"Buying Smart" for the Internet

We get a lot of questions about websites, because there’s a lot of confusion about the Internet. Price is always a big one, because a company can get some kind of Web presence these days for a small amount of money. The question is, what are you getting for your money? Maybe because so much is free on the Internet, it seems as though nothing should cost much of anything when it’s going online. The truth is that the same kind of work and much more goes into a website as into a brochure. Folks just seem to understand what they’re paying for when they arrange for a print piece but not for work on the Web.

Getting a canned “McSite” from a site mill is like making your own brochure. Fire up a Word template, type in your message, throw in some clip art, take it to Kinko’s and voilà you’ve got a somewhat plausible brochure for under ten bucks! Why pay more? Well, you’re willing to pay more because you know that if you get one designed and printed by professionals, it will look beautiful and function a lot better. You also expect to pay several thousand dollars for professional services.

Sites from Dreamhand are researched, jawboned, market-planned, coordinated with existing material, designed, built, mounted and tested, and that you can’t get for a couple of hundred bucks from a site mill. Plus, we’re there for you if problems develop or if you need advice. With a cheap site from a mill, you’re on your own.

So what are you buying, if you get a site from us? To keep things simple, we offer three basic types of website structures, at present:

HTML: Great for a small site that is unlikely to change much.

Your basic HTML site is inexpensive to start with and easy for search engines to find, but they can’t remember visitors and require updates by someone who knows the lingo.

Flash: Perfect for sites that require a big cinematic presence.

If you’re presenting content that is hugely visual and cinematic, like a new film, a band or a video game, building an all-Flash site makes sense. Flash sites look great and can be coded to be amazingly interactive, but they are not search-engine friendly. Further, and updates to them must be made by a skilled professional.

Content Management System (CMS): Sites built for the future.

A CMS site costs a bit more out of the gate, but it’s designed to be operated by non-professionals, which could save a bundle down the road. Driven by databases and with thousands of modules available, whatever your site can’t do now, it probably can be made to do soon.

MIX & MATCH: In reality, most sites are hybrids. Flash, for example, is more often used as a component in another type of site. HTML is often used in Flash and a CMS. A database can be attached to any kind of site (though it would cost less to go straight to CMS if you know you want one).

Contact Dreamhand today. A chat and an estimate cost you nothing! We're happy to talk budget, and glad to hear about your needs. For further information on websites click here.