Frequently asked questions:

1. Do I really need a web site?
2. How much do they cost?
3. How do I market my site?
4. Can you tell me about shopping carts, merchants accounts, etc.?
5. What is hosting?
6. How do I make changes to my own site (without calling you guys)?

Answers:

Do I really need a web site?

You would be suprised how many times the answer to this question is "No". Most people don't need a web site. Web sites fall into five categories. We will be concerned with the first two:
(1) "Brochure ware" is a web site that (hopefully, but rarely) effectively presents a business service. Many people still believe them to be nothing more than "glorified yellow page ads" (and, let's face it, a poorly designed site with no stated purpose than to be "on the web" will be less useful than a good phone book advertisement). Generally, you want an eMail brochure designed concurrently with the web site. Be sure that your web site developer or designer asks you what action steps you want your web site users to take. Do you want your users to set an appointment with you? Send for a printed brochure? Sign up for a newsletter? Call your office for pricing information? We design our sites utilizing "User Interface Engineering" or UIE. A well designed site will "get your user to the information they want, in one click, while presenting information to them that they didn't even know they wanted." All this on a page that loads in six seconds on a 56K dial up modem.
(2) "eCommerce sites" are those web sites whose purpose is to sell merchandise utilizing the internet as either a store-front or a catalogue. A store-front is a web site that usually lists merchandise, has a "shopping cart" program, accepts credit cards for purchases and can be as large as Amazon.com™ or a small home based business. A catalogue site is usually used as a sales tool for companies. While speaking on the telephone to a potential customer the company representative can direct the customer to the web site to view photos of products (homes, vacation resorts, custom jewelry examples, etc.) or demonstrate a product using videos or animation.
(3) "Web Designer sites" are self explainatory. They are generally less than helpful and usually provide the user with little, if any, information.
(4) "Personal pages" are the typical family oriented sites with photos of the new baby, etc. and, finally
(5) "Motion picture" sites are those set up expressly for the purpose of advertising a specific motion picture. (top)

How much do they cost?

Look at a typical web designers web site and you can't find any pricing information. Why? It is really difficult to estimate a cost because of the large number of variables involved in any web site. We give general pricing information but often we can quote a cost below what is listed. In general, Pages cost around $75 each to build. Shopping cart programs can cost between $150 and $7,500. Content management systems can cost between $500 and $50,000. eCommerce sites can cost between $1,500 and $250,000. The variables can include logo design, photography, graphic design, database design and implementation, shopping cart implementation, polls, chat rooms, forms, flash demonstrations. The list can just go on and on. (top)

How do I market my site?

Here is our quick primer on eMarketing:
In Mid-April of 2003 the "share" of the search engine market (as a percentage of all searches made and captured by websnapshot™ and provided by WordTracker.com) looked like this:

These search engines, directories, and "pay-per-click" sites comprised 99.98 % of the searches being made. The balance are the other lesser know directories, pay-per-click and search engine sites.

Building an effective web site is difficult and marketing it takes time and money. Most of our clients fail to realize that marketing their web site is an on-going and time-consuming business in itself. We suggest that you proceed on six levels:

(1) Get listed in Yahoo! Over 32% of the internet searches come from Yahoo!--They are a directory (not a search engine--they're like the yellow pages) They are not free. They cost $299, per year (this is new), for a listing and although you get to *suggest* under what category you are listed, they get the final say. Is it worth it? Depends on your business niche. If you are competing against a zillion other similar businesses and $299 is a lot of bucks for you then it might not be worth the money. Make sure your site has no broken links and is completely finished before submitting to Yahoo!.
(2) Get listed on Google.com. Google does *not* use keywords to index your site. You get higher rankings if you do *not* submit your site to them directly but if they *find* your site via another spider crawl and come across your link. You are ranked mostly by the number of clicks to your site and the number of links from other pages to your site. Google and Yahoo! will represent around 67% (or more) of the search engine market.
(3) Submit your site to the other search engines. The balance are AOL, MSN, excite, AltaVista, dmoz, etc. For these sites you need to submit to the search engines specifically. But, since these sites are swamped with submissions they are only updating their indexes every six to ten weeks!!
(4) Use a pay-per-click service like Overture.com. You purchase (through a competitive bidding process) certain keywords. Each time a searcher comes upon your web site listing (after typing in your specific keyword) and "clicks" on it, you are charged a small fee. Sometimes as little as $0.05 and perhaps as much as $8.00 depending on the keyword you have purchased. For the best marketing plan (you must spend a little money) go to Wordtracker.com and find the best keywords for your site (not what you think are the best words, but the words and phrases that people are actually using). Wordtracker will then compare the keywords with competing websites and tell you how effective they might be. After generating the keywords, float on over to Overture.com (formerly goto.com). Set up an account and load it up with still more money ($20 per month minimum) and, using your newly defined keywords, bid for the top three positions for each keyword you want to use. The bids might be as small as 5 cents or as much as your budget allows, per click. If you are one of the top three bidders than you will be in the top three positions in all of the participating search engines and directories (Yahoo!, MSN,AOL,AltaVista, etc.--their site has a full list). Each time somebody enters your keyword into a search engine, your site will be one of the top three. You will *not* be charged for the listing. You *will* be charged your bid amount every time someone clicks on your site link. We will provide this service for our clients for a small fee but you can save some money and do it yourself.
(5) Swap or trade html links with other sites. The more sites that "link" to you, the higher your page rankings in the search engines, and
(6) Put your "dot com" name on everything. Business cards, pens, coffee cups, t-shirts, ball caps, etc. Sponsor little league teams, music events, school functions, and so on. Send press releases to your newspaper. Tell everybody you know about your site! (top)

Shopping Carts, Merchant Accounts, and the like.

Here's how this "shopping cart" thing works.
On your website you will present products to your users. Typically the user will select a product and the quantity they wish to purchase. They will click on a "buy me" type of link. Now here is where things start to get interesting. Generally the product/quantity information is "held in session state"--meaning that the item gets temporarily held in a "shopping cart" that allows the user to browse for more products to purchase while maintaining a list of previously selected products. When they are ready to "check out" they click a link that typically takes them to a form to fill out. There are many different methods employed from this point onwards.
Here are the most common: (1) The buyer, upon checking out, is taken to a shopping cart program that is hosted by another company and on a completely different web site. The shopping cart company charges a monthly fee for this service (depending upon the volume of business), plus a set-up charge, etc. The drawback is that your user is taken off of your web site to complete the transaction and that you are at the mercy of the shopping cart company when it comes to getting the order information and other data in the format you wish. (2) The buyer is re-directed to "PayPal", a very easy to use shopping cart vendor (generally utilized by small companies with only a very few products). The major drawback here is that the buyer must go through a registration process with PayPal before actually getting to the business of buying your merchandise--this has killed many a purchase. And (3) The standard shopping cart (what you will probably want): Here, the shopping cart program is actually on your web site itself. The user "checks out" and is directed to a form. The form collects the shipping information and the order information and the buyer's information--but NOT the credit card information. (You do not want the liability that comes with collecting and storing credit card numbers securely.) When the buyer clicks on "submit" the data collected is passed to your database, the order is totaled, and the buyer is then directed to a credit card processor via a CGI gateway. The credit card processor is also usually your merchant account company. There are a ton of companies out there. We don't make any recommendations--this choice is yours. The Merchant Account is just a numbered holding account that the credit card processor uses to hold your money while the credit card transaction is being verified and before the money is deposited in your own bank account. The credit card processor charges fees for you to use their CGI gateway. CGI stands for Common Gateway Interface and is the connection between your shopping cart on your website and their credit card processing program on their website. They will also charge you a fee per transaction; a fee if you don't have enough volume; etc. Each company is different.
OK, so back to the buyer. They have filled out the forms and clicked on the "submit" button. At this point they are sent to a simple form on the credit card processors web site where they plug in their credit card number. The transaction is verified. The buyer is automatically sent back to your web site's "thank you for buying our stuff" page. Your site should also automatically send a confirmation eMail to the buyer thanking them again. The credit card processor will send you an eMail informing you of the transaction. (This is how you'll know somebody has bought something.)
You can then log onto the credit card processors web site to generate "transaction reports", to view the status of the credit card transactions, etc. The credit card processor electronically moves money into your Merchant account. Within 24 to 72 hours the money is electronically moved from your Merchant Account and into your bank account (you designate this account when you sign up with the credit card processor). Most companies open a special bank account for their business. In most states all you need is a "DBA" or "Doing Business As" statement in order to open a business bank account.

Briefly, the process looks like this to the user:
User picks out products and quantity>>>fills out order information on your website (which is sent to your database)>>>is sent to the credit card processor to give his credit card information>>>is sent back to a thank you page on your web site>>>is automatically sent a thank you eMail.

The process looks like this to you:
You receive an eMail from the credit card processor informing you of a sale>>>you check your database to see what's been ordered>>>you check the status of the transaction on your credit card processors website>>>you get the cash deposited into your bank.

The process looks like this to us:
There are several forms joined together and called a "shopping cart" that collect product, quantity, order, and shipping information. This information is passed to a database. There are several forms built so that the client may view, edit or delete the contents of the database. At the same time, the order information is passed through the CGI gateway to the designated credit card processor. A "thank you" page and a "sorry transaction refused" page are built. CDonts eMail interfaces are linked to automatically thank the buyer for their purchase via eMail.

What are your next steps?

(1) Test our shopping cart and storefront program here.
(2) Thoroughly investigate and choose a credit card processor. This is where you'll be assigned a Merchant Account number and decide which credit cards to accept.
(3) Set up a bank account at your bank to receive the funds from the credit card processor via your merchant account. (top)

What is "Hosting"?

You need to get a "host" for your web site. This is a company that rents out space on their "server". (A server is nothing more than a computer that holds your web site on its hard drive and "serves" it out when someone types in the right web address.)
People find the site by typing in a URL or Universal Resource Locator (the web address, like www.texaswebdevelopers.com).
To get a web address you must either get a free one (some internet service providers give you server space when you purchase their services to dial into the internet--like AOL, MSN, etc.); rent one (I'm not familiar with that); or purchase one (a "domain name" or "dot.com" name). You will find a bewildering number of companies that will "register" your domain name for a fee and many other companies that will "host" your web site for a monthly fee.
When you buy (register) a domain name you will get a login and password to access your account with that particular registrar. Don't lose these! Then you give your hosting company a call and tell them you'd like to purchase space on their server using your new domain name. They will set up the space for you and give you a login/password to use when publishing your site to their server. We would be happy to register your "dot.com" name and set up your hosting services for you.
Your host also usually provides you with your eMail services. Here is what we suggest.
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How do I make changes to my own site (without calling you guys)?

TexasWebDevelopers has a "Content Management System" that is being used by a growing number of our clients. Using your InternetExplorer™ web browser (version 5.5 or above) you can edit the content of your web pages, upload graphics and pictures, create tables, etc. from any location and any computer without any special software. You can play with the interface on a test site that allows you to create, view, edit and delete whole pages. Here is a test site that allows the page content to be edited while preserving the navigation and graphics of the site. Using the content management system and a secure log-in page on your new web site is a snap and requires no training to use. You will specify which parts of the web page you wish to edit and which parts cannot be changed.(top)