The Process
Next comes the actual process of creating your Web pages. This is a consultative process between you and I. It will require some time, thought, and planning. Your web site is a direct reflection on yourself or your business and has to do what you want it to do. The planning phase is critical.
At our first meeting we must establish a few things:
- Do you really need a web site? Can we do what you want to do, for a price you can afford? Web sites can be simple and inexpensive or very complex and expensive. A simple 1 or 2 page web site may only cost $200.00 and they go up from there.
- If we establish that you do indeed need a web site we will go over all the options and decide what the cost is likely to amount to. This amount is by necessity a bit variable due to the time needed to get the site to your satisfaction.
- We will ascertain if you need your own domain name if you don't have one, and pick a hosting company.
- We will then sit down with notepad and pencil and start laying out a rough first draught of the "Home" page and try and set a look and feel for the whole site.
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Next we will make a list of what information I will need from you for content.
- Based on our schedules and the time needed to gather some content we will try to fix a timeline for the project.
- We will set a second meeting date.
Next comes a few things that we must accomplish before our next meeting. This part of the process can be done by e-mail or telephone.
Jointly we must find a suitable domain name and get it registered. It can be a bit confusing and technical to some people, but I can lead you through it. This part must be done by you as the domain name is owned by you and has to be paid by credit card.
Next we must set up a hosting account with a domain hosting company. This again must be done by you but is really a simple process. I can provide any assistance you may need. Again payment is made to the hosting company by credit card over their secure server.
I will write a rough draught of the Home page to use as a starting point. I will either post this draught on my own website for your perusal or bring it to our next meeting on my laptop.
You will be thinking about content and writing text, gathering photos or other types of information. If needed, I have a high quality digital camera and can help with photos. I have a high quality scanner for scanning other images and access to a high quality slide scanner. I also have image manipulation software to optimize photos or other graphics for web presentation.
At our second meeting we will:
- Review where we stand so far.
- Look at the first draught of the Home page and make comments and decide changes.
- We will then plan on paper the layout of the entire site. This part of the process can take some time. We don't want to skimp here as it may mean a lot of redo work later if we get it wrong.
- We will go over any content you may have provided and decide if it is suitable and where to use it.
- We will develop a list of "keywords" and other header information that search engines use to list and index your page.
- You will provide me with the login id and password to your hosting site so I can upload the product to your server.
- We will set a date for the next meeting and discuss what each needs to have ready.
Before our next meeting I will have created a draught of the entire site. This will be posted to your server or on my server if yours is not available yet. You can view the progress at any time as I upload regularly.
You will be gathering more content and text as needed. You must also be reviewing what I have done and make comments.
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