Website Design & Development
So you would like a new website, or a makeover of your old site, but you don’t have the time or resources to take it on yourself? Vivace Websites offers an affordable web design and development service, tailored to meet your unique requirements, with support throughout the process.
What’s Included?
Vivace Websites will take you through the whole process from your initial enquiry, through understanding your requirements, to designing and developing your new website.
The service includes the following:
- Initial discussion for establishing project brief
- Designing the your website
- Setting up the domain name and website hosting
- Building your new website
- Search Engine Optimisation
Initial Discussion for Establishing Project Brief
The process would start with an initial discussion about your organisation and what you want to achieve from your website. A new website can be designed from scratch, or an existing website can be refreshed. The style and structure of your website will be designed to achieve your business goals.
Designing Your New Website
In order to achieve your business goals the design will: be instantly engaging, reflect your organisation’s brand, be easy for your visitors to navigate to and through your key content, provide a call to action if applicable, and enable them to find answers to their questions quickly and easily. In addition the design will incorporate any functionality you require such as ecommerce, event management and membership services.
Setting up the Domain Name and Website Hosting
If you don’t already have a domain name we can advise on registering your domain name and setting up your website hosting with a well-established and reliable company. If you already own the domain name the hosting must have some minimum requirements for functionality, and administration access would be required.
Building Your New Website
Following approval of the design the website will then be developed.
Our websites are created using the Wordpress Content Management System (CMS) so that it can be edited by you, meaning you do not need to rely on us to maintain your website. We provide you with access to a web based admin tool using a secure login, to access your website. You are able to edit your website from any computer without the need for specialist software.
If you are not happy to update your website yourself, we are happy to provide ad-hoc maintenance or monthly maintenance contracts to suit your needs.
When the build is nearing completion, it will be made available to you (with password-protection) for testing and comment. Once you have approved the new website, it can be set to go live.
As well as developing a new website from scratch, content and functionality can also be added to an existing website.
Copy can be written for your website if required based on material that you provide.
Registering Your Website with Search Engines
Your website structure and copy will be designed to attract a high search engine ranking. Your website will be submitted for indexing by popular search engines, such as Google and Bing. In addition search engine optimisation (SEO) can be set up, with keywords and descriptions of all content on your website for search engines to use in indexing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long will it take?
This very much depends on what you require. If content is provided in a timely manner, ideally in advance of the design stage, this will speed up the process. As a rough estimate the design stage usually takes approximately two weeks and the development stage approximately six weeks.
How much will it cost?
This also depends on your requirements and the type of content and functionality you require. A brochure website with up to about five pages of content would be at the least expensive end of the cost spectrum starting from £500, each additional piece of functionality, such as ecommerce, events management or membership services, would be costed separately. Please note that you would also need to factor in the set-up and ongoing costs of the domain and hosting, and possibly some functionality. Contact us to request a free consultation.
What do we need to provide?
In order to estimate costs you will need to provide an outline of your requirements. These will include content – i.e. how many pages you think you will need – and functionality – e.g. whether you want a shop (ecommerce), a blog, events calendar and booking, social media integration, discussion forum, etc.
For the design stage it would be useful if you could provide an idea of how you want to present your organisation – the look and feel of the website. We can help talk this through and it’s always helpful to look at the websites of similar organisations to see what you like and what works, and what doesn’t. Also for the design stage, you would need to provide your logo or any photos and other images to be incorporated in the design.
For the development stage, you would need to provide copy, any other images, audio, video, documents for download, and any other content. Guidance on file formats and delivery can be provided. It’s helpful to provide as much of this as possible before the design stage as this can otherwise slow down the process. If applicable you would also need to provide the domain name and email addresses you need to be set up. If you already have a domain and hosting, and you need a refresh of an existing website, admin access will be needed. In addition access details to to any other accounts that will be integrated with the website, eg Facebook, Twitter, Mailchimp, etc. and names and email addresses for the users who will manage the website.