I have narrowed down the companies I will likely be using to create by web site and database and was wondering if anyone has heard of them. Maybe someone else has had a good or bad experience with them? Golden State Communications http://www.goldencomm.com/ topLingo http://www.toplingo.com/index.aspx Orange sites http://www.orangesites.com/ Regency Web Services, Inc http://www.regencyweb.com/ Caliber Media Group http://www.calibermediagroup.com/index.php Too bad there isn't some online database of web developers and their skills and ratings from those who have used them. Maybe one of you should develop that site
Hi A general rule of thumb I use is the display page validation with firefox web dev toolbar, website companies should at least have perfect validation on their own websites plus their customer websites should also validate, especially if they are also putting validation links on their sites. Then if ok look to their quality. Of course you may have different criteria for looking for a good company but in this day and age if their own sites do not validate then this cannot help to push their products/services forward. Overall the quality looks good from those sites but bear in mind the validation issues and if you feel this is an important enough quality that you want to promote as part of your business. Also stay away from table layout designs, lots of inline styling, nasty.
Thanks. One problem that I am finding is that even the high priced companies seems to have bugs on their sites or have sites that are ugly or annoying to use. Much of their portfolio looks better, but even then I see problems. If it was just one company that was like this I would move on, but it is so many of them. I don't know if this is a reflection of the client they were working with, or the lack time time they put in their own page, but it is very unnerving to think they didn't catch this broken links and bugs that I see right away on their own sites. How are they going to make mine work?
I know what you mean, it is like its acceptable or something like that (to a certain point it can be but then if your looking to conform then thems the rules), cannot see the rationale behind that though. As I said if its not a great concern then you could always fix the issues yourself but then that kind of defeats getting them to do it in the first place. If you were keen on a particular company I would email them and state your concerns, if they want your business then they will make it their duty to abide by your wishes.
Ask to talk to their customers. Ask how many of their customer's sites have an Alexa ranking better than 1000000. The only company I know that does is SBI. (35%) of 110000 sites.
don't forget different sites have different goals and measurements for success and not solely judged by an Alexa or any ranking for that matter, it is sure nice to have a good ranking if you can get it but a lot of that also has to do with good content and community spirit
This is easy. Ditch the companies altogether - you'll pay far more, and end up with a so-so job. First, get a design. Here is a good place. Or find yourself a freelance designer who creates designs you like, post on DP, TFL, WTF and quite a few will show you their portfolio. Bryan's designs are liked by a few people around the place. Next, you need the HTML and CSS. Give Dan a buzz. Rule of thumb is to stay away from the PSD to HTML type places, many of them aren't very good for the price. You'll then have a working homepage - you just have to get all the pages put together. Its not that hard (and hence you don't need to hire anyone super awesome) so you'd be looking $5-$10 per page. Design price is up to you, I'd go $100-$400. Coding will be around $100-$300. Domain, quality hosting for a year $100. So $800 tops for a full, awesome website - not by some stock design which is then coded using some WYSIWYG editor, then thrown on their overloaded, slow server. If all of that sounds like too much effort, its easy enough to hire a project manager which basically takes care of everything (you just need to talk to the designer to get the design you want, they'll take care of everything else)
The problem is, I am not looking for just a web page. I have my own site in mind and it is not something that has been done before. It will need to be an entirely new design.
These Design companies usually have some type of Portfolios to show their latest/past work. If they don't, they really don't seem to reliable.
All the more reason to not use design firms. Most do the same type of site over+over as their clients are mainly have the same needs.