FAQs

We prefer not to, for the very simple reason we want you to be in control of your domain name.

Sometimes when you have a designer or 3rd party register your domain name you may find that they have retained ownership of the domain, or the account is in their name and you do not have access to that account. If you need to change designers you may encounter a problem.

We suggest using GoDaddy.com to register your domain name. They are full service domain providers with excellent live 24/7/365 customer support. We would be happy to help walk you through the steps, but it is very easy to do.

No. Unless you have already discussed with your designer what your hosting requirements will be, you may end up with a design that will not work with the hosting plan you purchased.

Many times clients will register their domain name and take an inexpensive hosting plan as part of the package, only to find when the time comes to load thier site it will not work because they do not have an adequate plan. they then have to upgrade or change hosting companies altogether.

The cost of your site depends on many factors:
How many pages will it have
How many special applications it will have (photo gallery, blog, product catalog, shopping cart, etc.)
If there is any media to be used (video, music, etc.)
Will you be using online forms
and others
The only way a designer can tell you how much a web site will cost is to talk with you to get a clear understanding of exactly what you want.
Even then, as a job progresses, the estimate for a site may change as you decide to change or add pages, applications or other elements to your web site.
Other factors to consider in the price are the hosting fees and the costs to keep your site updated.

That is really up to you. Some clients want total control, even providing an illustration of the layout and color scheme they want, others leave it totally up to the designer.

What we try to do is find out as much about your business as we can, your preferences in terms of look and feel and provide you with a couple of 1-2 page demo layouts to help you decide the look that you want.

From that point on we provide a virtual web site during the design process so that you can see the design as it is being created and make changes along the way, so that at the end of the process there are no surprises and you got exactly what you wanted.

Many web design companies do use “templates” of web pages and then customize them with the company name, logo and other pertinent information.

If you want your site to stand out from the masses and/or if you want to continue the “look” of your company’s marketing materials, you are looking for a custom web site. Custom web sites are more costly, but they give you total control over how you present your company to the world as well as greater ability to create a site that performs strongly with the search engines.

WordPress sites use “themes”, which some wpuld consider templates, with which to create the graphic interface. These themes are highly customizable to help you get more of a look you want.

It all depends on how big a site you want, what features you want included, what are your goals for the site and how quickly the client can provide the material (images if necessary, and written content) to the designer.

A simple, two-page site might graphically laid out in a day, but if the client takes a week to provide text, then the site will take a week to complete. A large e-commerce site could take weeks. Often, even after the original site is created, changes and updates continue as your online business evolves.

The only way to accurately estimate how long it will take to build your site is to have an in-depth conversation with your web designer about exactly what kind of Internet site you want and set up a timetable for providing content.

People use all types of devices for viewing content on the internet. They use desktop computers, laptops, tablets, iPads and mobile phones. Each device has a different size screen and resolution so we design websites to be responsive, that is adaptable, to whatever device and screen size is being used. Our responives websites will work on all devices.

If you have any artwork or design done for your site be sure to ask your designer if that becomes the property of your company or if the designer retains ownership of that creative work.

Many designers will retain the ownership (copyright) to both the website design and graphics. If you want to be free to use the materials and change designers without starting over, you want to purchase the copyright to your site.

At DFW Web Design, we give you ownership of the complete design and artwork as well as a copy of your files.

With DFW Web Design after the initial design is completed there are no other charges relating to design unless you want to make changes.

Otherwise, all web sites require some sort of web site hosting service, which usually incurs a monthly charge (or annual charge). Sometimes, you can receive a discount by purchasing one year of hosting in advance.

If there are any additional charges beyond hosting fees depends on whom you hire as your web designer. If you are charged a monthly fee for updates and maintenance, make sure you understand exactly what changes the designer will be making and if there are any limits placed on the amount of changes/updates you can request. Also Clarify what happens to the fee if you do not require any changes or update during a month.

In addition, some designers/developers will charge monthly for search engine optimization. Beware of those companies that charge outrageous amounts for this service. As a rule, if you see a monthly charge you do not understand fully, ask your designer/developer to explain it completely to you.

It will vary with each search engine and directory. After a site is launched and submitted to the search engines, it can take 4-6 weeks before a search engine like Google will index your site (add it to their database). Then it can you can take up to 3months for your site to begin showing up in search results. It probably will not show up in the first three pages of results for up to 6 months, if at all.

There are many factors involved in how your site will rank in searches. Some of these factors include where your business is located in relation to the person searching, teh category you are in and your competitors and the actual search term that was used by the person searching. It is very difficult to optimize a websitge for every conceivable search term.

Beware of companies that tell you they can have your site showing up immediately on the first page of Google. These are generally scams.

No company or individual can guarantee top placement in all the search engines, unless you pay the search engines to be listed that way.

If a company tells you otherwise and then takes your money, you are being ripped off. A good web designer can explain to you how search engines work and will use worthwhile strategies to increase your site’s performance in search engines.

The biggest problem with optimizing a web site for searches is that you really never know what search words and search terms a person may use to find a site.

There is no standard way to search. We did a recent survey for a client and found that visitors to their site during a given month found the site by using as many as 40 different search terms. Some terms were similar, but yet they still were different.

Location has a lot to do with search results. The search engines look at the location (by IP address) of the person searching and give them results that are closet to thier location. Two people on different sides of town may get different search results because of thei location.

We can help you develop an optimization and marketing plan that will help your site come up in the most important searches.

Having a nice looking site does not guarantee that people will find it on the Internet. Good designers will know how to design your site wisely.

The content of your site, the actual words that you use in your web page, significantly effects how you do in a search. Use of keywords in your content and relevancy of your content has a major impact on your search results.

A good designer will make sure your Titles, Descriptions and Metatags to reflect key words and phrases from which you would like to be found in search engines.

Beware of the designer who says he uses special tricks to get you into the search engines. Search Engines and Directories are constantly developing ways to locate websites that are trying to cheat the system. Doing “tricks” could potentially get your site banned from the search engine listings.

Contact DFW Web Design for more help with SEO.