PLEASE NOTE: Here you'll find a list of questions and answers I'm often presented with, or that I feel could be helpful in some way. This is always a work in progress, and the views here aren't necessarily fact, but the result of my extensive experience in some fields, and limited in others.

Premium Websites Procedures
A multi-page website is a website designed to your precise and unique design requirement. It is designed from scratch, around your individual concept, lay-out and functionality. The website needs to be updated and maintained by the webmaster, as there is no website administration or database module built in for the client to update their own website dynamically. This website is a good solution for clients who needs to only update their website one a week/month/quarter.

1. Initial contact is made, and a brief requirement is ascertained.
2. A quote is sent and settled according to your needs.
3. I will send you a short questionnaire to ascertain your requirement.
4. Once I've received all the relevant material (logo, images, text) requested in the questionnaire, I can proceed.
5. I will present a draft design based on the feedback given in the questionnaire.
6. Any changes requested to the design are done, and the final design is converted into a functional website.
7. Once you're 100% happy with the site, it's made accessible to the public.
8. Your website is submitted to the Google, Yahoo, Bing & ODP search engines.

Premium CMS Websites Procedures
A dynamic CMS (Content Management System)website is a website designed to your precise and unique design requirement. It is designed from scratch, around your individual concept, lay-out and functionality. The term DYNAMIC refers to the the fact can be updated by the client thanks to a custom-designed administration system built around the client's needs. This package is perfect for clients that need to update their website regularly, and would thus find paying for (and waiting for) updates to be done by the webmaster.

1. This website will always be referred to CERTECH, as they have the programming expertise to develop a site around your needs. I will still be responsible for all design aspects.
2. A quote is sent and settled according to your needs.
3. You will be sent a short questionnaire to ascertain your requirement, followed by a meeting to determine your extensive requirement.
4. Once I've received all the relevant material (logo, images, text) requested in the questionnaire, I can proceed.
5. You will be presented with a draft design based on the feedback given in the questionnaire.
6. Any changes requested to the design are done, and the final design is converted into a functional website.
7. Once you're 100% happy with the site, it's made accessible to the public.
8. Your website is submitted to the Google, Yahoo, Bing & ODP search engines.

What is the difference between a “normal/static” and a “cms/dynamic” site?

A static site is one that is written in HTML (sometimes PHP) 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 your web designer to go in and edit the site each time you wanted something changed.

A dynamic or CMD (content Management System) site is written using more complex code and can do a lot more. For instance, the developer 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 catalogue where they have to change information or pictures regularly, and leave other pages such as contact information as static pages.

Logo Design Procedures

1. A quote is sent and settled according to your needs.
2. I will send you a short questionnaire to ascertain your requirement.
3. Once I've received your feedback, I can proceed.
4. I will present three draft logo designs based on the feedback given in the questionnaire.
5. You can then choose any one of the logos, to which your required changes are made.
6. Once you're 100% happy with the logo, it will be sent to you in all formats that you'll need for future use in digital and print media.
7. I can also design your business cards and letterheads to give your local printer.

What is SEO and Search Engine Ranking

• There are a few definitions for SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and Search Engine Ranking, but to most people, and to me essentially, it means how far up or down the list of search results your website is when people do a search for a specific term on a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. The importance of this varies much depending on your type of business, and how important search engine traffic to your website is.
• More extensive definitions available on Wikipedia for SEO and Search Engine Ranking

What can you, the client, do to improve your search engine ranking.

• First thing you should know is that different search engines rank websites differently. Doing the same search on Google might place you in a totally different position in the search results than with Yahoo. I have found that there are however a few standard (and FREE) things you can do that could improve (not guarantee) a better search engine ranking:
  1. First thing you should do is choose the most important keywords. Keywords are those words/terms you think people will type into the search engine in order to display your website as a search result. If you have a chat website in South Africa, you'd choose eg. chat, rooms, south, africa. Don't go nuts, choose 1-5 keywords at most, otherwise it might be impossible (or very impractical) to implement the following steps effectively.
  2. If you haven't registered your domain name yet, try to incorporate one or more of these keywords into your domain name (without ending up with one that's too long and tedious to type out). Using the example of chat again, you'd register eg. www.chat2me.co.za.
  3. Use these keywords often in the text of your website. It is recommended that your home page contain 100-200 words minimum in total for search engines to see it as relevant enough to index.
  4. Use these keywords in the beginning and end of as many pages as possible. The first sentence/paragraph of your home page will be seen as the most important, so make it as descriptive as possible while keeping it short enough.
  5. The keywords should be in bold as often as possible
  6. Use the keywords in headings and titles of pages.
  7. Use the keyword in page names where you can.
  8. IMPORTANT: Get as many as possible websites to link back to yours.

What can I, the web designer do, to improve your search engine ranking.

• I don't at all specialise in SEO or make myself out to be an expert. It's a (sometimes) long and tedious process - quite a science if you want to do it right, and I've found that I'd rather leave it to the experts when it comes to in-depth search engine optimisation. There are however a few basic things that I can do to improve (but not guarantee) your search engine ranking.
  1. I'll make sure your site is submitted to Google, Yahoo, Bing & ODP.
  2. Your pages will be easy to navigate by search engines
  3. Mata tags like keywords, descriptions and page titles (a bit of code behind the scenes) are put in place
  4. I make sure images have relevant tags where applicable.
• Need something more advanced? I'll gladly refer you to the experts when I'm done designing your site!

What can I do to promote my website/company on-line for free?

• You can create a page on facebook, I can then put a link from your website to this page.
• You can create a Twitter account. I can then put a link from your website to your Twitter page, and also implement other code to display your twitter updates on your website.
• You can advertise on Gumtree & Junkmail.
• List your business in Google Places.

What additional costs are involved in the implementation of a website?

As I don't do hosting myself, I recommend domain registration and hosting to be done via Gridhost. You can either do this yourself, or it can be done by me. Either way, the costs remain the same:

• Domain registration (Initial and annual renewal):
  • .co.za - R100 registration (Annually)
  • .com - R150 registration (Annually)
• Montly Hosting:
  • I suggest the R24.95pm or R59.95pm hosting package as it contains all the website and email functionality you might need.

What information should I put on my website?

I always feel that a website should be simple, and that your visitors will always need to know:

• Who are you?
• What are your products & services?
• How do I get in touch with you?

It's your company, and you'd know best what you want to tell people about yourself, but you might want to consider some of these pages:

• Home Page - This is a given and might contain extracts from and read more links to the About Us and Products pages
• About Us/Company Profile -  Tell the visitor more about you.
• Products & Services - This is what you're selling or providing.
• Photo gallery to show off your products, services, implementations, etc.
• Price List - If not already included in the products page.
• Testimonials of happy clients
• FAQ - Frequently asked questions
• News - updates of latest events
• BEE Certification if applicable
• Terms & conditions
• Links to relevant websites or social networks (try to get those websites to link to you too!)
• Any other company-specific info you might think of.
• Contact Us - A must for every website. Contact info, contact form and maybe directions to where you are.