D
E
S
I
G
N
DESIGN

Web Development Overview

 

Website Development Overview

Website Development is our primary service and specialty. It can be very complicated and there is a great learning curve as you begin to discover the web from the Webmaster's side. We're here to help you every step of the way and take the burden off wherever we can, while empowering you with as much control over your website as you would like to have.

Our web development centers on the structuring of a website that fits your company and branding, fits your marketing goals, and fits your budget while addressing your target audience in terms they can quickly understand and digest to make an honest appraisal of you and connect to further your communication.

 

Essentially, to have a website you need:

  1. A Domain Name. This is the address of your website that appears in the address bar of the browser. Ours is TheDesignsmith.com as you can see in the address bar above. In effect, you rent the name from a Domain Registrar like Network Solutions or GoDaddy. There are many registrars and there is no considerable difference between them as far as acquiring a name, but their costs vary widely. GoDaddy charges roughly $15 for a .com name per year while Network Solutions charges around $45 for the same thing. We suggest you order your name from GoDaddy.
  2. A Hosting System. This is essentially the computer where the files of your website are stored. This computer must be able to read and execute your programmed files, and it should be solidly connected to a main artery of the internet. The system farm should have backups and redundencies as well as other creative protection to make sure that your website is always available to web surfers. Naturally, we offer a wonderful hosting system equipped to handle all your website needs.
  3. Hyper-Text Markup files. These files describe the look and content of your website to the browser which downloads and displays it to the surfers. HTM files can be built without programming, mixed with programming, or created by programming; but in the end it is the html that your visitors see drawn into their browser. Creating these files is what we do best by integrating beautiful graphics, cascading sytles and smart programming!

In order for us to build your website we need to know what it is going to say and do. We've found the easiest way for you to tell us is by creating a flowchart or outline that names each page and describes the content. We're good at presuming the details, so a general description is good enough for us to give you a reasonable estimate. We also realize that this task is a show-stopper for many, so we offer services to work with you to put it together - contact us or look here to find out more.

 

Primary Elements of a Website:

  1. The Template. We build websites for ease of updating and expansion by using templates that are broken up and inserted into each page of the site to assure consistency across the project. The template gives you the 'look and feel' of your website, the navigation, the head and foot, and much more that is a necessary part of each page.  We often design these templates ourselves but to save money for some clients we can also pick from the many pre-designed templates available around the web and integrate our programming and content into one of them.
  2. The Public Area. When someone types your website name into their browser address bar they see your homepage of your public area. The public area is simply not the private area and includes any part of the site that the public can reach through navigation from another public page or by clicking through from the results of a search engine like Google or Bing.
  3. The Administrative Area. Most websites are programmed to interact with a database and to administer the page content a site owner uses an interface . This interface is a set of pages referred to as the administraion area and it is not connected to the public area. For example, if your website has a shopping cart with lists of items the public can browse, the administrative area would be used to keep those items updated with the correct image, price, etc. Not all websites will have an administrative area.

See Also these Website Design & Development Pages:

 


Website Cost Estimator

We have provided a Free Website Cost Estimator which allows you to select from a list of common pages of a website to give us a clear idea of what you are looking for so you can get a quick idea what your website might cost. Keep in mind that we have a variety of ways to cut down costs by talking to you about what your real requirements are so this calculator is only a ballpark model and will probably estimate higher than your actual cost.