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Frequently Asked Questions
Q) Are you looking for a job? Can we hire you?
A) No, I am not looking for a new job at this time. I am currently employed full-time and am
very comfortable with where I am at. Thank you though.
Q) Do you do side work or freelance work? If so, how much do you charge?
A) Occasionaly I will do side work or freelance work. However I keep it to
a minimum and will only work on one extra project at a time. It also depends on the nature of the project. Out of fairness to you, I might turn work away because I may not have the time available to deliver a quality product based on time and scope of a project.
There also cannot be any conflicts of interest with my current employment.
I charge $65 an hour with a minimum of 2 hours for all development work. My rates
are based on my broad range of skills my years of experience. In addition to simply
delivering a better project, I can usually deliver it faster. Over the years, I've gathered an extensive code library and thus can quickly and easily
turn out projects since I'm not building them from scratch. I've also stayed abreast with best practices and trends in the latest technologies of both web development and security.
So you benefit from all my years of experience and professional training.
Q) Can you show me some free samples first of how you would do a custom design/redesign of my site?
A) No. I do not work for free. I do however have a number of projects that I have developed or worked on. Some are in my online portfolio but a number are not. If you would like to see more samples of my work and the projects that I have completed, please shoot me an email and I'll be more than happy to show you more of my work.
Q) Are you hiring? Can you help me find work?
A) My employer is not hiring at this time. However, my employer and I are always interested in talking to creative and talented people. If you're in the web business and think we should talk to you, please send me your resume. Likewise, if you're a close friend, relative, former colleague, or we share a mutual acquaintance, please send me your resume and remind me how I should know you.
Q) What is Web hosting and how much does it cost?
A) Hosting is basically you renting space on a computer that is able
to serve up a web site to visitors. Most people do not have the proper internet
connection, operating system, or machine type to handle hosting a web site so they
rent space on a machine specifically built to handle the task. For small or medium
businesses, hosting fees typically range from $20 to $50 per month. If you need
a database or will have an e-commerce web site with credit card process and a shopping
cart, you're going to need more than just basic hosting and could pay anywhere
from $75 to under $300 a month, depending on your need.
For large corporate sites or sites that get heavy traffic, you're going to pay
more for the additional bandwidth and storage space. Again, it all varies according
to what your company needs but I've seen fees between $250 to $6,000 a month.
(Be careful what you wish for!)
My site is hosted by Enterhost and has been for 10 years. They're very reliable
and have excellent support. If you're looking for reliable and affordable web hosting,
check them out. Visit their site at:
http://www.enterhost.com. Also when you place an order, if you include "mattvegas"
in the comments field, you can save some money. (For details, visit http://www.enterhost.com/aboutus/discount.cfm)
Q) How much does a Web site cost?
A) As with many services, it really depends on what exactly is done.
Most small businesses should expect to spend between $5,000 and $10,000 a year on
their web site. Larger companies generally require a larger investment. The specific
costs depend on your industry, tastes, how much of the work you can do, and how
competitive your industry is. Websites with a database in the backend, shopping
cart, or a content management system typically require more programming and integration
so expect to pay more. Pre-built stores or solutions like Yahoo shopping carts and
PayPal, don't typically require as much development so you'll mostly pay
for the setup, design modifications, and configuration. Other than pre-built solutions,
advanced sites can cost upwards of $15,000 to literally hundreds of thousands of
dollars.
Q) What is included in a Web site design?
A) There are many web companies and individuals to choose from for
your next web project so the answer to this depends on whom you are talking to.
Technically the design of a website includes the graphics, coding, and placement
of the content onto the website.
Just be sure to know exactly what you're getting for your money. The field is
saturated with new developers, wanna-be developers, and seasoned professionals, so pricing could be very dramatically
different from one person to the next.
Q) Why am I not listed high in the search engines?
A) If you are not coming up in the search engines when you think you
should be, there are 2 possible reasons:
#1 Your site is not built in a way to optimize how the search engines index you.
Maybe you have too many pictures, not enough text, or poor design.
#2 Your competitors are doing a better job than you at attracting visitors.
If you are in a competitive industry it may require a SEO professional or a seasoned
Webmaster to get you ranked high. Remember that search engine optimization can be
relatively inexpensive. There are numerous tools and tutorials out there to help
you optimize your website for better positioning. However the work is very time
consuming and can sometimes be very complex. So there are certainly advantages to
hiring a web professional with SEO experience.
There are a lot of ways to increase traffic to your site and improve your positioning
and an SEO professional will be familiar with a broad range of techniques for increasing
traffic and improving your position.
One of the first things you'll want to get is an analysis of your site and of your
competitor's sites. Get a thorough audit of your site's search engine friendliness.
This includes looking at things like your navigation layout, navigation paths, aligning
your copy and keywords to your page titles, meta-data and links, as well as rewriting
your URLs so that they're indexed better in search engine directories.
And of course, we cannot forget analytics. There are free tools to analyze search
performance. And ongoing analysis of your traffic, user trends, search referrals
and conversions will help you grow your e-business and develop long-term sustainable
traffic.
Got a question?
Shoot me an email with your questions or comments and it might just end up here
on my FAQ page. Email them to mattvegas@comcast.net.