What Can I Expect it to Cost?

My rates are very, very low.  To keep them low, I don't offer any "sales" or "free" estimates.  I simply charge you for all the time I spend working toward your web site.  That includes talking to you, working out designs, building the pages, testing and posting the pages, and working with your Internet Service Provider.

See The Cost for more information.

Initial Consultation

We can discuss what you want on your web site either in person or on the phone.   To save you money, I recommend that we have most of our discussions via telephone and email.

See "Office Hours" for more information.

The time to come up with any estimates you might require will be charged to you if you elect to have me build your web site.

See Bids & Estimates for more information.

Minimum Charge

My minimum charge for a web site is two hours. (Though, frankly, that would be a very small, very basic web site.)

The web sites I have done vary from a few hours to over 40 hours.

Information Required

The more information you can provide about how you want your site to look and what you want it to say will reduce your cost. As will providing me photos and text in electronic form.

All that said, I can, and often do, work from a minimum of information, such as a printed brochure.

See Technical Details for more information.

What Services I Provide

• Web page design.
• Web page formatting in HTML.
• Simple graphics, such as a Client-Side Image Map for navigation between pages, navigation buttons, and a background image, when appropriate for your site.
• When the site has been set up and is ready to go, I will notify all the search engines and catalogs for which I have links on my Web Search page. See Getting The Word Out for more information about that.
• Testing and debugging with the latest versions the Internet Explorer and Netscape web browsers which are available on the Internet for free. Even though all features might not work with all browsers, I will provide pages that look acceptable when viewed using these major browsesr.
• I will post your pages to your web site and ensure that they work properly.

What You Must Provide

• You must provide the basic information to be included on your web site. This can be in the form of a brochure that you have, standard letters you send to potential customers, or text you write specifically for this purpose. I can do a reasonably good job of editing and requesting additional information from you to fill in the gaps as needed.
• You will provide any photographs or graphics you want to be on the pages in a bitmap format on a PC disk or via a modem file transfer. As an alternative, I can scan them. And don't forget that it takes time to retouch and edit photos to a suitable size and resolution for Internet viewing.
• You must set yourself up with an Internet Service Provider (ISP). That is, I can give you some general advice, but its up to you to choose one and to set up your account. I will be happy to work with you on the technical details of getting your computer to work with the ISP, at my general hourly rate. (See Web Hosting Service for more information.)

Scanning Photographs

• I can scan photographs or drawings provided by you.
• Retouching (lightening backgrounds, cropping out unwanted details, changing the file size and photo resolution, etc.) will be charged at my usual rate. This is usually necessary unless someone else has already prepared the picture files for the Internet.

Fill-In Forms

• The coding of forms and setting up the background processing will be charged at my usual rate. Depending on what you want to do, this can vary between an hour or two and many hours.
• Some forms-processing programs are available free-of-charge on the Internet. Whenever appropriate, I will use one of these if I know about it. Then the time I spend will be to locate the program, download it, and get it working for your application, instead of programming. This is usually going to be much cheaper for you.

Getting The Word Out

• After the site is complete, I typically spend additional time getting the word out about your web site by notifying the "major" web search engines. Though I am happy to perform this service for you, the time it takes can vary greatly, depending on the type of web site you want to link to yours.
• As an alternative to me performing this service, there are fee-based services available to help you get the word out. Though I can't endorse any of them personally, most do claim to get the word out to dozens or hundreds of search engines and indexes.

How to Contact Me

If your think you might be interested in using my services or if you need more information, send me a note by email at "bruce@byoungquist.com" or use my About Your Web Site or Contact Me pages. Be sure to include your name, company name, type of business, and your telephone number. I will probably get back to you via email or telephone in a day or two.

In the meantime, I recommend reading through my "Web Page Definitions" and "So, You Want Your Own Web Site". They should give you greater insight into what you might be getting into.