General questions
What are the payment terms for monthly marketing plans?
- On receipt of your invoice, payments are accepted by standing order or bank transfer/deposit only.
- Payment for each month is up-front and work will commence on receipt of payment for the first instalment.
- Subsequent invoices are sent on the 1st day of the next month and payment is expected within 15 days.
- If you intend to pursue a long-term campaign, please enquire about discounts for paying 3/6/12 months in advance.
What are the payment terms for graphic design & webdesign?
- High quality design concepts are valuable and require a commitment from the customer
- So a 50% deposit – 50% on completion of project – agreement is requested
- Payments accepted by cheque, bank transfer and standing order.
Do you outsource any work?
No. For peace of mind, all your work is completed by Alloy – except for 2 specific areas:
- Advanced webdevelopment + programming – In very rare cases for very large custom coded web projects some help is required from independent consultants.
- Expert UK academic copy writers – for very specialist sectors/niches – healthcare / science/ tech / news – sometimes independent authors assist with ongoing marketing campaigns.
Do you accept cheque payments?
Yes – but work (including consulting) cannot commence until payment has fully cleared.
- Other payment options include bank transfer/deposit .
Webdesign service questions
Why do 3rd party websites cost more to modify / improve / optimise?
Edits to the coding of your websiteEven though most websites are written in a common programming language (html) – different designers use their own variations of the language, which slows down the speed that edits can be made by us.
- The text and images you may have utilised on your website are very useful and can continue to be used
- However, the (html) coding that your previous web-designers may have used to get your text and images to display may not be so great and in some cases, could benefit from an overhaul
- If your website is a basic, mainly static html website, then it is possible that small edits can be made with ease and should not cost much.
- However, if your website is very large or contains animations, galleries, interactive elements or quote forms, then it’s likely that edits will cost much less if the same work was being done on an Alloy website.
If you are launching a new online marketing campaign including social media, SEO etc. and your website requires major edits and additions such as news, information, frequently asked questions etc. – then working on 3rd party code will cost much more than if the same work was being done on an Alloy Website.
- In general, if you are considering investing more than £300 in online marketing for your business – then it’s likely that your 3rd party website will become the limiting factor in our efforts
- If your 3rd party website requires technical edits/corrections, you should consider if buying an Alloy website would resolve these issues at a lower cost than the edits on 3rd party code.
By spending from just £299 on an Alloy designed website – you not only get a solid foundation to build upon, but also your further marketing investments are amplified by the built-in features of Alloy websites such as:
- Blog publishing platform
- RSS feed output for syndication
- Easy code editing
- Easy edits by the customer via the CMS admin platform
- Almost all website add-ons are from £40 and can be bolted-on with ease (testimonials, advanced quotes, link directory etc.) allowing your website to expand with your business.
Conclusions:
- Keen to stick with your website created by a 3rd party?That’s fine we are happy to work with you however possible, but 90% certain it will cost you more(in the long-run).
- Considering a new website built by Alloy but worried about the costs?from just £299 you can get your old website data moved over onto an AlloyCMS platform, ready for you to get publishing blog posts and to reap the financial rewards of having a website that ranks better on the search engines, and brings you more business.
Please get in touch if you have any questions.
What quality / service level is the webshosting?
- Premium quality UK based hosting
- Servers are based at the premium Blue Square data centres in the UK
- Expected uptime is an outstanding 99.95% uptime
- To give you an idea, there hasn’t been 1 single hosting / uptime complaint from customers in 2012, and it’s mid-April!
Why are additions and edits to a CMS website often cheaper than with Static HTML websites?
Whats the difference?
- Edits or additions to Static HTML websites are done through a code editor that requires you to update every file on the website upon each edit.
- CMS websites allow you to create single files to control the appearance of pages, then dynamically inject content into these pages to rapidly create multiple different pages with an identical layout.
As an example, if you wanted to add a portfolio to your website, of say 6 projects including a projects summary page + 6 individual project pages.
- To code in static HTML this would cost approx 7 x £40per page = £280
- To code in a CMS website costs approx £100 to create the templates then add 6x £10per page to create the portfolio items = £160
What’s involved in moving my business website over to an Alloy website
Scenario 1: If you have had a website for several years and are ‘due’ for a brand new website, then fantastic!
- Our statistics show your new completely new redesigned site will help to convert around 10-25% more visitors into enquiries than your old website
- Building from your text and any photos on your old site, your new one can be put together faster than a website for a new company
- Any further online marketing investments in your Alloy website, build upon the strongest of foundations, to create an impressive tool for converting customers and also to build a valuable online presence for your business on the major search engines (Google, Bing, Ask, Yahoo).
Scenario 2: Possibly you have a more recently-built website, that does not perform well in terms of converting customers, or attracting visitors from search engines. It’s the same in every trade, and as you may expect – all webdesigners/ SEO / Marketing Consultants are not made equal, so if you have any doubts your current providers are not giving your business the best possible chance online – (whilst online marketing channels offer small businesses a phenomenal potential), then it’s up to you to act for the benefit of your business.
- In some cases it’s possible work with your current website to make improvements and additions
- But often edits to a 3rd party website will incur extra costs, and if you intend to make a major push for increasing online visibility and lead generation, it often becomes far more cost efficient to move over to an Alloy CMS website which from just £250, offer the strongest possible website platform to build upon.
What’s so great about Alloy websites?
- Edits to your website are cheaper than you may be used to
- Alloy sites can be upgraded to have a built-in blog publishing platform – regularly publishing news and testimonials, tips and advice, helps to keep your website and online presence ‘fresh’ and topical to benefit from even higher rankings and more leads generated from search engines.
- Your website is linked up with Analytics visitor tracking software – goals are created & conversions are tracked from day1
- Your website is coded to perform in harmony with the search engine algorithms, who sweep through on a regular basis to judge your site and determine it’s ranking potential on the search engine results pages (SERPS)
- You get an premium quality and high reliability web+email hosting service
So hopefully, after weighing up the pros and cons, you will come to the conclusion that an Alloy website offers both your business a visually appealing and high performing interactive brochure, but also acts as a highly tuned ‘engine’ that can power your online marketing activities, moving forward.
So, what’s involved in the move?
1. Your Domain Name
Your domain name (www.mycompanydomainname.co.uk) is the most valuable online asset to your business.
- Before you contact your current webdesigners, you need to find out if you are the legal registrant of the domain.
- Enter your web address here to see who is the registrant of your domain http://whois.domaintools.com/
- If you have your domain printed on stationery, or even your van, it would (of course) cause problems if it was disconnected from your website by a disgruntled webdesigner or company.
- If you are not the registrant of your domain then you need to be very careful asking to gain legal ownership (of what you thought was your property after paying-for, but possibly isn’t)
- Even if you are listed as the domain registrant, you need be cautious asking to gain control of the domain, and move your business elsewhere, as there are several things 3rd parties can do to slow down or complicate the move of your business away from them.
- Once you are ready to make the switch, we can either gain control of your domain and point it to your new Alloy hosting + email account, or we may have to move your domain away from your previous conmapny, to a new domain registrar of your choice. This process is usually free, but requires a renewal of your domain for a year or 2.
- All the details are completely managed for a seamless move with minimum hassle
2. Your website
Your website text and images can be grabbed from your old website before it is taken down, and used in your new design. Your new website can be prepared, ready to go, so that once you give your old company notice, you can have a seamless transfer over to your new Alloy website and premium hosting account.Features of Hosting from Alloy Marketing
- Premium quality UK based hosting
- Servers are based at the premium Blue Square data centres in the UK
- Expected uptime is an outstanding 99.95% uptime
- To give you an idea, there hasn’t been 1 single hosting / uptime complaint from customers in 2012, and it’s mid-April!
3. Your emails
When you enquire about your specific requirements, we can find out how you are currently receiving and sending emails. The identical email accounts and redirects will be recreated on your new Alloy hosting. If you are just using 1or 2 accounts this service is free.If you have more than 2email accounts, there is a nominal admin fee to cover the small costs of setting up the extra accounts on your new hosting and providing the configuration details you need to change if any.
- If you are using hotmail, gmail, yahoomail or another free service, and you receive emails forwarded from your website, then you will not need to change anything at all and your transfer will be seamless.
- If you are using your business email address to send/receive via POP or IMAP, using a desktop email browser such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Windows Live Mail Desktop Version etc. We can setup the same accounts on your new hosting, but with new passwords, so you will just need to open the options panel for your email software and enter your new email server passwords and details. This is a very easy process that we can provide clear illustrated instructions so that you can complete at your end within about 10 minutes.
4. Timescales
Once your new website is designed and ready to go, and you are ready to make the move, we initiate the process by gaining control of your domain name and then pointing over to the new Alloy webhosting. Unlike many conventional agencies, we have the flexibility to be able to initiate your transfer at the weekend, so if there is a few hours when your website is not available, it’s at the weekend.
- If you have control of your domain, the transfer time will be between 2-24 hours.
- If you don’t have control of your domain, and we need to transfer it to a new domain registrar, so that we can gain control of it and point it to Alloy webhosting, then the process can take between 4 – 48hours.
What are the payment terms for graphic design & webdesign?
- High quality design concepts are valuable and require a commitment from the customer
- So a 50% deposit – 50% on completion of project – agreement is requested
- Payments accepted by cheque, bank transfer and standing order.
Once I have fully paid for my design – do I own it?
Yes, for any graphic design / webdesign / email template design, or any other type of design, once fully paid, then you own it and can have full access to the master files.Exceptions
- Stock photographs that you have provided for your design are your responsibility / liability and we expect you to have gained copyright approval before sending any files to us.
Why is a regularly updated website so important to ranking well on Search results.
Terms & Conditions
Website Design Terms & Conditions
We kindly request all customers read the following terms and conditions to get familiar with the requirements of our website design service before placing your order.
Website design deposit & payments terms
For website design projects of total value up to £1000
- Deposit payment: We will send an invoice for the first 35% of the total project cost, when you place your order. Work will commence on your website design project once the deposit funds have cleared in our bank.
- Final payment: Once you have approved the design and you are happy to proceed with launching your new website, we will send the invoice for the remaining 65% project cost (plus any additional extras you may have requested), on receipt of your final payment we will launch your website, usually within 48 hours. In some situations on request we are able to launch the website before the final balance has cleared, (especially useful in rush projects). Once the final balance has cleared, we will also email you with the login details to your website hosting and emails control panel. We reserve the right to disable your website and emails, and withhold passwords and login details until the final balance has been paid.
For website design projects of total value above £1000
- Deposit payment: We will send an invoice for the first 40% of the quoted project cost, when you place your order. Work will commence on your website design project once the deposit funds have cleared in our bank.
- Second payment: Once you have seen all the concept design and chosen a colour scheme and concept design, we will invoice you for the second payment of 30% of the quoted project cost.
- Final payment: Once you have approved the design and you are happy to proceed with launching your new website, we will send the invoice for the remaining 30% quoted project cost (plus any additional extras you may have requested), on receipt of your final payment we will launch your website, usually within 48 hours. In some situations on request we are able to launch the website before the final balance has cleared, (especially useful in rush projects). Once the final balance has cleared, we will also email you with the login details to your website hosting and email control panel. We reserve the right to disable your website and emails, and withhold passwords and login details until the final balance has been paid.
The design process
Here is a summary of our design process to help you keep the costs of your design as low as possible:
- Stage 1: Research and feedback – We will send a questionnaire to collect your ideas and see which competitors have websites you like.
- Stage 2: Mockups / concept designs – Your suggestions and ideas will be transformed into a visual mockup image of your website home page, we usually provide an intial mockup and refine this towards a finished design. Changes to the design at this stage are the cheapest, and it’s best to get something you are 90% happy with in the mockup stage, especially in terms of the general layout of the pages, and the colour schemes.
- Stage 3: Concept converted into a working website, for you to try out and test, we will make the final tweaks and add that “polish” to visual design at this point. Changing a few photos or text at this stage is usually fine and within the bounds of your website quoted budget, however major changes to the design such as change of colour schemes, major changes to the layout of the pages may incur additional costs, but we will always notify you before proceeding with work that is beyond the scope of the original quote.
In summary, try to get all your ideas prepared and given to us at stage 1, and making major changes to the design will always be cheaper during stage 2, rather than stage 3.
Additional edits to your design
- We will inform you of any work that is out of the scope of the original quote before proceeding with any work.
- Additional edits beyond the scope of the original quote will be quoted for you on an ad-hoc basis, usually at the standard rate of £30 per hour with 1/2 hour minimum.
Ownership and copyright
On receipt of your final payment of the website design balance, you will have full ownership of the website design and text, and of course any images provided by you. If we have provided photos for you in the design, we retain the rights to these photos. If you have bought photos yourself for the design, or we have bought photos on your behalf, you will have ownership on receipt of the design balance.
If we have registered a domain name on your behalf, or you have transferred your domain to our management, then you will retain full ownership of the domain as long as you are up to date with your domain name renewal payments which are paid yearly and usually cost around £7 per year for .co.uk domains and £12 per year for .com domain names. Failure to pay your domain name renewal fees within 30 days will result in your domain either expiring, so that neither us or you can control it anymore and it will return to the market for sale in 45 days. In some situations where the renewal fee is not paid within 30 days, we may choose to pay your renewal fee which would give us legal ownership of the domain name.
If you registered your domain or in situations where we were managing your domain name and you requested for us to transfer the control of the domain over to you: You have the responsibility to renew, pay for and manage your domain name, and we can not accept responsibility if your domain is not renewed in time and goes into expiry mode.
Find all the other FAQs here
