Small Business FAQ

A traditional web site involves 5 costs:

• Design (or the time and money involved to build the site yourself.) Cost range from several hundred to many thousands of dollars depending on the number of pages, complexity and design requirements.
• Domain registration - your www.name.com must be registered through a "registrar". The cost usually ranges from $15 to $35/year depending on the registrar that you choose. If you'd like to check for availability, or to register a domain yourself, Joeweb offers discounted domain registration for just $20/year.
• Server hosting fees - space must be rented on a computer that's connected to the internet at all times -- and one that has the capacity to serve your pages to visitors quickly and reliably. Costs range from $10-$50/ month depending on the server you choose and the features needed.
• Maintenance and update of your content - again, fees vary widely. Most web design shops charge between $45 to $100/hour.
• Search Engine submissions - a lot of services offer submission, some charging a thousand dollars or more. Hint: Look for a shop whose own site ranks highly in Yahoo, MSN, Google and the other major engines. If they can't get their own site listed highly, there's less chance that they will have great success with yours.

Joeweb offers a simple, inexpensive alternative to all these web site fees. We design, host, maintain and promote single-page sites for a flat $799. (Extra pages can be added to your site for a discounted fee, depending on the complexity of the pages. Please contact us for an exact quote.)

If you currently have a domain name registered and select us to do your design, hosting and search engine submissions, we can handle the transfer of your existing domain to our server - usually for no extra charge.

While there are "do-it-yourself" web site packages available, they have many limitations:

• Your ability to size, color correct and "optimize" photos for fast loading is severely limited. Having pictures that take 20-30 seconds to load is one of the surest ways to lose visitors to your site.
• Most "do-it-yourself" applications yield "do-it-yourself" looking pages -- often with broken links.
• Designing, building and optimizing an effective web page may take an expert several days. Creating it yourself can easily result in weeks of frustration.
• A web page that no one can find is useless. Professional designers understand what search engines look for and design pages for high ratings. A good listing on MSN, AOL, Alta Vista, etc., can make all the difference between a profitable web site and one that just sits there.
  
  Plus, now that many search directories and engines charge hefty submission or "pay per click" fees, a knowledgeable web designer can save you thousands of dollars that would have otherwise been wasted.

Contact us with your request and we will reply with the availability.

With our discounted rate, domain registration costs just $20/ year.

While all search engines and directories used to review sites for free, this is no longer the case.

• Yahoo requires $299 to consider a commercial listing request in their directory. IF they accept your site (they do not accept all sites that are submitted), they then charge $299 each year thereafter to keep your site in their directory.)
• Overture and some pay-per-click engines auction off their listings.
• Google and MSN offer advertised listings.

While many search engines and directories are moving in the "pay for listing" direction, some still offer lesser known free or low cost submission options.

At Joeweb, we submit our clients' sites to Yahoo, Google, MSN and other major search engines and directories that accept free or low cost submissions. Many of our enjoy excellent traffic from being listed only in the free and low-cost search engines and directories.

Rather than calling "friend of a friend" or the local agency with the largest listing in the phone book, we suggest conducting your own web search. Enter "keywords" such as "discount web site designer" at any of the major search engines or directories (such as MSN, Yahoo, or Google) and start your search there.

Firms that rate highly are the ones that understand search engine technology and may get the best search engine rankings for your business.

Next, visit each of the firms' sites and critique their design. Once you find a couple whose sites that: consistently appear at the top of search engine lists and show examples of their work that are attractive, easy to navigate and do a good job of communicating vital information, contact them via phone or E-mail. Inquire about their fees and how they work with new jobs and clients.

Obviously, we hope that you will include Joeweb in your list of design firms to consider. Please feel free to contact us by e-mail.

Send us an E-mail message. We will respond with a prompt, personal reply.