Website Design
The single most important thing about getting a website designed for you isn't the price (although it helps) - it's the service you get from your designer. You need to feel confident that your site is in safe hands and at Vanilla Gecko, we make sure that we find out exactly what you want from your site at the very beginning and consult you throughout the whole process to ensure we stay on track.
We help you find the best solution to suit your budget. At Vanilla Gecko, we don't try to squeeze you for every penny. We have a genuine desire to make the best site possible for you and if your budget is limited, you don't have to settle for a substandard site - we put as much effort into a £195 single page site as we do into a £1000 site.
No Templates Here!
As with all our design work, our websites are bespoke and therefore catered to your exact needs. Your site should be both visually inspiring and easy to use, ultimately becoming an effective marketing tool for you or your company.
Form follows function:
At Vanilla Gecko, we understand what makes a great website. Obviously everyone likes a beautiful design, but it’s important not to get carried away and forget the true reason for having a website in the first place. All great sites should incorporate the following:
- It should be fast loading. On average, people will only wait for around 8 seconds for a page to load before getting bored. The whole page, or at the very least the most important parts should load well within this timeframe. This is one of the reasons we use flash sparingly in our sites and do not create whole sites in flash. No-one likes staring at a ‘page loading’ sign for ages.
- The site should be well structured with clear navigation so that your visitors can find their way around with ease.
- Clear, concise information written with your target audience in mind. If you want us to check through and alter any copy you’ve written to ensure it reads well, just let us know and we’ll do so at our usual hourly rate.
- Cross browser compatibility is extremely important when designing a site. What looks like a perfect design in Internet Explorer could look frightening in another browser like Safari...or even in earlier versions of Explorer! While it is near impossible to cater for all browsers (there are a lot - you probably won't have even heard of many of them!), Vanilla Gecko aims for compatibility with (at least) the following browsers:
Internet Explorer (6, 7 & 8 on Windows), Firefox (Windows & Mac), Safari (Mac & Windows) and Opera (Windows & Mac). - Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Your site should include important keywords and be laid out so that search engines such as Google can index the site and all it’s pages, not just the homepage. This is another reason why we steer clear of flash based sites: Google cannot index them and so you severely limit the chance of the site showing up in search results. At Vanilla Gecko, we keep SEO at the forefront throughout the design process.
However, no matter how much you do to optimise the site, no-one can guarantee a high search engine ranking, especially through SEO alone. An additional part of our design service is to submit your site to dmoz.org – a human-edited web directory relied upon heavily by many search engines. We will also submit your site map to Google to help it index your site better.
The rest is down to you and how you market your site offline as well as online. See our articles page for information on promoting your site and writing good copy.
It doesn't end there:
So, you've had your site up and running for a while and now you want to add an extra page or change some photos or text. Here at Vanilla Gecko, we understand the importance of keeping a site up to date and don't think you should be penalised for doing so. We will update your site at our hourly rate of £25, as and when you need it and we even throw in a free half hour of maintenance every month!
What about hosting?
Vanilla Gecko also offers web hosting exclusively to new and existing clients. Our hosting package has been created with you in mind and comes neatly packaged at a very competitive price. You can choose to pay annually (£83.40 + VAT) or biennually (£166.80 + VAT).
See below to compare our package with other hosting providers:
Vanilla Gecko |
1 and 1 (Business) |
Fast Hosts (Developer) |
Web Fusion (Professional) |
|
| Monthly Price | £6.95 |
£8.99 |
£8.24 |
£8.95 |
| Webspace | 100GB |
20GB |
5GB |
5GB |
| Email Accounts | 5000 |
1000 |
1000+ |
1000 |
| Subdomains | unlimited |
300 |
200 |
? |
What's more, we offer a FREE .co.uk domain name for the first two years when you sign up for hosting with us (then renewed at the usual price of just £5.98 + VAT for two years).
If you are interested in using Vanilla Gecko's hosting services, then just let us know when you contact us about your website. Of course, you are not obliged to use our own hosting services - as part of our design service we will happily upload your website to whichever hosting provider you have chosen.
So how do I get you to design my site?
First of all, we would encourage you to take a look at our portfolio if you haven't already. There you will find links to a selection of sites we have designed for previous clients plus their feedback on their experience with us. We could talk all day long about our services, but nothing says it better than a first hand insight into the work we have done.
If you like what you see, move on to our pricing guide where we have more information about how we price our sites and also what is included as standard. For an FREE, no obligation quote, contact us with your requirements.
Still Unsure about Why you Need a Website?
If you are undecided about whether or not you really need a website, read our article, Why Do I Need a Website & How Important is Good Design?
