Websites and web pages generally consist of multiple programming languages. Each individual language (HTML, CSS, PHP, MYSQL, PERL, Javascript, etc.) that a web developer knows can be compared to learning a foreign language in a way. Although website development language is not a spoken language, it can have similarities across all platforms in it’s syntax. Take the spoken word “No” for example. It has the same meaning and spelling in multiple languages throughout the world but that does not make these languages and their respective syntax the same or even similar by any means. This thought process can be applied to a website designer as well. Although many of the coding languages needed to create a fully functioning website have similar syntax, the differences are vast. Ones understanding of these languages and to what extent will usually dictate the hourly cost of the web designer.

I have seen hourly rates in this industry range from $20 dollars an hour to over $200 dollars an hour but in the end, a developer with a less expensive hourly rate may actually end up being more expensive than the one on the higher end of the scale. Considering the web designer that charges a very low hourly rate may not be as skilled as the web designer that has a vast knowledge of internet technologies and languages, your project may take longer and end up costing you more. Obviously your best bet would be with a website design expert rather than a freelance designer. Someone who has a vast knowledge of the different coding languages and can provide you with the website you are looking for. But in the end you get what you pay for in most cases. Although, there is always the possibility that your neighbors son or daughter is a web design genius and needs a school project, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I realize I keep dodging the original question, but the fact of the matter is that there’s no cut and dry answer. In most cases, people will tend to go with the cheaper option just because it costs less. Even though they may get a site that works and is live on the internet, it may be incomplete and missing key aspects that may not be visible to the end user. A good developer will be able to find these errors in a matter of minutes and explain the importance of them. A poor designer will say that they are not necessary and not to believe everything you read.

Your best bet in the end is to ask to see work by the developer that you are considering hiring. Looking at his/her previous projects will give you a good idea of their style and techniques. Once you have seen the developers portfolio you will have a better understanding of what your money will be paying for. It should be pretty easy to make a decision at that point. This way, you can compare prices offered by the developer/designer along with what they have produced for other clients in the past. Beware of developers with no portfolio or that are unwilling to share their work. This is generally due to inexperience.

As unfortunate as it is that I can not answer the question that I posed in this article, I have found a great resource for those looking to estimate the costs of a website.

Designquote.net offers this great tool:
http://www.designquote.net/html/dq_estimate_wizard.cfm

This little wizard runs you through a series of questions asked by most web developers although I disagree with some of their time frames regarding certain tasks. Either way, I have filled this out numerous times to see where I myself stand amongst my competition and this tool gives the most accurate results I have seen. Although it won’t give you an exact price, it will give you a price range that is dependent on the skills of the developer.

In closing, you generally always get what you pay for in the end. From clothes, to cars, to groceries, to websites… there are usually unseen factors that dictate price. Someone with a minimalist set of skills will offer their wares at a much cheaper cost than someone who has devoted many years to their craft. I’m not saying it’s impossible to get the best website the world has ever seen for less than $1000, it’s just not likely. Don’t sacrifice quality for cost. Your customers expect more from you… and a fully working, fully complete website generally gets more hits and return traffic than an hastily designed incomplete website. A website is a direct reflection of your business and you only get one chance to make a first impression. Don’t let it be a sloppy, unorganized one.

Estate Planning of Delaware Valley, Inc. was in need of an entirely new website to replace their outdated one.  They sought a much more modern look and feel with the focus on important aspects of their business.  As well, they were in need of good search engine optimization to help promote their estate planning and life insurance services.  As EPDV serves much more than just Delaware valley residents, they wanted to be able to reach out to potential customers in other areas that they service more effectively.

We began by designing some templates for EPDV to choose from.  We had some great ideas covering a wide array of styles and layouts for them to look over.  As you can see, they chose the one (above) that they felt best depicted the visual image they wanted to represent.  We also incorporated a jquery slide show into the home page that touches on key points as it changes slides in addition to the regular layout design. Jquery adds animation to the website without the limitations of using Flash.  We custom designed the slideshow to EPDV’s specifications and feel that it helps with the visual presentation of the website.

Colors, images, text size, and so many more elements have to be considered while choosing a layout.  The website template has to captivate the website user and entice them to explore more options and more importantly, not scare them away.  We feel that we accomplished that with the chosen template and custom jquery.

A very important aspect of this build was the incorporation of the Ipipeline quote engine system.  This system provides their customers with the ability to obtain an instant quote live on their website at any time.  We were able to do this seamlessly via the use of iframes to embed the quote engine within the website pages were it exists.

The main goal for EPDV is to attract new customers to get quotes using their website, so a focus on getting quotes was a key point during the build.  We designed some custom graphics for the website to help the process.  We decided to use another jquery application here to spice up the appearance of a button.  On the content pages of the website you will see an “instant quotes” sidebar on the left of the page.  As you roll your mouse over that image, jquery animates the image to a new one that contains additional information enticing the end user to click on the button.

We are very proud to have been a part of this project for Estate Planning of Delaware Valley, Inc.

Please visit their website at: www.epdv.com

Global Geothermal Ltd, a worldwide leader in geothermal energy production, utilizing their patented Kalina cycle, needed a simple, powerful, and effective logo to represent their business. This logo would define the entire company and be utilized just about anywhere a company logo would be needed.

We achieved this via in-person and remote meetings, to discuss ideas and concepts to back the integrity of the design. We started with a few samples based on the input provided by GGL and from there, we were able to work towards the finalized logo.

Just like any logo design, attention to detail is key. We were given the original concept, which embraces the Kalina process, and came up with many designs based on that alone. By pure happenstance, a combination of two separate concepts became what was to become the final logo. The intertwined red and blue circular arrows visually represent a very simplified version of the Kalina process.

If you look carefully at the logo, you can see that the very subtle arrows are actually intertwined, giving the visual logo depth, as well as a directional process structure – very simple and effective.

We were very excited to provide this service to GGL and are very pleased to see the design being fully-utilized by them.

Visit their website at: www.globalgeothermal.com

Katherine needed help updating her website with new items and styles, so she came to Web Solutions Services searching for a firm that was capable of taking an existing website and making modifications without ruining the overall look and feel.

We were happy to make those changes and also give some suggestions of our own to improve the site’s functionality. The header logo was changed to Mrs. Klyce’s specifications and the menu item’s font was changed to give the user easier navigation.

In addition, WSS modified her “Ikat Patterns” page to update her new line of products. New items were added to the line and then sorted by color. The coding worked seamlessly, so that the “lightbox” JavaScript image display could still be used error free.

We were pleased to assist Katherine in updating the website to her specifications.

Visit Katherine Klyce International at: www.kkint.us

Delaware Valley Brokerage is a well-established, life insurance brokerage firm that needed a complete re-design of their existing website. The site needed to give brokers the ability to access forms and quotes instantly, on the fly, utilizing the Ipipeline quote-engine system. Web Solutions Services was happy to do this, as well as give the site a visual makeover, creating a much more aesthetically pleasing experience for their visitors.

The first step was designing some templates to give the site a new, modern look. Web Solutions Services offered several options to DVB from which to choose, and they chose the perfect fit. The site was designed through WordPress to give dvblife.com a very powerful and scalable website that promotes search-engine optimization. The Content-Management System (CMS) incorporated the Ipipeline forms and quote system flawlessly, all while making the site much more visually appealing.

Secondly, we re-created their business logo to better match the colors used in the website. Because they had no vector-graphic version of the logo for us to work with, we re-created it for them using Adobe Illustrator and provided them with a vector version of the logo that they can use for just about anything.

Utilizing WordPress as part of this project really made a behind-the-scenes impact on the website. It provided them with the power of WordPress plug-ins and extensions, that not only promote good search-engine results, but they can now log in and update their website themselves, via the back-end control panel, should the need arise.

Delaware Valley Brokerage received a very powerfully CMS developed website, that was custom designed by WSS, while maintaining the modern look and feel that they were looking for. Their previous website dated back to 2003, and it was definitely time for a change. We were obliged to help DVB in that aspect.

Visit their site: www.dvblife.com

Search & Print is an upstart information retrieval service that needed a website that was not only affordable, but could be available in Spanish as well as English. When we were approached with this task, we embraced the opportunity to provide our client with a multiple language website. It was a first for us and we understood the importance of being able to offer a website in multiple languages.

Search & Print chose one of our business identity level websites as well as our graphic logo design service to accomplish their mission. We first started by creating the logo you see at the top of the website, under the guidance of Search & Print. Once the logo was approved, we assisted in the creation of their business cards using the graphic logo that we created.

From there, we began work on the website template utilizing HTML and CSS technologies. We worked with the color schemes offered to us by Search & Print to achieve the look they were after. We also made good use of some JQUERY technology in the image slider on the home page of the website. When you visit the site, you will see that every 5 seconds the image changes by fading in to a new image.

Once the website was complete (in English), Search & Print provided us with the Spanish translation of the website. From there, we just mirrored the website but changed the text to Spanish so that on the top of every page, you have the option to view the website in both English and Spanish.

We are very pleased that Search & Print chose Web Solutions Services for their website and graphic design needs.

Visit the website at: www.searchandprint.net

When Mobile Computing Solutions, a leading manufacturer in automotive PC computers (that are made for your car or truck) came to us with a problem, we had the know-how and experience to provide them with a very cost efficient solution.

The problem was that their old now, but at that time current, e-commerce shopping cart provider was not handling different methods of payment correctly and was leading to missed sales opportunities. Being that MCS utilizes Google Cart as one of their payment options, it was essential that this would work correctly on their website in order to process payments for the products they provide.

This was a very big issue with MCS as they were approaching the holiday season and needed to be able to have a fully functioning storefront.

We researched a number of different options and in the end decided that a migration to an entirely new shopping cart/web store solution would be the fastest way to handle the problem. We decided upon Volusion Cart due to their large scalability and multiple payment processors.

We were able to transfer all of the old customer and product data off of the old shopping cart system and import it into the Volusion cart in a very timely manner by exporting and importing database tables and information. Giving MCS a live, fully functional shopping cart solution… just in time for the holidays.

Being that the guys over at MCS are computer geniuses, we didn’t need to provide them with much further support once we handled the database work involved. They took the new e-commerce store and ran with it.

Check out their website at: www.mo-co-so.com

When Kyle from Kyle’s Auto Tags in West Chester PA recently opened his doors for business, he came to Web Solutions Services for his website and internet advertising needs.

This website is a great example of one of our “business identity” level websites.  Kyle provided us with a look and feel he wanted for the site and we took it from there.  This is a very simple, to the point, easy to navigate and provides his business with a 24 hour information hub.

The technologies we used on this project were HTML and CSS based using static web pages to provide a more cost-effective solution for Kyle.  This website is W3C (Worldwide Web Consortium) compliant.  This allows for cross browser compatibility and makes it easy for web-bots and search engine spiders to crawl the website for data. 

We also worked with Kyle on his website advertising campaign.  Helping him choose the best advertising solution for what he is offering his customers.  Once we got him started with the campaign, we consulted him on how to manage and implement changes to the campaign, providing additional phone support for any questions he had concerning the advertising campaign.  His website now receives the targeted traffic he was in need of and is very easily located on search engines by his potential customers.

We are very pleased that Kyle chose us for his website project and encourage you to visit his site and his storefront located in the Gay Street Plaza in downtown West Chester PA.

www.kylesautotags.com

Web Solutions Services: Excellence in Technology.

Web Solutions Services LLC is a privately held company based in New Castle Delaware and is US owned and operated.  Our area of expertise covers just about the entire spectrum of website development.

Specializing in professional website design services and other solutions including search engine optimization (seo), e-commerce website design and administration, custom website templates, website administration, custom WordPress and Joomla templates, graphic and logo design, hosting services, php and mysql, content management systems and social networking, flash animations and other motion graphics, managed internet advertising campaigns, advertising design, data backup and recovery solutions, and so much more.

Being that we are knowledgeable in all areas of website development we truly are an all in one solution.  We are a small business ourselves and aim to keep it that way. Our focus on customer service and overall satisfaction is our primary goal.  We work with you from start to finish to ensure that your needs are met if not exceeded.

We locally serve the greater Philadelphia area (Delaware Valley) including:

• Southeastern Pennsylvania: (Chester County, Delaware County, Philadelphia County, Montgomery County, and Bucks County).
• Southern New Jersey: (Salem County, Cumberland County, Gloucester County, Camden County, and Burlington County).
• The state of Delaware (New Castle County, Kent County, and Sussex County).
• Northern Maryland (Cecil County, Baltimore County, Kent County, and Harford County).

Although we are based in the Philadelphia area, we also serve clients on a national and international level by request.

There are many {options,choices,things} to consider when it comes to web design. Fortunately, Web Solutions Services makes it easy for you. We help choose what is right for you by explaining available web technologies and how they can benefit or detriment your website. We present them to you in an easy to understand way and will take the time to make sure you know exactly what you are getting.

This section of the website will {guide you through,explain,elaborate on} some of the technologies that we use to deliver the highest quality websites possible. We are providing this information solely for the purpose of informing current and potential clients of what is out there and {what we can help you achieve,how we can help get you there,how it can benefit your business}.

In this section we will {outline and describe, go over,explain and list} some of the more important {options,factors,features} to consider when choosing a website. We have narrowed these down into the following sub-sections:

• Business Identity Websites
• Content Management Systems or CMS
• E-Commerce Websites
• Flash Websites
• Forum/Gaming Clan Websites
• Company Intranets and Extranets
• Blog or Portfolio Websites
• W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) Compliance Standards

The above {mentioned,listed} items are only part of the decision making process for choosing what type of website suits you best. There are many other things to consider such as the {graphic design and or layout, template and interactivity,logos and pictures} of the website as well as {promotion,advertising,planning} and marketing. We address these items in the Graphic Design and SEO sections of the website.

If website design is {the service that you are looking for,something that you are looking for,where you would like to begin} visit our contact page to get started.