The number one problem clients seem to deal with regarding web development is the inability to edit their sites by themselves.
An Ad Guy’s commitment in web development is to provide clients websites that they can edit when and how they see fit. Beyond that, we give them the tools to further promote their websites and drive traffic.
WordPress
To accomplish this An Ad Guy builds all of its websites for clients using the blog publishing application WordPress. You can read more about it here, simply stated, WordPress is a solid software foundation on top of which a uniquely branded look can be place and structured providing clients with a robust content management system that allows them to manage their websites without being tethered to a web designer.
“Form Follows Function”
It’s not enough for you to have a great looking site. Your business must communicate your Key Message clearly. This is true for all of your marketing, but if your website in particular fails at this, it’s as if you’ve invited a bunch of people to a party, but no one’s home.
The main point of websites designed by An Ad Guy stands out first and foremost. What is it? What’s it about? Why should I care? Beyond that, these solutions take the reader or visitor through the next logical steps to achieve your goals. Fundamentally, your Key Message is expressed by every aspect of the design. An Ad Guy’s web designs are clear, bold and always persuasive. Depending on your goal, sometimes they’re complex and at other times they’re very basic. Each project dictates the requirements of the design.
Pricing and Fees
Each web design project is priced individually. Web design is not like brochure design. The constraints of printing force projects to limit themselves to a specific size of paper and a specific number of pages and therefore those fees can be quantified fairly easily. Web design is far more flexible. Some projects can consist of just one page, even if they don’t look that way. The opposite may also be true. Pricing a web design project really requires a thorough discussion with the client to get a better idea of what is needed and wanted. A flat, one price fits all is not realistic and pricing websites per the number of pages also does not make sense.
An Ad Guy has a 3-tier pricing structure for website development. If you’re looking for a “simple one page website” we will most likely talk you into using WordPress as your solution. That’s because the money and time spent on a so-called “simple” static website that you, the client, cannot edit and that is not scalable for your enterprise (which should be growing), would be better spent on a dynamically generated website solution that can grow with your efforts. An Ad Guy can make a 1- or 2-page static website; that’s what the Tier 1 pricing structure is for.
If your business needs something more complex and flexible than a blog publishing platform, then you probably need the features of a bona fide content management system such as Drupal. That would be a Tier 3 pricing structure.
- Tier 1 – Per day or hourly rate
- Static websites that do not operate from a database, limited number of pages, approximately 1-3. (Hourly rate: $125; Day Rate: $800)
- Tier 1 – $3,000 or more
- Dynamic websites that operate from a database using the WordPress blog publishing application as a base.
- Tier 3 – $6,000 or more
- Dynamic websites that operate from a database using the Drupal content management system as a base.
Standards Compliant XHTML/CSS
Since 2005 the field of web design has officially implemented the use of Cascading Style Sheets to determine the look of a website, “the presentational” code. This means that all of the complex and bulky code that used to be needed to make some text regular body copy, some text bold subheads, and columns positioned correctly is now contained in one separate document, a stylesheet. This has made web design not only much more logical it makes the content of your website more accessible. If you see the phrase “standards-compliant,” know that it ultimately means “more accessible.” It literally refers to modern browsers (Firefox, Safari) that comply to the same current technical standards. That same compliance also means that your cellphone, PDA, or assistive devices can access the content of your website. That’s because the older version of HTML that included all of that presentational code in every webpage also gets in the way of these devices. In some cases, these devices may be barred from seeing your content and so they can’t access it. But if your website is made “standards-compliant” most likely that means it’s accessible and that means more people can find your business, product, service or message. That is not the case with websites that rely heavily on javascript, Flash or other third-party code to achieve their design requirements.
Contact us for a quote today or if you simply have questions about web development and how it relates to you.
