Frequently Asked Questions

As you can imagine, websites differ and so does the time it takes to create one. There are many assets needed to complete a professional looking website, so how long it takes to build one is based on these factors:

LOGO AND BRANDING
If you already have a professional looking logo that we can use, then we can skip straight to the website. If you need a logo, then you can expect that to take up to a month, depending on how many changes are made to get to the final version.

PICTURES
Pictures are a vital part of what makes websites look professional, and that’s why all of our website packages include 5 professional stock photos. While there may be some limitations based on quality, we can use photos you’ve taken off your camera and phone. We’re more than happy to try using your assets.

COPY
In order to lay out your website, we need text about each page. This helps to narrate the story we’re trying to build for you. If copy is not provided at first, we will use Lorem Ipsum, which is just “dummy text”, or random gibberish used solely as a placeholder. However, using dummy text means we’ll have to eventually add real text, meaning we’ll be retracing steps. While this isn’t abnormal, it is time consuming to do twice. The more copy you can provide us upfront, the faster your website construction will go.

E-COMMERCE
Selling your products online is a great way to add revenue to your bottom line. Building an e-commerce site requires each product to have its own page and for shipping options and variables to be loaded. For example, if you’re selling a shirt, the variables would include colors and sizes.

PAYMENTS
Grid Is Wise requires 50% down to start a website and the remainder to be paid upon completion. Delays in payment could cause delays in building your website.

With all of this in mind, you can expect a website to take approximately 2-4 weeks for websites without e-commerce and 3-5 weeks for e-commerce sites.

E-commerce is the sale of your products or services online via product pages nested directly on your website. There are two basic means of collecting payments for what you sell:

PAYMENT GATEWAY
A payment gateway is a service you need to process payments from your website to the customers’ credit/debit cards and deposit into your own bank account. This service incorporates web designer set-up services with a third party payment service. A basic e-commerce setup will cost a one-time web design fee of $1,000 for up to 5 products, $1,500 for 6-10 products, and $2,000 for 11-25 products. Re-occurring bank charges for this service from your bank is possible.

THIRD PARTY
Instead of depositing payments into your bank account, you can also direct your payments to PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, etc. This service incorporates web designer set-up services with a third party payment service. A basic e-commerce setup will cost a one-time web design fee of $1,000 for up to 5 products, $1,500 for 6-10 products, and $2,000 for 11-25 products. At the time of this agreement, the third party service will charge you 2.9% + thirty cents per successful transaction.

Internet searching technology has changed a lot in the last 10 years, and today the top results are dominated by paid advertisements in most industries. This makes ranking atop search options very expensive. But, there are still things that must be done in order to assure Google doesn’t blacklist your website as “untrustworthy”, and you still want to control what the reader sees when you do come up in their search results. Here is how we accomplish that:

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
One of the most important aspects of ranking higher in Google is well-written SEO that focuses on the keywords your potential customer will target. For example, if you sell pump hoists mounted to Ford trucks, you don’t want your keywords to be “Ford trucks”. You want your keywords to be “pump hoists”. And, if you install flooring, you want your keywords to resemble “floor installation” rather than “kitchen tiles”. To increase the effectiveness of your SEO, this same practice must also be applied to all files and assets in your website because search engines like Google and Bing “crawl” your website’s code looking for these keywords. Additionally, since search engines have character limits and the average internet shopper looks at results for less than 3 seconds each, you want to control what your customers see when your company is displayed in their search results, with an emphasis on succinct (short and to the point) descriptions. 

USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
It’s important to know that social media has changed the world in many ways, especially when it comes to marketing. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram are the kings of social media, with billions of accounts and trillions of videos between them. Google values internal links and external links, so you can use your website to link to your social media and use your social media to link to your website. These days, most businesses get close to half of their referrals from social media, so it is in your best interest to use this mostly free service to your advantage.

Social media accounts are meant to bring business to your website, not act as a website. While you can use your social media accounts for some basic advertising and branding, social media doesn’t have the ability to nest payment gateways. Businesses that are built using only social media will also struggle in Google rankings b/c Google’s algorithms give better positioning to companies that actively utilize multiple online forums like social media, a website, review apps like Yelp, employment services like Indeed, etc.

Graphic designers are specially trained in working with color, shapes, and visual communication. They also possess the expertise to provide you with the different kinds of art files you’re sure to need for trade shows, magazine ads, social media graphics, printing, signage, and more.

Whether you have a very specific idea for a branding identity or none at all, Grid Is Wise graphic designers are trained to produce the artwork you’ll need to stick out among the competition.

Here is the best way to approach the early stages of beginning your start up company:

MISSION
The most important part of any website is to decide what you’re going to sell and to create a mission statement. Using Grid Is Wise as an example, we sell graphic design, web design, SEO, and marketing services, and our mission statement is “Making professionals look professional”. By deciding these two facets of your business, you are giving your company an identity and giving yourself direction to move on to the next steps.

NAME
Once you have decided what you’re going to sell and what your mission statement will be, now comes the fun part – deciding a name for your company! You’re going to want a name that is personal to you, that embodies what you sell, that is unique to your industry, and that will coincide with your website URL. For example, the name Grid Is Wise is a graphic design reference. When I was in college at Oklahoma University, my teachers instructed me to master graphic design within the boundaries of a grid and, once I had mastered grid design, I could dare to let my designs break the grid. Breaking the grid with attractive graphic design was a testament to my mastery of it, so I thought of the term “grid is wise”.

WEBSITE URL ADDRESS
Now that you have a name and a game plan, it is best to secure your website URL address, because it could take some time to nail this down. You may find that you have picked the perfect business name, but someone already owns the URL, forcing you to rethink what you thought was a sure thing. And, if the website address is not taken, you want to secure it immediately so that someone doesn’t take it. If you’re ready to secure a website address but would like some help, contact Grid Is Wise and we’ll be happy to assist you.

SORT OUR YOUR PRODUCTS AND ASSETS
Now that you have purchased your website URL address, the clock is ticking because website URL’s have to be renewed annually. Every day that your website isn’t live is a day of revenue wasted before you have to renew your URL address. You are now committed, so the next step is to sort out your products and/or services. Write out everything you plan on selling and essentially build a website on paper. Organize your photos and connect them to your paper website pages. The more organized you are at this stage in developing your business, the easier and faster it will be to develop your website and brand identity.

LOGO AND BRANDING
You have decided on a company name and made it official by securing a website address, so now is a good time to work with Grid Is Wise on your logo and branding. At this stage, you will work with a professional graphic designer to create a symbol to use on company stationary, flyers, social media, magazine ads, websites, and signage. Since you plan on using this logo on many different applications, your logo will need to be handed over to you in multiple file formats. As a Grid Is Wise client, we will gladly send the file to your vendor for you, whenever you need it, at no charge, ever.

CREATE A SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNT
With the logo created, now is a good time to create your social media accounts, which we will use to direct traffic to your website and vice versa. Feel free to start creating posts, but don’t invite friends to join you just yet. Let’s get the website created first before we engage potential customers.

CREATE A WEBSITE
You have created a product list, a mission statement, a website URL, a logo, and social media accounts. Now it’s time to create your website! We’ll take all of the assets we just made and use them to create an informative, professional looking website so you can start generating leads.

ANNOUNCE YOUR WEBSITE LAUNCH
Once your website is live, it’s time to let all of your friends and family know. Use your business and personal social media accounts to drive traffic to your website and spread the word that you are now open for business.

COLLECT E-MAIL ADDRESSES AND CREATE E-MAIL CAMPAIGNS
Now that you’re selling products and collecting data on your contact forms, you can create e-mail lists to send targeted e-mail campaigns advertising your products, holiday specials, and more. And, after you’ve sent the e-mails out, we can give you detailed reports about how many clicks you had, who opened your e-mails, what pages they clicked on, and more.

Grid Is Wise is your business ally and we will be in your corner as you build your company to become a well-known and trusted local brand. Here are some key suggestions to start your business and keep that momentum going:

APPEAR PROFESSIONAL
When customers come across your business, you want to look professional. This includes having a modern website designed to sell your products and a professional logo with consistent branding to sell your company. And, you’ll want to ditch the Gmail and Yahoo email accounts in favor of email address within your website’s domain.

REACH OUT TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
One of the most important aspects of selling your products and services is letting your customers know what you sell and why they’ll benefit from choosing your company. It will serve you well to use all of the tools available to reach both current and prospective customers, including custom e-mail services, social media, and paper advertising.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)
Search Engine Optimization is the fancy way of saying that you want to rank high in Google searches. While Google searches are now dominated by paid advertisements, there is still a lot that should be done to assure your website is not blacklisted by Google as unsafe or irrelevant. Most importantly, when customers search for your company online, you want to control the wording of what they find, because the average customer looks at a search result for less than 3 seconds before clicking a link.

USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR ADVANTAGE
Social media has changed the world both personally and professionally and has also become one of the most valuable assets when trying to rank higher in Google. Sites like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter have spent years and billions of dollars assuring that they are atop many search rankings, so it’s in your best interest to have a social media presence that you can link back to these platforms and piggy back off of their ranking power.

MAKE SURE YOU’RE EASY TO CONTACT
Potential customers have lots of choices, so they tend to favor options that are easy to communicate with directly. Make sure that you have a phone number dedicated to your business, whether landline or cell phone, and make sure that you have a contact form on your website.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR CONTACT FORM
Generally speaking, you want your contact form to be easy to fill out and not require too much personal information. At this stage, you shouldn’t need more than a first and last name, phone #, e-mail address, preferred services/products, and a comment section. However, it becomes more acceptable to ask more questions if your form is a means of providing a quote.