What are extras? They come in lots of flavors. Flash Galleries and Movies are two that come to mind.
From the sound of it, they sound expensive. But in reality they really shouldn't be. Today's software packages do a lot of the work for the web designer than in years past. There are even outside vendors that can help you with this.
Flash Galleries - There was a time when a Flash Gallery would cost a lot of money if you had a lot of pictures and albums to work with. So you would have someone make two versions of your pictures. The thumbnail and the full sized picture. This would often take many hours to put together, depending on the quantity. But with the Flash Gallery programs of today, most will take a folder of full sized pictures, and resize them in seconds. Yes seconds. You end up with a thumbnail and full sized version. No distortion with the thumbnail, and great clarity with the larger photo.
Also within the software itself the web designer can set the parameters within minutes for the color, music playing, album controls, how long it might take before the next image appears, and the overall size of the album.
Think about how much you can save. Because the software itself usually costs under $100, or higher for programs that can offer a lot more features to the player or different transitions. So the cost to do an extra like this should be a small price compared to what it would have cost just 5 years ago.
Flash Movies - Having movies on your site can be fun, informative, and a great way to communicate with your potential customer before they ever pick up the phone to call.
Utube is a great example of Flash Galleries. Flash streams better than a standard movie would. Less starts and stops are always a better option. The Flash movie is also compressed greater than a standard movie. Meaning something that was once 100 meg can be reduced to less than half that size, without losing the quality. Even smaller if you only want to display low quality vids as a teaser for them to pay a fee to view or buy a higher quality one.
Another option that the big companies seem to be going to is Brightcove. People use their servers to store and create the Flash videos and they are just embedded into the web page itself. This allows you the ability to upload videos, make your own player, and really have the flexibility of your own schedule to do this in. But you can also use a web designer to do the work with Brightcove if your schedule doesn't always permit you to do it on your own. Places like Billboard Music Charts and the Garden Girl use this option.
Lots of options to choose from for sure.
Wish Lists - Everyone has a wish list for the car they might want, the extra special Christmas Gift because you were not naughty, but nice, or that dream vacation. You are more than willing to check around to see what it would cost if you added this feature or that, why not with web design? Come up with a list in categories. What would enhance, what would impress, and what would just make people stand up and say, WOW! Then when you call a web design company you can at least see what the costs would be. The end result could be your dreams can come true!
One last note of interest. Don't go with the 1st web designer you find on the web. Talk with at least 3 different web design firms. There are options. You're going to spend a fair amount of money to develop your site. You should be informed.
We hope you have enjoyed our 7 part feature on how to prepare for a web design quote. You will hear lots of different responses from the different web design firms out there. Listen to what they are saying. Look at the work they have done. If search engine placement is important, look past the sponsored ads and maps to see just where the company you are looking at ranks. Compare that to how many results are in the list. This is a good indication at what they could do for your SEO needs.
Next month's Blog starts a new chapter. First up, Search Engine Optimization! See you then.
