Web Design

With the explosion of the World Wide Web, there has been a parallel explosion in unattractive, ineffective and difficult to navigate websites. It is not enough to get your firm onto the web, you must also ensure that your professionalism and corporate values are adequately represented. Your clients will use the web to make lasting judgements about you and your competitors—you will therefore have to decide how you want them to perceive you.

Why should I be on the Web?

Hackett ITC approaches the development process from a marketing perspective—no matter what your business is, your website is by definition a marketing tool because it costs you money to produce and you hope it will increase your revenues—with particular emphasis on graphic appeal and navigation. These are the most overlooked aspects of proper web design, often taking a backseat to volumes of difficult to read textual information included as filler. The best way to think of a business website (especially for those uncomfortable with computers and new technology) is as a "Yellow Pages™ ad on steroids". Think of what you would want to accomplish with your Yellow Pages ad and see how that translates into a website:

Yellow Pages™	Website
Visibility—can potential customers find me amidst a sea of competitors? You might decide to pay more for a larger ad or a multi-colour one.	Potential clients will use Search Engines and Internet Directories to find you or your competitors. Including your web address in traditional forms of advertising (i.e. radio, TV, newspaper ads, signage, Yellow Pages, etc.) is another low-cost way to ensure visitors to your site.
Information—typically you will be able to fit in your company name, what you do or sell, your address and your telephone number. Providing more information than that requires a larger, more expensive ad.	This is the where traditional forms of advertising cannot hope to compete with the Internet. You can include as much information about your company and its offerings as you like—just make sure that the information is presented in a palatable, easy to locate format. You can more favourably compare a website to a flyer, brochure or corporate yearbook than an advertisement. Information on a website can also be made instantly searchable: a huge improvement over linear formats such as books or catalogues.
Graphic Appeal—many potential customers will only look at those ads that appear as a separate, custom design, rather than just the basic black and white name and telephone number. This is where many will get their first and only impression of your company, so you want to make sure it looks attractive. Kind of like dressing up for a blind date!	Here is where it gets interesting—why should a large-multinational have a better website than you? Proper application of graphic design principles and restrained use of ancillary graphics and photographs can put you on an equal footing with the "big boys". We can create the perfect look and feel for your site that matches your corporate identity, or we can even create that identity for you. Photo montages, Macromedia Flash web animations, three-dimensional graphics and other elements may be used.
Pricing—bigger or more colourful ads cost more and you will have to pay that cost year after year. A professionally-designed ad also has a one-time cost associated with it. You might seek to reduce those costs by having a small, plain ad that you design yourself, but recognize that visibility and customer perception will suffer.	A website does suffer from "sticker-shock", i.e. there is an initial cost-burden to bear. Yearly maintenance, however, is extremely inexpensive and a properly-designed website may require few changes over a period of several years, clearing the way for a rapid cost-recovery projection.

It's important to note that a website will not replace your Yellow Pages ad, but compliment it.

Pricing

Is Hackett ITC the most expensive web design firm you can hire? No. Are we the cheapest? Absolutely not! Why would you want to trust your business image (i.e. your family's livelyhood) to someone who works part time on web design or has just mastered the "difficult" task of using Microsoft Front Page templates?

All of our websites are designed in Macromedia Fireworks (graphic design software for the web rather than web-page design software—an important distinction that results in a superior two-step process) from the ground up to fit your corporate image. No template can magically represent your business adequately unless it was designed specifically for your firm. A properly designed and executed multi-page website takes on average one to two months of solid work to complete, thus how could someone afford to charge you $500 for the project? Even the basic design, which will normally have to be revised several times, can take a graphic artist up to a week or more to complete. The numbers just don't add up. You've poured your blood, sweat and tears into your business—don't sell it short by settling for an inadequate web presence.

If you find your budget just doesn't allow for a full site at this time, you can take advantage of our trade-up program. We can create an original, consultative-based design for you, execute that design as a single-page website and upload it—ready for access by your clients—for as little as $750. You can then upgrade (within one year) to a full, multi-page site based on that same design and receive a discount equal to what you have already paid. This is a great way to "get your feet wet" and ensure that clients can find you on the web while still offering key information about your business. Please note that one of our maintenance packages is also required for any website we create (unless you already have your own domain name and hosting) and includes domain name registration, physical hosting and FTP uploading of files for as low as $240 per year.

Call us today at (613) 582-3434 or send us an e-mail at fjh@hackettitc.com for further discussion on pricing.