Our answers to the question YOU should be asking.

We've suggested the type of questions you should be asking web designers, and below are our answers to these questions. Please use this as a comparison to answers from other companies. Additional information covering our 'basic site' design services can be found in our services section.

If the service you're offered doesn't match ours, or the answers you get are vague, why not ask Technorealm Ltd to quote for the work? We offer extremely competitive prices with an excellent service.

Who is the primary contact?

Mike Cunningham.
Email mc@technorealm.co.uk

How will people find our site?/What promotional package is included in the price?/How many search engines will the site be submitted to within the cost?/How are the submissions done?/How will I know that submissions have been done and accepted?

We do the following as a matter of course for every site we are involved with: Hand submission to the top 10 search engines and directories. Software submission to (up to) 2400 other search engines, directories and listings, and we provide HTML reports showing where they have been submitted too, and the success rate of these submissions.

What are your monthly maintenance fees?/What does this maintenance include?

We offer flexible maintenance & submission packages to companies whose sites are not getting the hits they deserve. Please contact us if your site needs this service. Our prices start from around £25 per month for basic re-submission, and are negotiable for more elaborate changes and promotion.

We do not provide, nor negotiate marketing services outside of this specialized area (eg Radio, TV, magazine space).

How will I know that this is cost effective?

The only answer to this, is via higher visitor numbers and a subsequent increase in web generated business.

What are the hosting arrangements?

We do not host sites ourselves. We only arrange and maintain site hosting with major hosting solution companies (such as www.magic-moments.com). These companies have excellent reputations in this field and offer service, support and backup packages that we cannot, and do not wish to compete with. Our expertise is in web design, and we stick to what we're good at. Try us and see!

To whom is the domain name registered?

It is registered in your name, with all rights assigned.

Who owns copyright to the site text/images/animations?

We consider site design elements to be owned by the client, after all, they have paid for the works to be carried out on their behalf. We assign copyright of all custom designed site elements to the client, on completion of the project. All graphics files are handed over in their native format too.
Incidental works, for example preliminary images that are not eventually used on the clients site, are retained by us. These are small details that can become big issues later, so make sure you know exactly who owns what!

Who owns the shopping cart/e-commerce software? (If used)

You do. If we purchase proprietary software for use on your site, it is handed over to you on completion of project, along with all files produced using it.

How will the site be tested?

Site link testing is carried out during the site build stage. We build the sites and put them online as we progress (in password protected areas), so link checking, download speeds etc, can be tested in the sites real environment. Link testing reports are provided as part of the handover documentation. If a site was expecting to receive an enormous number of hits on startup (tens of thousands), we would outsource load testing to an independent specialist company as required.

What are the time scales and initial costs involved?

Obviously this is site specific, so we would need to discuss your requirements to answer this question realistically. Our Services section provides prices for our basic packages.

What items are likely to cause delays?

Typically, late provision of finalised information from clients or other involved third parties.

What costs would be involved in major and minor changes?

Minor text/graphics changes would be carried out 'on the fly' during the normal project build time, free of charge. On completion of works, additional changes would be charged on an hourly rate against an agreed time. If you wanted to alter a major site element after it has been contractually agreed, we would nogotiate a new fee.

What materials will be handed over on site completion?

We provide a complete copy of the uploaded site on disk/CD, including any external files generated for the site. We hand over any software packages bought specifically for use on your site including documentation. We also provide electronic submission reports, and link testing reports on disk. Finally we provide hosting documentation and passwords.

If we want to make changes ourselves, how easy would it be?

If clients want to do this on small basic sites, we will put instruction comments throughtout the pages to guide them, then provide written instructions to help them do this. For more complex sites, we will advise on content management options

What training can you provide?

We can offer training in basic web technologies to our clients, if needed. This so you have more confidence in modifying the site yourself. Training would be on the clients premises and would cover HTML, CSS and FTP. This is the minimum you need to modify the site and upload the pages to the server.

If you're considering us for your web site design, yet have other questions that need answering first, please email us information@technorealm.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you.