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Services & Pricing
Professional Quality at an Affordable Price
My main focus in web design is to create basic websites that help small businesses, organizations, & ministries achieve their goal of having a professional online presence at an affordable price. I aim for quality and customer satisfaction in every project. Because I work independently, I am able to offer professional quality at a lower cost.
The exact cost for a custom web site will vary with each client, depending on your individual needs, the elaborateness of the site, and the amount of customization you require. Your custom web design cost estimate is based on the size and function of your web site. I will work with you to keep the price within your budget, while still providing a professional web site that projects the image you want. The web design pricing below reflects a broad estimate of the cost to develop a custom website based on a specific number of web pages. Shopping cart development is not included in the approximate prices below.
I am always willing to discuss the specifics of your project without cost or obligation, so please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have.
Included in all standard web design projects:
- Custom site development
- Basic icons, as needed
- Basic images or photos lightly customized or edited for site (total images depends on package, see below)
- Favicon creation & installation (tiny thumbnail image that appears by site title in browser tabs & Favorites/Bookmarks) - this is a very minor item that gives that bit of added polish to a website
- All graphics and images optimized for web
- Basic contact form - customized to send queries to client email address
- Social media integration - social icons, feeds embedded in site (if desired)
- Basic initial SEO (Search Engine Optimization) setup – unique page titles and meta descriptions in head of each page of the site for improved results in search engines [*Recommended reading: SEO and Google Webmaster Tools]
- Site tested in current major browsers, including: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera
- Upload all site files and images to client web host
- After site goes live, one week follow-up to make certain all is performing as expected
Mobile-friendly, Responsive Sites
All new websites I create will include responsive design.
In growing numbers, website visitors are browsing the web from their smartphones and tablets rather than from traditional computers–over 50%, according to current reports. This means your website needs to look good and perform well on these devices. Mobile users want to easily find information about your business/organization, quickly locate your phone number and address, and view text and images at a legible size. The best way to accommodate the many different mobile devices is a *responsive* website design–when a website is responsive, the layout and content automatically changes to best suit the size of the screen you’re viewing it on, while including touch menus, resized text, and more. Another important consideration, search engines now favor responsive, or mobile-friendly, websites, and even penalize your appearance in searches if your site fails to meet this requirement.
If you have an existing site and wish to upgrade it to a responsive design, it generally involves an extensive and complete re-creation of your website, but can be a worthwhile investment in making your site more accessible to your audience and optimized for search engines. If you are looking to begin a new responsive site, or want to bring a responsive redesign to an existing site, let’s talk!
Making It Great
Content Management (CMS)
Once your website is up and running, it will certainly need timely updating, whether it’s just an occasional change of information, or weekly and even daily changes. While your web designer can take care of edits and updates, this can get expensive and will be done according to the designer’s schedule. Using a content management system (CMS) will provide you (or your designated agents, even multiple users) the ability to directly edit your website’s content any time you need. WordPress is the CMS I utilize - keep reading to learn more. →
WordPress - Not just for blogs
If the term WordPress makes you think only of blogs, you may be surprised to learn it has evolved far beyond blogging, and is an excellent tool for business websites of all kinds. It is also a full-featured CMS, such as I have described in the previous section. I utilize a fully customizable theme which allows amazing possibilities in creating websites which are also fully responsive — your customers will enjoy browsing your website whatever device they are using to access it. This means WordPress is an excellent platform to get YOUR business online & looking great! And by the way, CariCreates.com is a WordPress site!
Web Hosting
Web hosting is where all the files related to your website are stored. When it comes to choosing web hosting, most small businesses and organizations need something that is economical as well as reliable. Over the years I have done much research and had experiences with various hosting companies, and have come to trust SiteGround as a truly excellent hosting company. SiteGround’s pricing is affordable while offering top-notch service and reliability.
While SiteGround does offer domains along with their hosting, I find it is best practice to keep domains separate from hosting. Thus, I recommend getting your domain at NameCheap. Learn more in the next section about Domains.
Domains
Pricing Estimates
Prices are subject to change without notice.
Prices will vary widely depending on specific needs of each project.
Setup of domains and hosting accounts is additional. Please contact me for information.
See full TERMS OF SERVICE for more information
General Terms
Projects typically require a deposit of 20% of full estimated price at the time project begins. Balance due upon completion. Terms may vary by project. Read my full Terms of Service for more details.
Payments are accepted through PayPal.
Basic single-page Website
- All standard web projects items as above
- 1-2 simple graphics
Basic 2-3 page Website
- All standard web projects items as above
- All pages same theme with some varied content
- 2-4 basic graphics
Basic 4-6 page website
- All standard web projects items as above
- All pages same theme with some varied content
- Up to 6-10 small custom graphics
Additional Pages - Per Page
- Additional pages above 6-page site
- All pages same theme
- Per page cost depends on complexity
Website Maintenance and Security
(For maintenance plan pricing, see next section)
Your website is an important asset to you and your organization. Maintaining your website, both on the front end for visitors as well as the backend components, is vital to its ongoing success.
Web maintenance and security checks are a preventative measure to help protect your site. No measure is 100% foolproof in the face of online threats, but regular maintenance and the use of trusted security services greatly reduces the vulnerability of a website. With that in mind, I make the following recommendations for the sites I develop:
- Site Security: WordFence should be installed and kept updated. Email notifications received from WordFence should be monitored for any critical measures needing attention on the website.
- Backups with UpdraftPlus: Set automatic backup of the entire website to an alternate directory on your hosting account -or- to an offsite location, such as DropBox
- Frequency*: weekly or more often if site changes frequently, as well as additional backup before any major website updates; number of copies to retain depends on frequency of site changes
- Theme & Plugin updates: Just like your computer system needs regular updates, these building blocks of your website need to be updated regularly to prevent security breaches and improve ongoing function.
- Frequency*: twice monthly or more often if any vulnerabilities are announced by WordFence
- IMPORTANT: When updating, always follow this order to avoid most conflicts
- Full Backup with UpdraftPlus - always backup before other updates, in case conflicts affect the site
- Update Plugins
- Update Themes
- Update WordPress core, if available - I generally recommend setting WordPress to do core updates automatically
After completing updates, review the website to be sure everything is still as it should be. If you see any problems or errors, then there may be some conflicts between some of the plugin and theme updates. In this case, it is best to restore the site with the backup taken right before updating these, if possible, and then get assistance in troubleshooting the conflicts.
Following these steps should keep your website running smoothly and safely. In the unfortunate event that a security breach still occurs and you find your website has been attacked, restoring an uninfected copy from your backups can often set things right. Also, some hosting companies, such as SiteGround (which I highly recommend), may offer their own backups of your entire site which can be used to restore and repair your site. If all else fails, Sucuri is a highly recommended service for cleaning an infected website.
*Maintenance Frequency Note: smaller, infrequently updated sites may be able to get by with quarterly maintenance, while larger sites with numerous regular updates to site content should have maintenance on a weekly or daily basis.
Please note that websites I create on your behalf will have WordFence and UpdraftPlus installed and set up as stated above.
For sites developed entirely by me, I do offer a maintenance plan as listed below.
This maintenance plan does not include updating the design, content, or images on your website. The plan is strictly to maintain your site so that it is optimally less likely to suffer errors or a security breach.
LIABILITY DISCLAIMER: In the event a site suffers any errors or security breach, my standard hourly rate (see below) applies to any time spent assisting in repairs and recovery. I am not liable for any costs necessary for website repairs, and I offer no guarantee against breaches.
CURRENT MINIMUM HOURLY RATE FOR ALL WORK
$25/hour*
*subject to change without notice
Other Web Services
I offer many services that can help boost your online presence. Here are just a few!
Facebook: Need a hand getting your business/organization set up on Facebook? I can do all the heavy lifting and have you ready to start social networking in short order!
Photograph Optimization for Web: Optimizing photos for the web reduces their file size so they load more quickly. You don’t want your site visitors giving up on a slow-loading page, so have your images optimized!
Graphic Design: Learn more here