web site design
Web / Data Hosting
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Web Site Design & Marketing
     
 
Once you start thinking about a redesign of your existing site or have decided on a completely new site, where do you go from here? This question has many answers depending on your preferences and what you desire for your site to accomplish. Before you meet with NKOL staff for a preliminary meeting to discuss your new site, we ask that you read through this document and begin to put some thoughts together. The more you prepare, the more helpful our first meeting will be. Don’t feel pressured to come up with every answer before we meet. Our job is to help you through every step of the process so at the end you have a product that you are proud of and one that will further your business in ways you never thought possible.
 
SELECTING A DOMAIN NAME

As easy as this sounds, it is one of the more difficult tasks to accomplish. If you already have a domain that you are happy with, you can skip to the next step. If you do not have a domain name, you will need to select one. Here are a few suggestions:

Choose as short a name as possible.

Good example — myproduct.com, mysite.com,

Bad example – This-is-the-best-site.com, Tryingtosellmyproductonlineforless.com

If possible, leave out dashes “-“ or numbers.
Try to get a .com, .net, or .org. Avoid anything else.
 
LOOK AT OTHER SITES
One of the best ways to get ideas for your site is to find other sites that you like or a competitor’s site. We will not copy these sites, but you can come up with some good ideas by viewing other sites. Try to come up with a list of things that you like or don’t like about these other sites.
 
WHAT DO YOU WANT THIS WEB SITE TO ACCOMPLISH?
Is your site promoting or selling a product, or providing more information about your company? Some sites are merely informational, while others provide a service to the company, such as e-commerce. You need to decide what function or service that this site will accomplish for your company.
 
NO LIMITS!
Come up with a list of everything that you want your site to do, even if you don’t know if it is possible. Some of the things that you may think are impossible are actually quite feasible. It is very helpful to make a list and work from that
 
FUNCTIONALITY OF THE SITE (E-Commerce, back end management, etc.)
Several years ago, when websites were just beginning to be more prevalent, most sites were text based. This means that every page on the site had some text that would either promote a product or tell something about the company. Today, sites go much farther than that. Many sites include E-commerce, and many provide back-end management systems. This makes sites much more dynamic than ever before. We need to determine what functions you site will include.
 

Marketing the site
One of the most overlooked areas of a new website is the marketing of the site. Many design groups create an awesome site, but have no plan to market the site, and without marketing you will get not traffic. There are many forms of advertisement and you should select ones that best serve your needs.
1. Search Engine Registration
2. Newspaper Articles
3. Sending a letter or flyer to existing customers about site
4. Putting your website link on every piece of mail that leaves your office
 
Cost of the site

This is one of the most difficult areas to cover. Site design can be as little as $1800, but can easily go up to $5,000.00 and higher. Prior to our meeting, it would be a good idea to set a budget for this project. However, if you have never been involved in a web design project, it can be very difficult to budget the correct amount of money. In this case, try to relate the web design project to some of the other advertising projects that you have done for your company. If you only have $2000.00 to spend on the site, we will go in a direction that is more in keeping with your budget. However, if you have $5,000.00 to spend on the site, we will go in a completely different direction.

If you have no idea how much to budget, don’t worry, we will cover the budget in our first meeting.
 
Example sites with concepts and rough costs!

NKYRemodeling.com
Cost: ~ $ 1800.00
Business: Small remodeling company that specializes in finished basements, kitchen work and many other forms of household remodeling.
Pages: 5 pages
Site Concepts: Small site designed to simply promote the business. Wants customers to get a quick understanding of what he does and to give some before and after pictures of work that has been done. Site is 99% informational and has a simple submit form for customers who would like more information. Does not have any commerce, back-end functionality, logging or statistics.

 

WyndsHOA.com
Cost: ~ $ 1,900.00
Business: Local homeowners association site.
Pages: 15
Site Concepts: Basic text site with a few comment submission forms. HOA wanted homeowners in the subdivision to be able to download most common forms and make requests for work to be done. Site has some higher end graphics that bumped the price up a bit.

 

Sterling-Studio.com
Cost: ~ $ 2,000.00
Business: Small local jewelry seller. Sells custom beaded jewelry through the site.
Pages: 10 pages
Site Concepts: Major part of the site is the e-commerce. Has the ability to add their own products through a back-end management system and complete all orders. Each product is put into a category that will sort on the site. Some professional art was designed for the main page of the site.

 

DixieKnothole.com
Cost: ~ $ 2,500.00
Business: Non-profit organization that coordinates and monitors all areas of NKY Knothole Baseball.
Pages: 30 pages
Site Concepts: Site was designed for two purposes: 1. Allow the players and parents to better keep up with team info and to see what is going on with other teams. 2. Allow the coaches, administrators and umpires to keep better tabs as to what is going on. The public part of the site contains all team records and schedules. Also has general information for everyone and map to all field locations. The back-end management system is the major design element of the site. Each coach, administrator, board member and umpire can login to see all information on their team or league. New players are also able sign-up for a team and coach will contact through the system. Site does not have any commerce, but has a major backend system. No major graphics were used on the site.

 

FriendShipCity.com
Cost: ~ $ 3,400.00
Business: City of Erlanger KY.
Pages: 50
Site Concepts: City wanted a convenient way to relate past and upcoming information to all citizens in Erlanger. Site contains an area with all meeting minutes, information on each department and a calendar. Site also has an area where residents can login to pay city bills and submit general information. Site also has an area where you can view all city ordinances in a nice format that allows for intensive searching.

 

MLBarnard.com
Cost: ~ $ 5,000.00
Business: Construction company in Milford OH
Pages: 40
Site Concepts: Outside of general business information, company owner wanted to be able to list all projects and give customers the ability to login to the site to view all projects. Therefore, we designed a nice backend system that allows customers and contractors to login and view their entire project with work that has been done and work to be done. Professional graphics were designed and intensive backend management system was designed. Customers and contractors are able to submit comments that will be viewed by the project manager at ML Barnard. Site has convinced some of their potential customers to choose them because of this feature.

 
 
 
Security - Thawte
SSL Certificates
All mid-level and corporate web hosting packages come with SSL capabilities. With it you can offer your customers 128-bit encrypted access to your web site.
   1 Year
2 Year
   $199.00
$349.00

WEB STATISTICS
If you want to know how much and what kind of traffic is coming to your web site, NKOL web stats is the answer. NKOL web stats update every 24 hours and will provide you with valuable information about users visiting your site.
   Monthly site fee
   $5.00
  

DATABASE - MySQL
Microsoft SQL or
Microsoft Access
For customers that require database functionality on their site, NKOL offers several different database options. Please contact a NKOL representative if you need more custom options.
   100MB
200MB
   $20.00
$40.00
   500MB
1000MB
   $75.00    $150.00


- Design & Hosted by NKOL -