Costs and Design Processes
Domain names | Hosting Fees | Design Processes
Domain Names
New Zealand domain names (the ones that end in .nz) were controlled through one central registry, Domainz, The New Zealand Internet Registry Limited. Simply put, the registry receives a request from a browser for a domain name, such as www.yourbusiness.co.nz, and in the flick of an eye, points the browser to the location on the Internet of the website. Specifically it points it to a folder on a host server, where the browser, by default will retrieve an index.html file. Your home page.
Domainz charge an annual fee of $61.87 for this service. Find out more about Domainz current fees from their website www.domainz.net.nz.
Registration of your domain name requires somewhere specific for it to point to, two seperate locations in fact, in case one fails. These two locations are often two website hosting servers, sitting side by side in the secure air conditioned server room of your chosen hosting service.
Hosting Fees
You can host a website anywhere on the internet in the world, and as such there is a lot of competition amongst website hosting providers. Prices can range from between NZ$15-100 per month or more depending on website size and what additional services and functions your website demands of the host server.
All hosting services are not equal, and to a degree you do get what you pay for. Many of the cheapest are based in the USA, disguised by a New Zealand shop front window. What is important to most is reliability, speed and service. Seconds count in the online world, it has been often said that if a webpage has not loaded within 8 seconds, 80 percent of visitors will have backed away. Sound familiar?
Ask yourself where you would like information about your business to be kept, and who and where you would prefer to ring if you have a problem with your websites various features and functions. At Site Productions we believe in being local, buying local. Think global, act local.
Design Process
Site Productions currently charge by the hour (NZ$45/hour) for website design, construction and maintenance. The initial consultation is free.
A detailed picture of what your business is, and what you want your website to achieve is established. Website structure and design ideas are sketched out, what a client likes and dislikes are discussed with regard to colours, fonts, logos and navigational layout. With this information a 'mockup' is drawn.
A mockup is a 800 x 600 pixel picture of a website. This picture can be put online and viewed in a standard browser window and gives an excellent representation of how your website will eventually look. This is because a picture is quicker and easier to manipulate and modify than a webpage.
When a client is completely happy with the look and feel of the mockup picture, it is used in the building of a webpage template. Once the template is constructed, complete with a navigational system connecting the various pages and topics required by the client, content is added i.e. text, images and online forms etc.
As the website takes shape, it can be constantly monitored by the client online and minor adjustments made, until the client is happy to show the world. The entire website is then transferred to the hosting servers, and it becomes available via their chosen domain name.
With a Site Productions website you are getting an original, distinct Internet presence that will load quickly, with clean HTML code that is search engine friendly. If you want to present a professional web presence to the world, leave it all to the professionals.
Websites created and maintained by Rick Coleman and Site Productions
Images from www.highplaces.co.nz and www.highplaces.co.uk
Initial mockup picture for www.mapua.co.nz
Click for an example of a final mockup picture
Click here to see the finished article