I want to put my business online, but I don’t know where to start. This is my first website, can you help me? Absolutely! You do not need any online experience at all. CDE Design offers free consultation on all services. We help you right from the start! You will have a team member assigned to you for all your questions along the way.  Just ask us! We are here to help you. Contact us.

Does my business need a website? Ask yourself, “Does my business need 24-hour exposure 7 days a week, 365 days a year?” The answer is obvious. What other medium allows you to expose all the benefits of your small business to your target market at their convenience and provide a source of direct correspondence from them to you? The benefits of a website are innumerable.

What preparations does my business have to do to get online? Brochures, logos, photographs, business cards etc. are all great resources to use. For new business ventures we will help you get started from scratch. Need a logo? A Free Logo is provided with all websites created by CDE Design!

How long does it typically take to build a site? There are many factors that determine the time required to complete a website, on average it takes approximately 14 to 30 days (for a basic site) or anywhere between 30 and 90 days (for a large complex site). From the date we begin the process to your website being posted on the Web.

How much input do I have? We welcome your input! The more input we receive from you the better able we will be to satisfy your needs and produce a site that will have the desired look and impact that you want. It’s your website, we want it to look the way you want it. We guarantee it 100%

If I already have a site can you help me improve it?Yes. We can usually redesign or freshen up an existing site quicker, and for less money than building one from scratch. Whether your company’s website “doesn’t look professional”, takes too long to load or the navigation is baffling to visitors, we can help.

Can you use my business’s existing logo, brochure design, and other materials for my website? Certainly, If your logo and promotional materials are not in electronic format, we can convert them to a format appropriate for your website. We can accept almost any type of file. If your materials are printed, we can scan and convert them to cd-rom. CDE Design’s designers will help you establish your online image to be consistent with your existing image that your customers already know & remember.

Does my business need to be computer-based in order to have a website? Do I need to know about computers? NO, you do not need to own a computer or have computers involved in your business in order to have a website. Many companies do filing, invoicing and more without a computer. Creating a website is more about exposing your business to new potential clients and generating new sales. There is no need to overhaul the way your company does business.

What does ‘website Maintenance’ or ‘Website Updates’ mean?Website Maintenance or Website Updates refers to changes made to your website after the initial design & setup. Keeping a website up-to-date is essential in having repeat visitors to your site. Updating the site with sales, articles, new products, newsletters, press releases, financial figures and links are all examples of website Maintenance.

If you already have a website but your business does not have the time to take care of keeping the website maintained. We offer weekly, monthly and bi-monthly updates. Contact us to arrange a free quote on a custom website maintenance contract that suits your company.

How many pages do I need? This all depends on how much content you have. Every business website should have an ‘About Us’ page (or something similarly titled) to tell your visitors about your business. After that, it depends on what type of business you have. A good rule of thumb is to not overwhelm your audience with too much information on each page. Disperse the information and break it up into digestable pages and paragraphs. Long pages of text tend to overwhelm the reader. Break content up to truly get your audience’s attention

What is a host and does my small business website need one? A host is a company that connects your small business website to the World Wide Web 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. CDE Design can provide this service .

Should I pay for Search Engine Optimization? Every website CDE Design builds is submitted to the top 5 search engines. However, simply submitting doesn’t mean that your site will rank at the top of a search engine when a user searches for content related to your site. A lot of work and research goes into getting your website ranked high. CDE Design strategists are experienced and have had proven success in Search Engine Optimization.

Do I need to send a deposit for the work? Yes we generally ask for a 50% deposit from clients.

What About payment gateway and shipping integration on ecommerce websites? We can integrate the most common methods on our e-commerce websites, however you might have a specific request and it might take some time to study that specific case. We’re open to talk with you and help you during the integration process but we work must together during the process. It may impact the amount of time we initially defined at the start of the project. So keep that in mind and try to keep shipping instructions simple and use common payment getaways providers. Common things make life easier.

How frequently do I need to update my website? It depends on what you’re doing with your website, but we definitely recommend you a plan for this. Content is critical for optimization and “fresh” or new content is an important factor for ranking. If you have a small business brochure website you might probably want to update twice a year some pages on your website, you might also have a page to display the latest news on your website and you can add a couple of notes once a month or every two months if you want. For e-commerce or database websites you might update or add content more frequently, those kind of websites are build to have those changes as need it. In any case if you’re doing optimization, you might want to talk with our optimization people about the importance of getting new information on your website and what will be the best way to do it without having problems with the code and content to optimize your website.

Do I need to edit my website myself? On small business brochure websites, not necessarily but yes, you can. As technology changes fast these days, its not common to have validated websites with clean code using frontpage extensions to update content on a website. There are a few new tools to help you edit some content on your website however you must be sure that the WYSIWYG editor you will use to edit content directly supports the new standards to update content on your website. We also offer some good online tools (add ons) to help you with content and picture changes on your website. You might ask for more details if you’re planning to update your website yourself. If you’re getting a e-commerce or database solution from us, those tools give you a back-end where you can define and update content on your website fairly easy.

Why validated code its important to design a website? There’s a lot of competition to get good spots in the search engines for some specific keywords or key-phrases, so proper html syntax and a clean code help toward better rankings. Let’s say we have two competing sites, both are suitable for the top spot and the search engine has a tough time deciding who to put first. Chances are that the validated site with proper syntax will be the winner. Validation of the html code on your site alone will certainly not guarantee or secure you a high rating, but as with so many other things it will help and might even be the contributing factor to get you across the line.

Why are Privacy Policies and Terms of Use important for a website? People who visit your website deserve to know what you’re doing or what you will do with the information you ask from them online. Respect that privilege and tell them why you’re asking for some personal or business information on your website. Serious people do serious things. Terms of Use are the rules people should know to navigate your website. It usually contains information about price and/or content changes on your website, it must advise people that information on your website might change without having to inform all your visitors about those changes and that you’re the owner so you set the rules.

How many changes can I make to the web site once I view the first design template? You can make as many changes as you wish to the design template as you wish. We encourage clients to give plenty of feedback so that we can get the design template(s) established as soon as possible.However, CDE Design charges on an hourly basis. If you request too many changes to your site design, or if you change a design template after the entire site has been formatted with the template, you will incur more charges.

How can I view my web site design as it is in progress? We can put your web site design templates in a directory on our web server so you can view the final product before it goes live.