Services
Design
The average person will spend only a few seconds searching
a site for specific info. If they can’t find the info
within a few clicks, they move on to the next match on the
search engine list. The more organized, less cluttered, and
visually appealing a website is, the greater the chance a
surfer will find the info they are looking for, look at more
of your site, and come back later. It’s the design process
that defines what a site looks like to the visitor. Whether
your budget for a site is $25,000, $2,500, or $250, your website
can and should look organized and inviting.
Development
The development of a site determines what a site does and
how it reacts to user input. Basically, it is all the “behind-the-scenes”
programming required to process forms, add/update/delete info
from a database or file, and all the code required to run
an online shopping cart.
Ecommerce
Want to sell your products on your website? Then you will
likely require an eCommerce solution. There are 3 main things
needed for an eCommerce site:
- Shopping cart application
- Digital certificate for securing credit card orders
- A method for processing payments - any one of the following
3 will work:
A merchant account with your bank
A terminal to run credit cards manually
A Paypal account
Ecommerce applications from Blue Frog automatically come
with content management systems.
Hosting
Okay. You’ve got a website. But how will the rest of
the world be able to see it? This is where hosting comes in.
A website must reside on a computer that has a sufficiently
fast connection to the internet and the appropriate hosting
software. This computer is called a web host or web server.
It spends its days serving up the web pages that are requested
to the visitors of your site. Contrary to popular belief,
there is not just one gigantic computer somewhere in the world
that holds all the websites. The internet is made up of millions
of computers around the world with a connection to the internet
and web server software.
Blue Frog provides Linux and Windows hosting for websites
that we build and/or maintain.
Maintenance
Once a site is built, it is necessary to keep the info on
the site current to attract new visitors and keep the site
fresh to generate repeat traffic. There are a couple ways
to maintain a site – either the client can do it or
we can do it.
Client maintains website
T here are two ways a site can be maintained by a client:
Third party program: When Blue Frog creates
a website, one of the options we offer is to set it up so
that the client can use a program such as Contribute or
FrontPage to edit much of the content of the site without
compromising the design or layout. This doesn’t require
any knowledge of web design or content and is as simple
as using a word processing program such as Word or WordPerfect.
Through the browser: Another option the client can
request is an admin area for their site. An admin section
can allow changing the content by typing directly into a
form in the browser.
Blue Frog maintains the website
For those who prefer, Blue Frog can update your website
when necessary. The client sends us an email with the new
info and we replace or add it to the website, usually within
hours. This is the most economical option for sites that
are only updated a few times a month or less.
Maintenance packages
For those who have had their site built by Blue Frog,
we offer monthly billed maintenance. Basically, you request
a change, we make the change, and keep a running tally for
the month. At the end of the month, we send an itemized
invoice.
For those who had their site built elsewhere, we offer pre-billed
hours of maintenance. These hours do not expire.
Outsourcing
If you are a fellow developer and have a project you can’t
or don’t want to do, ship it our way. We thrive on challenging
projects that others don’t want to touch!
Or are you a designer that doesn’t want to touch backend
coding with a ten-foot pole? Give us a holler. It’s
our specialty! Discounts apply according to project size.
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