Tips on what to Include in a Web Design Proposal

A website proposal contains many aspects different from other graphic design proposals, in that technical elements must be addressed along with creative ones. While print proposals do address items such as printing procedures, website proposals must specify web hosting, systems for maintaining content, programs or programming languages to be used and other technical specifications.

Outline of Content

A website proposal should clearly spell out what will be included on the site. This can be done in a standard outline format, or visually, to show what sections and features you intend to build for the client. An outline serves to both let the client know your ideas for the site (which should be based on meetings with them) and protect you from rounds of changes and additions not initially planned for. By including the outline in the proposal and eventually the contract, you are making it clear what is included for the price and therefore what additional services can be charged for.

Method of Building Site

It is important to decide at the start of a project what system or method will be used to build the website. Some sites are built in static HTML, meaning each page is created manually, and updates are done manually as well. Other sites are built in HTML but utilize a content management system (CMS) that stores the content in a database and allows for easier updating. Sites like WordPress and Blogger offer a simple CMS included for free with your site, while other CMS packages are installed on web servers and completely customized for the project, offering countless feature options. Another option for building the site is within Flash, allowing for a rich multimedia experience and a lot of development time. Regardless of the method chosen, it should be explained in the proposal so you and your client are in agreement as to the best way to build the website.

› Continue reading

Tags: web contracts and proposals, web tips, webdesign proposal

How to design a attractive website

While designing a web site it is crucial that the site is attractive, fast-loading, user friendly, focuses on your content and has a high stickiness factor to it (that shows how long the visitor stays on your site). Instead of making very complex designs with less content or bare designs with cluttered content, we recommend that you find the right balance between both.

Give importance to Layout and Navigation

A clean layout and neat navigation that uses a lot of white space enhances your site’s look. Try to keep the focus on your content. That is why we recommend using dreamweaver templates for your site – all pages or a group of pages have one basic design and only the content varies – this way even if your site is a little distracting due to necessary effects, your design is noted once (hopefully with a appreciative eye and then the visitor focused on the content automatically.
If you have too many links then you should use drop-down menus or flyouts for your main topics. If you have Fireworks or Dreamweaver then adobe drop-down menus are one of their most popular in-built “Behaviors”. Otherwise you can use the copy-paste code for drop-down menus in the article SmartWebby Drop-down Menus.

› Continue reading

Tags: adobe flash, attractive websites, drop-down menus, enhance your site, roll over buttons, rollover swap images, site interactivity, Web Design

Guide to Success for Web Designers

If you are a free lance web designer or developer you will know just how difficult it can be to earn a dime in the world of web design. I have learned a lot of lessons, most of them the hard way. Being great at web design and being great with clients, are two very different requirements. By setting yourself these basic rules, and sticking to them you will save yourself becoming victim to a number of pitfalls. That’s why I have put together this guide to help maximize your projects success.

Price Projects Realistically

A classic mistake many freelancers make is to guesstimate a figure when costing a project. You need to be realistic when you work out the cost of a project, otherwise you are guaranteed to run at a loss, either in the time you spend, or the money you make. The best method is to work out a realistic hourly wage you want to be paid. Then take that number and multiply it by the number of hours you honestly believe it will take to complete the project. This will give you the magic number you should look to put forward in an invoice.

› Continue reading

Tags: design success, guide to succcess, Web Design

6 Business Web Design SEO Tips – E-commerce Websites

We thought this was a very helpful video, so we wanted to post this video on our blog. For any questions regarding the 6 SEO tips, please gives us a call we will be more then happy to assist you.

Tags: seo tips, web design tips

Free Online Advertising

AdGridWork

When we designed our new Eri Design website, we wanted to bring a lot of rich traffic into our website. So as we were searching online for free online advertising, we happend to land on the AdGridWork website. AdGridWork provides a 100% free adword advertising, we couldn’t believe it either but we went with it and take a look at our page which provides adgridwork advertising. For information on how AdGridWork works click here.

Tags: free adword, free online advertising, free online marketing, web advertising