The FAQ section is a collection of questions and answers about all facits of web development for Virtual Marketing Concepts. Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions. If you can't find the answers to your question, submit the question to our staff on our Contact Us page.

Why does my business need a web site?

There is literally dozens of reasons why a business should have a web site, but the following are our top reasons: Competition alone can be a compelling reason to have a site. Good explanations are scarce when a customer asks you why one of your competitors have a web site and you don't.

A web site can also be a constant sales tool for your company. It represents you day and night and can easily become a contact point with current and potential customers. Additionally, a well-developed site can become an integrated part of business operations and can be a tremendous advantage for customer service activities and support.

A web site can be an efficient and fantastic public relations and advertising medium with proper strategic planning and design.

How much should I expect to pay for a web site to be created for me?

The pricing for a site can vary greatly depending upon your technical demands, design issues, and web site objectives. Whether doing it yourself or working with a consultant; business knowledge, technical capabilities, and experience of the web developers can all be factors in determining the final cost of your web site. Price ranges, therefore, are clearly reflective of what you can expect in a finish product.

Common price ranges can be from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands or more depending upon the completeness of the web development effort.

How long does it take to create a web site?

The web development process can take from a few days to several months or more depending upon the complexity and technological demands required of a web site. The length of time definitely is impacted by the positive interaction of the customer on his or her own behalf in order to help facilitate the Web development effort as expeditiously as possible.

A key point is definitely deciding on whom will provide the conceptual and textual copy that is to become an integral part of the web site. Also, a company who preliminarily already understands the mission of who they are as a company and what purpose the company web site will fulfill will certainly move along at a faster clip as opposed to basic consultant and planning that must take place before any web development may begin.

How can I promote my web site?

Be sure to consistently and prominently display your domain name on all your company identity information such as your letterhead, stationery, business cards, and promotional items such as T-shirts and pencils, advertisements, and telling everyone you know about your web site. Additionally, be certain to register your site with search engines and especially the larger ones that are prominent in the industry.

It is also good strategy to have a consultant on search engine placement optimization. The essence of this type of consultation is to help you to rank well on a particular search engine when an inquiry is made utilizing the very keywords that compose your web site. Ideally, you're striving to be within the top grouping of web sites that statistically stand a greater chance of being viewed for the information being sought by the visitor on the web. Web site positioning is somewhat of a complex subject area and is not suited for the casual approach for someone looking to achieve higher rankings with their web site.

What are the first steps to creating a web site?

Decide why you want a web site and what the purpose will be served (mission and objectives) with the creation of the site. Create a budget and evaluate if the web site should be created by internal personnel or by contracting with an outside company. Within that decision, critically look at what internal resources; talent and time can truly be devoted to the web development effort. Devise a comprehensive project management plan that will carry your project from beginning to end with time lines and resource allocation commitments.

Carefully balance your objectives for the site with the reality of your resources, including, the technical considerations that are required in order to carry out the steps of your plan. Throughout the web development process open lines of communication should involve all affected personnel including external professionals that may be a part of the process. Upon project completion, user functionality or testing should be performed in order to insure that the web site performs as it should and that the proper perception is given to all visitors of the company web site.

What are the critical decisions involved in developing a web site?

Decide what the purpose and objectives of the web site are and determine if the web development process should be an internal process or a contracted service. While there are many other critical decisions that are to be made when developing a web site, these two considerations are paramount in the eventual success or failure of the web site.

Is the purpose of the site to help create and impress a certain image upon the general public of who your company is and what it is about? Or is it intended to be a sales tool and marketing promotion effort that can also help support the sales function and salespeople? Or possibly, is your company looking for ways to cut down operating costs by allowing customers to self serve themselves to your company information and thereby reduced related personnel expenditures?

While certainly all of these goals are reasonable, the construction of the web site itself can determine the success or failure of your efforts. That is why it becomes so critical to decide when it is best to bring in an outside professional company to assist in the consultation and construction of the web site.

What are key points to remember when developing content for a web site?

Remember who is your intended target market or audience. This focus alone will make things much easier in writing material for the web site as well as making the tough decisions on design issues including the use of graphics.

Equally important, a person should ask himself or herself what they honestly expect to happen as a result of having a company web site. Answering this question will allow clear direction on what objectives the web site is supposed to meet. This in turn will allow companies to more objectively determine the level of success or failure of the web site and any corrective action that should be taken.

Additionally, continue to seek customer feedback concerning your Web efforts because this can be the purist form of market research that can be had.

Does off-the-shelf software really work in developing a web site?

Yes it does. The question more appropriately is; does it fulfill what your strategic planning reasons for developing a web site is really all about? In other words, a web site can be created and represent really nothing more than a shallow effort if it does not focus beyond simple design issues.

Remember that while design alone may attract someone's attention, it takes good content and meaningful value to have a visitor stay and more importantly to return again. This person in all likelihood will share the benefits of your site with others that in turn will come to visit. Unfortunately, many of these important qualities in web development are simply lost or not considered when relying on off-the-shelf software for web creation.

Is there really a difference in quality of web site development?

Yes there is. Web site development done properly involves much more than simply designing the look of the web site. While that certainly is an important aspect, it by no means should overshadow the equally important aspects of the functionality of the site as well as the strategic business planning and objectives.

It takes all these combined elements in order to have a professional and functional Web site adequately representing your company's best effort. Generally speaking, there is a tremendous difference between off-the-shelf created Web sites versus custom tailored sites that have professional vision and design as part of the strategic planning effort.

What benefit does a professional web development company bring?

A professional web development company may bring a wealth of experience and strategy tips as well as a fresh business and technical perspective required in a well-done web site.

Additionally, a web development company can bring planning methods and review procedures that can benefit the company at-large as well as the web site development project at hand. There is also an intangible to utilizing an outside company, that is, the tranquility and peace of mind that comes from putting a project in the capable hands of a professional.

How involved must company personnel be in developing and designing a web site?

Initially, there should be plenty of involvement of company personnel in order to ascertain the key issues dealing with customer interaction in all aspects. This includes sharing of company processes and best practices as well as suggestions for improvement of how customers could be served more effectively and efficiently. The company personnel involvement should be a standard effort even if a web development company is hired to produce the company web site or the revamping or upgrading of the site.

What name can I use as my domain name?

Generally speaking there is tremendous freedom in selecting a domain name that makes sense for your company. The selected name does not have to be your current company name. In fact, a good name might be one that represents conceptually what your company does or is all about. You can easily find out what domain names are available and with what extensions (.com, .org, .net, etc.) by checking with several domain registration companies on the Internet.

Some professions might have legal or tighter restrictions on the selection of a domain name depending on the licensing requirements at the state or federal level. Some affected professions such as attorneys, law firms, etc. might require extra care in domain name selection.

How can a web site save a company time and money?

Savings can many times be realized by a company by replacing repetitive or common customer requests through a company web site as opposed to live person to person interaction between customer service representatives and company customers. Many times customers actually prefer being able to retrieve information they are seeking at times that are more convenient to them. This especially holds true as customer's demand expanded hours of operation from companies regardless of time of day or day of the week.

A web site can also help to support the company sales effort by providing salespeople with instant access to information or demonstrations or the latest scheduling or product information dissemination. Potential customers can also self qualify themselves by having access to basic information that will in effect qualify them as potential clients.

Can my company internally do an adequate job in constructing the web site?

With the proper resources of talent in the areas of business, design, and technology a company with a well-developed strategic plan for both the business and the web development effort should be able to do and adequate job.

Many companies both small and large often times have a difficult time simply trying to allocate all the previously mentioned resources at any one point in time. Therefore, it is sometimes best to hire a professional company to do web development projects and Web sites. There is a certain amount of objectivity that must be consistently represented in Web development work. Many times, this factor alone persuades a company to use outside help in order to maintain the objectivity balance required in all areas of web site development.

Can a company host their own web site?

It is possible for a company with the appropriate servers to host their own web site but there are many reasons why the majority of companies decide to circumvent the possible headaches of doing this on their own. A company must really ask themselves what they truly expect to gain by doing the hosting themselves. This is especially true when you consider that the competitive market for hosting services has created fair pricing for companies seeking this type of service. Commercial hosting companies provide a level of consistent equipment reliability and up time as well as security that is hard to compete with at a company level.

Does it really matter which web development company creates your web site?

It is extremely important that if the company chooses to contract with an outside professional web development company, that the contracted company be adequately experienced and have the necessary skill sets in business, design, and technology in order to bring a quality added experience to the web development process.

Many times the lesser experienced and prepared web development companies can simply offer to do nothing more than simply follow instructions. While following instructions is certainly an important quality to possess a company should expect to get much more in terms of being assisted will be strategic planning decisions that should be considered before a web site is starting.

Additionally, the Web development company should bring a broad perspective that is all-inclusive of what is representative in best practices in similar type companies and industries.

Does the marketing strategy need to be considered during site development?

Certainly one of the underlying concepts supporting the development of the web site should be the marketing effort and expected benefits of this type of planning. So marketing clearly should be incorporated when planning, designing, writing, and coding a company web site.

Understanding what type of marketing objectives are attempted to be met with a web site can certainly add clarity and focus to all aspects of the Web development process. Often times overlooked are the simplest of marketing axiom's such as: Being certain to have contact information prominently displayed and available for customers wishing to make the contact, or if appropriate, making it simple for someone to know at what price something is being sold.

Additionally, there are technical reasons that your marketing focus must be incorporated into development. From proper keyword rankings on search engines to working best with partner sites your pages must be optimized from the beginning to be complement with your marketing.

What does strategic planning have to do with web site development?

Strategic planning should be at the very core of driving decisions that will ultimately determine what a company web site should be. There should be a consistent and cohesive conceptual understanding of what the purpose of this web site is in regards to the company doing business.

Strategic planning ensures that the mission of the company is clearly understood internally and shared externally with the public and intended target audiences. Many companies must first undergo a formal review of where they are as a company before consideration and direction can be given to a web development project.

What is the basic difference between utility and design in a web site?

The design aspect of a web site creates an aesthetically pleasing look to the company web site. The utility aspect of the web site represents the true functionality and henceforth usability of the web site without high regard for the appearance or design.

The goal is to strike a balance between utility and design. Many times when surfing the net you can clearly come across a web site that disproportionately either slants towards utility or swings towards design. In either of those cases, however, there is clear dysfunction when utility and design are not in balance.

Why does a web site need to have objectives?

Having a web site not fulfill specific objectives suggests that there was inadequate planning and vision to professionally develop a company web site. Generally the web site should adequately attempt to accomplish specific company objectives that can truly be accomplished or enhanced through the medium of the Internet. Only through the measurement of accomplished objectives can a company successfully assess the return of investment of dollars and resources that it took to create the web site.

The days of having a meaningless business web site without purpose or objectives are short-lived at best. The demands of the customer and the competition alone justify better web site development.