popping to the plain static styles. We can build you a photo gallery for whatever your need might be into your website, but remember that once the pictures are embedded into a webpage can only be replaced by a web professional for an additional maintenance fee. Pictures sizes can be any standard album size and there is really no set amount, just keep in mind that you don't want to bore your prospective client.
To save you money and for those individuals that require displaying new images often, we suggest you open up a free account with a photo host like photobucket. You can create all the photo galleries and albums, plus add, edit and subtract these pictures to your heart's content. Then we would just charge you a minimal fee to embed the html code into your website so that it links to your photobucket gallery. The drawback to this however is that you want to keep your users on your site, navigating them away can sidetrack the user and cost you a visitor!
File transfer protocol, named “ftp” for this discussion is the action of uploading your contents to your hosting site. There are ftp programs which facilitate local and server file management and are necessary in website maintenance. It is also used to download your web pages, make your changes and upload the edited version.
There are free ftp programs but ABC Web Pages does not offer any customer or technical support on the use, installation or implementation of these programs.
ABC Web Pages can provide you with one ftp account if you decide to let us host your site after production. This will give you administrative access into your website and contents. We discourage this application for non technical computer users because the mishandling or deletion of a file can corrupt part or the entire site. Furthermore we are no longer responsible for you website after we have submitted the site to you, meaning that if you decide to maintain or edit your own site after completion and accidently break it, "ABC Web pages can fix it but for a nominal fee".
The website owner meaning you the client is responsible for providing the text content, headlines, headings, paragraphs, discussions, articles, graphs, graphics, pictures, brochures, media, logos and all information pertaining to your site. It must be submitted in digital form, but we do offer media conversion assistance for a nominal fee. Examples of digital formats are digital photos, Photoshop files, Illustrator files, PDF files, Microsoft word document for your text content etc. Non digital information would mean that we would have to scan and edit, adding to production costs.
Text content: This is probably the hardest stage in the production process due to, what do I say? Most clients are not reporters or advertising professionals; some don’t even type and get stumped on this phase of the project. We do offer web content writing assistance for an affordable fee. The web writer will interview you, do market research on your particular business field and write up a professional marketing content for your company.
We require 50% deposit to get started on the production of your website. (Paying by check can delay the process since we would have to wait until the bank clears the payment).
Add-on items such as business cards, logo creation and anything that was not agreed with in the initial contract will be treated as separate and billed accordingly, ABC Web Pages will not start production on any add-on items until they are paid in full or arrangements made prior to production.
Anywhere from 3 days to a few months, this is almost entirely caused by the client not having their web content information ready. In addition some clients tend to change their mind often over a design, color, layout etc.
We will try to satisfy even the most demanding client but we do have a policy on setting these limits, since there are easily a million combinations when it comes to a design. We strongly encourage the client to give us samples or reference us to a particular website they like… We are not stating that you are going to copy their design but this will help narrow down the functionality, color and layout you are looking for in your website design.
After we sign a production contract stating all the details of your site, including how many pages, colors, how many photos, links, videos, media etc., we will produce a mock up design for you. This design will just be a picture and will be emailed to you, if you approve, we then begin cutting, slicing and coding the site. We will then send you a link to our test server so that you can view the progress in a web browser from your own computer.
We value your input, as long as it doesn’t require major site changes after the coding has initiated. An example would be changing a horizontal navigation bar to a side vertical bar. Web design is quite complex and contrary to the public's belief, is not a simple cut and paste process, it requires creating a skeletal structure and adding layers based on coding and graphics. We can provide you with graphic examples on what a website looks in front and behind the scenes, so that you can understand what it takes and appreciate our effort.
Design, concept, content and logos are property of ABC Web Pages © 2010