Website Design

Q. Describe the most common types of jobs you do for your clients.

A. My most common websites are "informational" ones. My customers want an online presence so that their customers can find them on the internet.

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. Look for customer reviews, ask for references, look at their portfolio, don't just look at cost. Sacrificing customer service and professionalism for cost effectiveness will give you a website that is dissatisfying, a bad experience, and lack of trust of other designers. Investing in a website for your business is extremely important, make sure it is right the first time. Your website will reflect your business as well as the business of your webmaster.

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. Most of my customers put off having a website because they think it is too expensive, complicated, they don't have time to update and maintain it. Creative Web Solutions does all the work for the customer, we include 1 hour of our time monthly to update the website for the customer at their request. It is included in our very affordable hosting services.

Q. What important information should buyers have thought through before seeking you out?

A. 1. What kind of website do you want? Informational, ecommerce, or personal?
2. What is your budget for website design?
3. Do you have hosting?
4. Do you have photos and information for your site?

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. We offer free, custom, and professional website design at half the price of our competitors.

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. I like creating a professional website that will reflect the interests of the customer, having satisfied customers, and knowing that I have instilled the trust needed to have a growing professional relationship.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. Why should my business have a website at all?

There are many reasons why any business should have a web site. Here is a good short list:

1.

To provide basic information that establishes credibility - just as a listing in the Yellow Pages shows you are serious about your business, having your own company domain reinforces your legitimacy as a serious business. (According to IntelliQuest 68% of US web users shop online.)
2.

To provide a map to your business location. Sometimes finding you is the hard part.
3.

To sell your products and/or services. Customers explore alternatives over the web before buying.
4.

To make business information available to customers and clients 24/7.
5.

To allow you to update your information as frequently or infrequently as you choose.
6.

To reach your local market. The web reaches the world, but customers shop it for local information as well.
7.

To reduce costs, use your site to answer your most frequently asked questions.
8.

To reduce costs, show your products over the web instead of printing brochures.
9.

To obtain feedback from customers. It is easy to see what your customers respond to on the website.
10.

To stay in contact with salespeople, customers and suppliers.
11.

To test market new services and products. You may also learn that you have a market you hadn't thought of.
12.

To easily publicize specials you are offering. Couple this with e-mail promotion to your existing clients.
13.

To reach the media. Newsletter editors may like something on your site and refer to it in their articles. This is FREE advertising.
14.

To reach the specialized or international markets.
15.

To enhance your business relationships. Tell your clients about related businesses they might be interested in, and maybe get a referral fee for it!


Back to Top
Web Usability Evaluations. What is Web Usability?

1. Web Usability Evaluations

What is web usability?

Web usability is about increasing visitor conversion by optimizing the user experience. Ease of use. "simplicity". It's all about effective website strategies. Creative Web Solutions usually performs website evaluations to eliminate obstacles that may be chasing away your visitors, and inadvertently damaging your search engine rankings. This web page evaluation can be complemented with a competitive analysis: how does your site compare to those of your competitors? We gauge your site against a checklist of generally accepted usability guidelines for website development. We look at things like effective website navigation, consistency, content and error minimization.

Why are usability evaluations important?

Your visitors want to find what they are looking for fast and easily. If not, they click away. Off to your competitor's site. If you offer visitors a good user experience with a usable site, then they will likely also feel good about your organization. It conveys trust and professionalism, and will strengthen your brand. It allows smaller companies to play with the big guys in a worldwide marketplace.

Is an evaluation expensive?

It is expensive not to mind usability. You will lose sales and a lot of goodwill when your site is a confusing or frustrating environment. As a rule of thumb every dollar spent in usability earns a return of $ 10 to $ 100. Usability issues need to be resolved sooner or later. So: if you start analyzing your site and its users now, you can reap the benefits tomorrow.

When should I look into usability optimization?
It is never too late, or too early. You can test ideas while they are still on paper, you can pilot a draft design, or you can optimize an existing page or site through redesign. It is recommended that you continuously look at your website for improvement. Do you have effective website navigation? Are you sure you don't have any broken links? Take a look at your visitor analysis software. You might have solicited some feedback from users that require a small redesign project... Be generous to your users, and they will be generous to you!

What can Creative Web Solutions do for me?

We are strong advocates for less frustration and more satisfaction on websites. We mind the details. We look through the user's eyes, and provide you with a report of web usability improvement recommendations. You can also hire us and have one of our designers make the changes for you; we will then oversee the implementation to make sure that these adjustments don't create new problems.

What services do you offer?

We can perform web usability site analysis, user interface usability testing. We perform website usability by running a checklist guidelines and best practices. Your competition may be taken into account, as well as your search engine ranking. You can acquire our services before, during or after a design project.

How long will a project take?

Depending on the kind of project it can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

I would like someone to share some Internet related ideas with me. Some plans we have, some concerns maybe...
We would love to listen to your thoughts and ideas, and look forward to present you with our reflections. Contact us today!

How much does a website cost?

Typically, a five (5) page informational website is $575. There are quite a few factors that are going to affect the ultimate cost of your web site. These factors include how many pages you are going to have, if you will sell products on your website, the graphic work involved, whether or not you provide the information or we have to research it out, and how interactive your future web site will be. You will also need web hosting and domain name registration.

Do I need to hire a "local" website designer?

We create websites 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.

What is a URL?

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.creativewebsolutions.net to access our home page.

What is a domain name?

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) or we can do that for you. Our domain name is "creativewebsolutions.net".

I am currently hosted with a different company and would like to switch over to Creative Web Solutions. 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.

Do I need to edit my website myself?

On small business brochure websites, not necessarily but yes, you can. As technology changes fast these days, its not common to have validated websites with clean code using FrontPage extensions to update content on a website. There are a few new tools to help you edit some content on your website however you must be sure that the WYSIWYG editor you will use to edit content directly supports the new standards to update content on your website. Editing time for websites is also included in some of our packages.

What about payment gateway and shipping integration on ecommerce websites?

We can integrate the most common methods on our e-commerce websites, however you might have a specific request and it might take some time to study that specific case. We're open to talk with you and help you during the integration process but we work must together during the process. It may impact the amount of time we initially defined at the start of the project. So keep that in mind and try to keep shipping instructions simple and use common payment getaways providers. Common things make life easier.

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. Creative Web Solutions makes it a point to look out for the customer and even goes the extra mile to bring satisfaction. We welcome the opportunity to make our customers happy and feel secure with their designer, whether local or non-local.

Q. How did you decide to get in your line of work?

A. I grew up as a boy building things but that was never enough. I had to have bigger and better. I was never satisfied. I later discovered it was because I loved the creative part of the building. In college I was working toward my Bachelor Degree in Business Management and had to learn Microsoft Office Powerpoint. I loved the animation side of it so much I wanted to do more. I then decided to get a degree as a Website Design Specialist.

Q. Tell us about a recent job you did that you are particularly proud of.

A. Touch by an Angel cleaning service came to me and wanted an informational website so people would know what services they offered before they called for a quote. Thus saving time and providing information that their competitors did not offer. http://kcmetrocleaning.com/

Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?

A. Yes, I take classes regularly to stay up-to-date to the newest ideas, trends, marketing, and coding requirements.