Web Design FAQ

This depends on how you are going to use it. If you are going to be telling people over the phone, choose one that is easy to say and spell out loud. Above all, I would choose one that is memorable and not confusing.

You can take payments online in a number of ways. The first is PayPal - this an inexpensive way to start taking payments quickly, especially if you don't have a merchant account. With PayPal, your visitors can pay you with a credit card or by sending a payment from their checking account (echeck). PayPal provides a shopping cart and many other free services that are helpful to sites that are starting out. They charge 2.9% +$.30 per transaction and have no start-up fees. The downsides are that PayPal is not a very customizable solution, and it can have a “start-up” feel. However, this is changing and many mainstream sites are now accepting PayPal as more and more people have PayPal accounts. PayPal is inexpensive both because there are no merchant account of payment gateway fees, but also because PayPal provides a very easy way to integrate their shopping cart into your site, which reduces development time.

Another inexpensive option is a totally free solution called VirtueMart e-commerce. ViruteMart a free, easy to use and up-to-date e-commerce solution. fully integrated into a free, but professional Content Management System. With the free version, you can accept PayPal, offline payments like checks, and credit cards if you have your own way to charge them already. It will store the numbers for you to run offline. For $6 a month you can upgrade your cart so it can integrate with a number of popular payment gateways like Authorize.net. There are other fees associated with payment gateways and merchant accounts that you would also be responsible for.

Finally, there is the option of creating a full e-commerce solution. This involves many different components - a merchant account from a bank, a payment gateway service that allows you to accept payments into your merchant account from your website (this is often bundled with the merchant account), a shopping cart or payment script that integrates with your payment gateway, and certain elements of the server environment like having an SSL certificate and a static IP. Full e-commerce is much more expensive and time-consuming to develop than PayPal or Mal's, but it can be integrated into your site for a truly seamless payment experience. It can also save you money in the long run if you are doing a high volume of sales.

A static site is one that is written in HTML only. Each page is a separate document and there is no database that it draws on. What this means functionally is that the only way to edit the site is to go into each page and edit the HTML - so you'd either have to do it yourself using a webpage editor like FrontPage or pay me to go in and edit the site each time you wanted something changed.

A dynamic site is written using more complex code and can do a lot more. For instance, I can make an area where you can log in and change various parts of the site, such as adding information or products. This is because each page is constructed based on the information in a database, and the information in that database can be changed via another interface.

Dynamic sites can reduce ongoing maintenance costs if you don't want to change things yourself with a webpage editor or with the HTML. They usually cost more to develop, as they require more complex coding and a content management utility needs to be developed to help you manage your website information.

Another benefit of dynamic sites is that they allow you to change only the content of the site and not the design, so you will not be able to accidentally break the visual style of the site. They have other benefits when sites start to get very large, as they make data management much more efficient and your site more expandable.

Many clients do a combination, having some dynamic areas such as a product catalog where they have to change information or pictures regularly, and leave other pages such as contact information as static pages.

Modern search engines like to find your site naturally, through links to your site from other sites. Google especially relies on your incoming links to determine your popularity and relevance.

Every website IPCS DESIGN builds is submitted to the top 5 search engines. However, simply submitting doesn't mean that your site will rank at the top of a search engine when a user searches for content related to your site. A lot of work and research goes into getting your website ranked high. IPCS DESIGN strategists are experienced and have had proven success in Search Engine Optimization. To learn more about Search Engine Optimization please click HERE

The time frame is determined by the size of your web site, the complexity of your site design, and our current client design schedule.

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, and how interactive your future web site will be. You will also need web hosting and domain name registration.

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.ipcsdesign.com

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). Our domain name is "ipcsdesign.com".

Yes, you can use any web host you like. Once your website has been completed you will have to provide us with your web hosting ftp login username as password so that we can upload your website for you.

Web hosting is a monthly fee that you pay to have your site accessible on the Internet. We can provide web hosting for our clients.

That would depend on the goals of your web site. If you run a business website you would include as much information about your products or services that your customers would need to purchase from you.

Site maintenance is a fee paid monthly to keep your site updated with new content that you provide. Most good web sites have new content updated regularly. Fresh content is what will keep your visitors coming back. This is an optional service that we provide for our customers. If you want to maintain your website yourself you can do so.

Yes, we offer discounts for schools and non profit organizations.

f you have decided you want a web site or have any questions, simply fill out our web design quote request form to start the process.