How much does a web site cost?
Unlike other web design companies who hide their pricing, create arbitrary quotes based on how much they'd like to make, or charge monthly fees for life; we are honest and up front about our pricing structure. Nothing you don't want or need is forced upon you. You'll have a clear understanding of the cost before the project begins and no surprises when you receive the final invoice.
Please see our rates page for details.
Do I need to hire a "local" web site designer?
CLS Graphic and Web Design creates web sites for clients who are local as well as out of state. By using the Internet, email and the telephone, it is possible to communicate effectively with clients in any location.
How long does it take to have a web site designed?
The time frame is determined by the size of your web site, the complexity of your site design, and our current client design schedule.
It stands for "universal resource locator". This is the address typed in to view your web page on the Internet. For example, you would type in http://www.clsgraphicsonline.com to access our home page.
A domain name is a specific web site address that you choose and register with Network Solutions(the official registrar of domain names ending in .com, .edu, and .gov). Our domain name is "clsgraphicsonline.com".
What is the purpose of a SSL Certificate?
If you are running an e-commerce web site, you may need a SSL certificate (secure certificate) to protect your customers' payment information. This depends on which cart you choose and which payment processor(s) you use on your site.
You only need an SSL certificate if you are accepting credit card information on your own web site. For instance, if you use Pay Pal or 2checkout as your payment processor, your customer clicks to buy on your site and they are taken to PaPal's (or 2checkout's) web site to complete payment. In this case, you don't need an SSL certificate. However, if you are using Pay Pal Payments Pro, Authorize.net, Linkpoint, or another service like these, then customers will be entering their credit card information on your site. In this case, you will need the SSL certificate.
When we have set up the SSL certificate for your site, your customers will see https:// (instead of http://) in the location bar of their browser, and they will see a lock icon, showing that their information is secure with your site.
How will people find my web site?
Our SEO services will get your site on the major search engines and encourage you to put your world wide web address on everything you can... i.e. advertisements, business cards, letterhead, checks, fax cover sheets, etc. There are also many banner exchange programs you can get involved in, depending on the type of business you have.
Every business has different needs. We will determine how many pages your site requires after learning more about your company and goals. We have clients with sites consisting of a single page and others whose sites are over 1000 pages.
Will everyone view my site the same way?
Users will see some site elements differently depending on their browser and screen resolution setting. We design sites with that in mind and preview them in several browser types and resolution settings before publishing.
Will my site be listed in the major search engines?
We will optimize your site for search engines and list your site with the major ones; however, getting to the top takes time, content development and link building. We will help you get there, but just remember it takes time and hard work to accomplish that.
How soon can I expect a return from my web site?
Most of the search engines take 2 to 4 weeks to list your site. With a small amount of pay per click advertising, print, radio, or TV advertising it can begin immediately!
What will you need from me to produce a web site?
It helps a lot when working on a site to know what exactly is going to be on it, so we will need as much content in the form of text, photos, articles, item descriptions, etc. before starting.
If you don't yet have content ready, but have a good idea of what will be on your site, we can get started on a site design and add content as we go, but it's usually best to have a solid starting point.
Will you put together a design I created?
Yes, if we like it and think it will work to make a functional and user-friendly web site. You can create the design a number of ways:
- Design the whole thing in Photoshop or Illustrator, send me the file, and we'll put it together.
- Send us a rough sketch of what you want (either as a computer image, or draw it on a piece of paper and send it to us).
- Design it in your head and then try to describe it to us - but you'd better be really good at describing!
I am currently hosted with another company and would like to switch to CLS Graphic & Web Design. How do I do this?
Just fill out an inquiry and we will take care of everything. We will transfer your domain name along with all of your existing web sites content.
Can I choose you to design my site and use my own hosting?
Yes, you can use any web host you like. Once your web site has been completed you will have to provide us with your web hosting ftp login username as password so that we can upload your web site for you. Although, we offer amazing service and several hosting packages.
Web hosting is a monthly fee that you pay to have your site accessible on the Internet. We can provide web hosting for our clients.
Site maintenance is a fee paid monthly to keep your site updated with new content that you provide. Most good web sites have new content updated regularly. Fresh content is what will keep your visitors coming back. This is an optional service that we provide for our customers. If you want to maintain your web site yourself you can do so.
Yes, we offer discounts for schools, non profit organizations, and military personnel.
Why can't I find my site in the search engines?
Once your site has been submitted to the top Search Engines they may require several weeks, or even months to actually spider and list your web site in their directory. How fast your site is listed depends on each individual Search Engines database update schedule. Watch your server traffic logs for visiting spiders. We suggest you use Guaranteed Search Engine Submit. Your site can be listed on AOL, MSN, Overture in a couple of days.
Web site content - What do I put on my site?
That would depend on the goals of your web site. If you run a business web site you would include as much information about your products or services that your customers would need to purchase from you.
I've made my decision - I want you to design my site. Now what do I do?
If you have decided you want a web site or have any questions, simply fill out our contact form to start the process.
There are hundreds of design companies. What makes you different?
There are many people that think that since they simply own some Web publishing software, that they can put up a Web site and call themselves Professional Web Designers.
At CLS Graphic and Web Design, we take your project seriously. This is not something that we do part-time or on the side. We have years of experience and formal education and are constantly taking new classes to improve our skills and keep up with the evolving Web world. We've invested in what we consider to be the best Web design software on the market and more importantly, we know how to use it to give you the results you want.
In addition, since we operate a small business, we are able to give each and every client the personalized attention that they deserve.
Unlike most other Web design firms, we have taken the added time to educate ourselves in the areas of search engine optimization.
Finally, we gladly work with Internet startup companies, providing the site design, logo, copy writing, search engine compatibility and other elements you need to succeed.
What do you use to design your products?
We utilize the Adobe Suite collection. Dreamweaver is our most used web design software. Flash is another software we use. Illustrator and Photoshop are what we use to create or manipulate graphics, banners, etc..
The reason that we don't use FrontPage is because it generates a lot of HTML code that is only recognized by the Internet Explorer browser. That means that a site built with FrontPage will often display beautifully in Internet Explorer (as both FrontPage and Internet Explorer are owned by Microsoft), but will be a jumbled, unreadable mess in Firefox, Netscape or Opera browser. Just the word "hello" when created in Word or FrontPage will create over 100 lines of code - when coded by an expert - you will only have about 5 lines of code.
We believe that cross-browser compatibility is important and we design Web sites so that they view properly, and work as intended in Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Opera.
Who owns the completed web site?
Once the final payment is received, you will receive 100% ownership of your Web site as it pertains to the license issued to you.
We provide
- Professional Web design
- Custom Programming
- Flash
- Web site copy writing
- Logo design
- Web site maintenance
- Web site analysis
- Web site banners
- Web site graphics
- Search Engine Optimization
- Print Media solutions (business cards, brochures, stationary, etc...)
- Invitations
- Web site hosting
- Domain name registration
- Reseller accounts
- Email solutions
- SSL Certificates
- Site software
- Analytics
- and much more
The wonderful thing about being a small business is that you get to work one on one with the owner, Cassie Serednyj. She will provide the highest quality care and products.
How many changes can I request to the drafts?
We offer one revision cycle at no additional charge. We'll make as many changes as necessary until it meets your approval after that at our normal hourly rate. We do ask for a final sign off to the design after the first revision cycle as we will have received all of your feedback by then.
Can I make changes after I approve the draft?
Yes, however design changes performed after you have approved the concept will be charged at an hourly rate of $75.00 US.
What kind of guarantee do you offer?
We completely guarantee our design work. We provide an initial concept based on the creative brief we put together prior to designing. We then offer an entire round of revisions at no additional charge. In many cases revisions aren't even needed, but when they are necessary - we take your entire "laundry list" and tweak until the design is just right. We also allow another final revision cycle of the web site once all content has been inserted, to make sure your site is ready before launch.
Once the concept is finalized, your copy, links, forms and other elements will be added, and your site uploaded to your hosting service.
Can you explain the design process?
We have a five-step process as explained below:
Step One - Contact Us
Simply use our contact form to send us a short description of your project. Together we can review the details, specific requirements and the end result you want for your site.
Next, we'll provide you with a quote for the total cost of your site creation. This interaction provides us both with the information and insights we need to decide if our relationship will be mutually beneficial. If we are agreed - we move onto step 2.
Step Two - Make a deposit
You'll be provided with an invoice for 50% of the total of your quote. This deposit can be made via check by mail or in person. We also accept credit cards and money orders. Any quotes under $600 and the total amount is due at contract signing.
Step Three -Your insight is vital!
While we may be the Web design professionals, you have vital information about your business, your customers, your likes and dislikes that will make your site a success. We will sit down with you via conference call or in person to establish a creative brief. This is a casual meeting that helps us understand your goals for look and feel of the web site. Some of the topics cover navigation, calls to action and other elements required on the home and sub page templates we will be designing.
Step Four - Provide us with feedback
We will provide you with a design concept within 2 weeks of our creative briefing. Your feedback will help us to determine which direction to take. We may only need to do some tweaking, or we may be ready to go!
Step Five- Test and launch
Once you have approved the final design, we add and format the copy (text) to all the pages and set up your desired features, such as contact forms. Once everything has been approved by you, we upload your site to the Web and fully test its functionality. We make sure that your site can be viewed as intended in Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and other common browsers and resolutions.
The Web design process generally takes anywhere from 1-3 weeks. To alleviate any unnecessary delays, we recommend that you have the majority of your copy written (and proofed) before your design begins.
Why don't you recommend FLASH based sites?
The FLASH is a future technology. For now HTML is still the best choice. Why? Because the search engines don't understand FLASH. A FLASH based site is a blank page for the search engines and it is normal that they will not index it. And you tell me then why having a cool looking FLASH based web site that now one can find?
No. There are several specialized companies that will do a nice job for you.
How will I receive my ready to upload web site?
If the entire size of the web site is under 5Mb (95% of the cases) we will send it by e-mail as an attached ZIP archive. If your www site is oversized, we will send it on CD by ordinary mail.
What browsers are you optimizing sites for?
We take care for your web site to look perfectly in Internet Explorer 4+ and Netscape Navigator 6+. These browsers have 98% of all Internet hits, so the others are not crucial. MS Internet Explorer has about 90% all internet hits, so we think it's the most important and we pay it attention first of all.
Do you offer search engine optimization?
Yes. SEO is very important if you want to get maximum traffic from search engines. We optimize not only META tags, but the entire site content and structure to get higher ranking in search engines.
Of course! It is the most powerful web design instrument with HTML sites. Cascading Style Sheets technology offers the opportunity to make complicated layouts without increasing the files size.
If you host with us, then we will upload your site. If you host outside of CLS Graphic and Web Design, we would have to have your personal ftp usernames and passwords and that is a liability for both of us.
In what format will my logo be supplied to me?
We will always ask you how you will be using your logo before we proceed and supply the correct format for your application. Different mediums require different quality and formats and we will prepare for the correct result.
- For the Web - gif, jpeg, png, swf
- For Print - tiff, eps, ai, psd, pre-press pdf
- Other Mediums - Windows bitmap, pict, pdf, swf and more - please inquire.
Can I use my logo in Word or Power Point?
Yes. We will supply your logo in a variety of formats suitable to be placed/inserted/imported into your everyday software. Please mention how you would like to use your logo before we design.
What is the difference between a print logo and a web logo?
Print logos require a high resolution to maintain quality and the most common formats are tiff, eps or press quality pdf. Mainly designed in cmyk for four colour process printing ,these files can be reproduced successfully in print and are usually very large files best sent via CD.
Web logos require a low resolution for viewing on screen and the most common formats are gifs or jpegs. Designed using rgb or specific hex colours Web logos are small file sizes that can be emailed and should never be used in print as their quality is too poor to reproduce successfully and their colour profile is not compatible with pre-press software.
What type of print media do you design?
CLS Graphic and Web Design provide a complete print media management service and can prepare your artwork for a variety of general printing and stationery as well as print advertising. Brochures, business cards, letterheads, postcards, product labels and swing tags and more.
How much will print design cost?
Artwork only is charged at an hourly rate of $80 and your project will be designed press-ready. However, your artwork will be included in the total cost of all quoted printing. Printing costs will be quoted on the individual job and will depend on the quantity required, the type of paper/card and the number of spot colours required or if you require four colour process colour printing plus any finishing costs such as special coatings or die-cutting.