“With your help we are able to accomplish this website and a whole lot more. It will be my pleasure to refer anyone that might be interested in web design to you.”
A: We recommend that you register one domain name and setup your website hosting setup first. See Domain Name Search below. Do not register more than one domain name per physical website. Our affiliate hosting company, Becotech (1-888-323-2326) can take care of both of these two items for you at the same time. We only need your website hosting FTP information (user id and password so we can upload the website). This will give us a website address to start building your website, so you can follow along with its progress. If you want to use the E-Mail that comes with the domain name, let the hosting company know at this time and they will set that up for you. For your privacy and security, Blue Ridge Media does not store nor maintain customer E-Mail Passwords or Domain Name Registration.
We like to start with a site plan on paper, indicating each page’s name, description and the desired content. This looks similar to a corporate organization chart, starting with the main index page at the top of the page and linking down to each of the back pages. This site plan will be used for link navigation and to estimate the total cost of the website, since we charge by the page. Each page can have up to 4 photos on it. If you have a design idea in mind, colors, background tiles, etc., this would be a good time to communicate that design idea to us, including examples from other websites to look at.
We will assist you with keyword searching for your products or services. These keywords should say where you are and what products or services that you provide. Be realistic of what search phrases you can be found for. One and two word keyword phrases are extremely difficult to get found for, unless you are a very popular website with a high PageRank score. Remember, without a geographic reference in the search phrase, you are searching the entire World Wide Web, which is huge.
We need your website content; digital photos, graphics, logos and the text that you want to be placed on your website. Place these digital files on a CD ROM and mail it to us at the PO Box below. We prefer the text to be saved as .rtf or .txt file format. If the files are small enough, you can E-Mail Files to us, one file at a time. Use the ‘Original Size’ attachment option in your E-Mail program when sending graphics to ensure full size.
Once we have all your FTP information, website content, your site plan and design ideas, keyword phrases, and your deposit, please give us 5 business days to get your website online.
Mobile Web Design
Q: Do you design Mobile Websites?
A: Yes. We can design a mobile website that mirrors your main website. Mobile websites are specially designed to be readable on smaller mobile devices, such as an iPhone. They are narrower and contain fewer graphics and photos, to keep the mobile load time faster and data transfer rates lower. We use special server redirection software that detects the mobile user’s device and redirects them to your mobile website, which is separate from your main website.
Q: Do you design E-Mail Blasts or E-Mail HTML Pages?
A: Yes. We can design an E-Mail Blast or HTML E-Mail Page for you. These HTML E-Mail pages are compliant with the FTC Canned Spam Act. They must contain your real name, address, phone number, a note that it is an Advertisement or Solicitation of Services, and the ability to Opt-Out or Unsubscribe from future mailings.
A: Your domain name is always registered to you, and never to the hosting company or the web design company. Beware of web design companies that register your domain in their name - because they own it, not you. Blue Ridge Media does not keep domain name registration information on file, so please make note of your domain name user id and password when you receive it. Our hosting company, Becotech (1-888-323-2326) can register your domain name for you at the same time they setup your website hosting. We recommend registering your domain name for 5 years or 10 years at a time for better SEO performance.
Q: Should I register multiple domain names?
A: No, never! Do not register multiple domain names! This can get you banned from some search engines for duplicate content. The general rule is one domain name per physical website.
Operating Costs
Q: What are my annual operating costs associated with my web design?
A: Your annual reoccurring operating costs will be approximately $120 per year to keep the website up and running ($12 domain name registration and $108 website hosting). These fees are paid to the individual service companies, like Becotech, not to Blue Ridge Media.
Q: How much does your Search Engine Optimization cost?
A: SEO Services are included with every Blue Ridge Media website design at no additional cost!
Q: Do you charge a monthly maintenance fee?
A: Never. Blue Ridge Media does not charge monthly maintenance fees. All text changes under 12 minutes are performed free of charge. This includes adding links, changing paragraphs, price changes, etc. If it takes longer for us to print the invoice, we don’t charge you. Our web design fee is a one time only charge for the initial web design.
Q: Do you require a deposit?
A: Yes. We require the first page charge as a deposit, before we begin your web design. The balance is due within 30 days of the site going live. We accept cash, check and money orders. No credit cards please. All payments must be in US dollars. Payments can be sent to the PO Box below. Make payments payable to “Blue Ridge Media”. Charges are for labor and services rendered only. No goods or products are being sold or offered for sale by Blue Ridge Media.
Website Hosting
Q: Why do I need website hosting?
A: Your website needs to physically reside somewhere on the Internet on a high speed server that is attached to the Internet 24x7 - that’s called website hosting. The hosting company also provides domain name registration, E-Mail services and traffic reports associated with your domain name.
Q: Can I choose my own website hosting company?
A: Yes, of course. We use and highly recommend Becotech (1-888-323-2326) for affordable website hosting, but you are free to choose any hosting company you like. We will need your FTP information (FTP address, user id and password) to upload your website to your hosting company. Make sure the hosting company you choose offers FTP access and support.
Q: How does the E-Mail service work?
A: Your hosting company should provide you with a E-Mail services and an E-Mail address tied to your domain name; basically anything will work as your E-Mail address. Your E-Mail service is handled by your hosting company, not by Blue Ridge Media. For privacy reasons, we do not keep any E-Mail passwords on file. We can link to any E-Mail address you provide us from your website. You may also choose to use your existing E-Mail address. That option is up to you.
Traffic Reports
Q: What kinds of traffic reports do you provide?
A: Becotech provides basic reporting services, such as monthly, weekly and daily trends, keywords used and referring site reports. A website host server cannot track unique visitors, only the number of pages that it sends out. For more detailed reports, including unique visitors, we recommend you sign up for Google Analytics, which is a FREE service offered by Google. Once you have signed up, we need to paste your individual Google Analytics tracking code into every web page.
Q: Do you provide a visible website counter?
A: Yes. We also provide a Unique Visitors Counter on your website. Our unique visitor counters count people, not page loads.
Social Media
Q: How can I use Social Media to drive traffic to my website?
A: AddThis is a widely used social bookmarking service that can be integrated into any website with the use of a web widget. AddThis helps website publishers spread their content across the web, by making it easy for visitors to bookmark and share content to their favorite social destinations. Visitors to your website can easily bookmark a page using a variety of services, such as Blogger, Facebook, MySpace, Google, Bookmarks, YouTube and Twitter. The service is free of charge and provides some statistics and tracking information. We have had good luck with this service.
Here is a working example of AddThis...
If you have a Blog, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube account, we can add graphic link buttons from your website to your Social Media pages.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Q: What SEO Services are included with my website?
A: SEO Services are included with every Blue Ridge Media website design at no additional cost! We will assist you with keyword searching and content writing, based on your products or services.
Please note that we provide our SEO Services only to our current website design customers. We do not provide our SEO Services to Third Party Websites. If you would like us to redesign your website for you, we would be more than happy to provide you with our SEO Services.
Q: How long does it take to get my website into the search engines?
A: It can take about 1-2 months before your website is indexed by the major search engines - sometimes sooner. We do initial search engine submissions to Google, Bing and Yahoo the same day that your site goes live. A one time manual submission to DMOZ is also performed. Google PageRank scores are updated quarterly, so this can take a little bit longer. We continue the initial search engine submissions once a month until your site is indexed. Search Engine Acceptance and Performance is Not Guaranteed. If you require immediate search engine exposure, we recommend you look into Google AdWords for the first few months.
Q: My new website just went live, but it’s not showing up in my browser. Why is this happening?
A: Make sure you are typing your website’s address on the browser’s top URL or Address line, and not into any search engine’s search window, such as Google or Yahoo. The major search engines will not be able to find your new website until it’s first indexed, which can take about 2-3 months.
W3C Validation
Q: Why is W3C Validation so important?
A: HTML Code is the foundation of you website, and is the code that the browser executes. Error free code can dramatically improve and ensure the load time, compatibility and performance of your website across many different browsers and computer platforms, now and into the future. All of our web designs pass W3C Validation. Not every web design company writes Error Free Code. We suggest that you Validate some of our competitors. Then Validate some of their portfolio customers. Do they care enough about Quality Web Design to write Error Free Code? The results may surprise you!
Website Development
Q: Which program do you use to develop your websites in?
A: Our websites are not tied to any one specific website development program. I learned HTML programming back in 1996 while working for Motorola. In 1996, there were no such thing as a WYSIWYG website development programs, such as Adobe Dreamweaver, so you learned HTML coding the hard way, using a simple text editor. HTML code is still the foundation for all websites, so we continue to code all of our websites using HTML code today.
This might sound old school, but it has many advantages over WYSIWYG developers: 1) Our HTML code is 100% clean, very efficient and error free, so it runs much faster.
2) Our HTML code validates with the W3C, so it displays the same on different browsers.
3) We fully understand our HTML code, which is critical for complex coding and debugging.
4) Website development is much faster, because HTML code blocks can be copied and pasted.
5) HTML code changes can be quickly implemented across multiple HTML files instantly. 6) Our HTML code is not tied to any one website development program, so it’s very flexable.
Copyright Issues
Q: Can I use any material that I find on the Internet in my website?
A: Not unless you have permission from the owner of the content to use it. We recommend that you take all your own photographs and write all your own content material, in your own words. You can link to other sites, such as YouTube for videos, only if the owner of the video allows external linking, which most do. If you are looking to use stock photos, there are a number of low cost stock photo sites that you can pick photos for a few dollars an image. We recommend that you check out iStockPhoto.com for inexpensive royalty free images.
Monitor Calibration
Q: How can I tell if my monitor is calibrated?
A: We use and recommend a hardware product called Pantone Huey Pro to calibrate our computer monitors. If your monitor is calibrated correctly, the graphic below should appear to be 26 different shades of grey. If you see a large area of white or black at the ends, or if the graphic appears slightly red, green or blue, then your monitor needs professional calibration.
Audio
Q: Can I use Audio in my website?
A: Yes. We can embed your audio into your website, as a voice-over message or as background music. We industry standard mp3 format for the best cross platform performance. If you are using music content, please make sure that you have the proper copyright permission to use it.
Flash
Q: Can I use Flash in my website?
A: Yes. We can embed your Flash Content into your website as a Flash Animation or as a Flash Slide Show.
Video
Q: Can I use Video in my website?
A: Yes. We can embed your videos into your website. We highly recommend using YouTube for all of your video content. YouTube takes care of the complex video compression and hosting of your video. Best of all, it’s free! Simply upload your videos to YouTube, and then send us the link. YouTube now supports HTML5, so your videos can play on all Apple mobile devices such as iPhones, iPods and iPads.
Additional Questions
Q: I still have a few additional questions, how can I contact you?
A: We’ve tried to answer most of the Frequently Asked Questions that we get asked on this page, but if you still have additional questions, please E-Mail or call us at (828) 265-2730.
North Carolina Web Design by Blue Ridge Media
PO Box 1571, Blowing Rock, NC 28605
Studio Hours: 1000 - 1800 EST | M - F Please Do Not Call Outside of Studio Hours
Phone Number Registered on FTC Do Not Call List Best Reached By
Technical Support Numbers
