Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What information will you need from me before you can create a site for me?

A. This depends entirely upon the complexity of the site. For a straight forward brochure ware, or static html site such as an escorts website, all we need to know is what pages you want on the site and the type of content you want on each page (genearlly a mixture of text copy and pictures).

For larger scale sites including membership, dating or online selling, then we will need to know what you want your website to be able to do. We refer to this as functaionlity and the more information you can provide us with the better. For a full guide on writing a website specification, please click here

Q. I know I need a website, but I have no idea where to start or even exactly what I need - can you still help?

A. YES. We don't aim to dazzle you with techno-babble and will endeavour to help you make decisions every step of the way, offering advice and expertise where needed. We are able to offer you a full requirements analysis service where we will assess your business's needs and will come up with a suitable web proposal. You don't need to know anything about IT, the internet or design to work with us!

Q. Why does a website from you cost more than an off the shelf or 'website in a box' package?

A. 'Website-in-a-box' packages offer a standard website package that you can customise yourself to give you what you want. Although creating your own website in this way can save you money in the short term, there a number of distinct limitations including;

By having a website professionally designed, you get a website that is 100% bespoke to your individual needs. You get to have as much or as little input into the project as you wish, but you certainly won't need to learn or indeed be expected to have any design or technical skills! Your website will be fully search engine optimised and manually submitted to the search engines and we can even copy write for you giving you a site that not only looks attractive and professional, but that is full of high quality, keyword rich copy.

Q. I already have a website but it needs some updating - do you offer that service?

A. YES. We will update website's with fresh content or with new graphics and navigation. All we ask is that we are given full access to the server by your ISP so we can update your pages. We'll need the address and a username and password before we can access your site on another ISPs server. For a quote please contact us directly with your requirements here

Q. Do you offer web hosting?

A. YES. Adult Web Designers/Wellymedia can host your website for you and can arrange all of this side of things for you.

Q. What is a domain name / What is a URL?

A. A domain name is the name that a business or individual uses to represent them on the internet. Your domain name forms the basis of your web address or URL i.e. www.yourbusiness.co.uk and you can choose from a variety of suffixes including .co.uk, .com, .info and so on.

Q. How do I get a domain name?

A. To obtain a domain name you first need to find a name that is free. Make sure that your chosen domain name is either your business name, or contains key words that will enable people to easily find your site. For example a cake shop called 'Hillaries Designs' might be better off with a domain name like www.hillariescakes.co.uk or www.cakeshop.co.uk as you can get a good idea of what the website is about just from the URL (this is particularly important if you are interested in your site getting listed with search engines).

Once you have found a domain name that is free (i.e. not registered by anyone else) you will need to purchase it. There are lots of companies that will register a domain name for you - you pay them a fee and they arrange the legal ownership.

To make things easier, for a little extra, we will register a domain(s) on your behalf and arrange annual hosting if required. If you would like to register you own domain name, we recommend the following:

Cheap Web Hosting & Domain Names from 123-Reg >>

Web hosting & Domain names from Brinkster >>

Q. I have a domain name but have been told I now need a host, is this right?

A. Once you have a domain name, if you are going to do anything with (i.e. have a website) and providing you didn't buy it as part of a hosting package then yes, you will need to find somewhere to 'host' your website. For this you need to find an ISP. As with domain name registrations, prices vary. Many people look to their existing service provider (the person who currently provides you with internet access via a modem or via broadband) for this service but looking around can save you money. Refer to 'Do you offer hosting?' above.

Q. How long will it take you to design my website?

A. This depends entirely upon the size and scope of the individual project. Once you have filled in a website brief form we will give you, as part of your quote, a timescale indication. We endeavour to be a flexible as possible and if you have a specific timescale in mind let us know and we will tell you if we think meeting your needs within that timescale will be possible or not.

Because of the way we work with our clients a lot of time can be taken up waiting for clients to approve various stages of design or to come back to us with amendments. The overall length of the project is heavily influenced by how quickly you communicate back to us and how quickly you are able to get content to us.

Q. What if I don't like the website you design?

A. To try and minimalise any nasty shocks we offer a pre-design service which means we provide you with 2 visual website mock-ups before we go ahead and build your site for real. This not only provides you with time to refine and amend your requirements, but it means the end product will be something you have had as little or as much input into creating as you want. Its surprising how many people think a green background, red text and a flashing logo will look nice - when we mock it up and they see what this actually looks like minds soon change! its a pretty extreme example but similar things frequently happen.

Q. Who owns the copyright of the website / logo?

A. Adult Web Designers retain full copyright over all images and graphics created on a clients behalf throughout the design and development process. We will pass over copyright to the client once full payment has been received. Once payment is received and with prior consent, all grapic design, logos etc become the property of the client at which time they are free to do whatever they wish with the the artwork.

A client may not take any of our designed templates to have the site built elsewhere, nor can they take any logos designed and doing so before payment, will be viewed as theft.

For more general information on Copyright and how it is applied and works visit; UK Copyright Factsheet or Copyright on the Internet

Q. What if I don't like the website mock ups?

A. The website mock-ups we present you will be based upon the information you have given us and our designers interpretation, taking into account a number of additional key factors including basic good design principles, competitor website's, market sector and so on. When it occurs that clients like neither of the proposed designs this is normally down to a lack of communication or wooly requests, however to date, this is not a situation that has ever arisen.

We give you the option of having as much or as little input into the site design as you want. We don't need you to be bursting with ideas, but if you are, we need to understand them so we can design to meet them. Often clients will like a combination of the two visuals, which is fine, and means a 3rd and final mock is created before progression onto building the website proper.

We aim to be helpful and flexible at every step of the way but 2 visual mock-ups is our normal maximum, with 1 revision on top of that if required. If you want more choice at the mock up stage just ask and we'll simply add a little onto your quote to cover this.

Q. What happens when the website is finished?

A. Once finished and approved we will send you your final invoice, normally, via email. Once payment has been received and cleared, we will either upload the website to the internet or if you prefer we will provide you with a copy of your website on disk. Once completed and paid for, the site is yours to do with as you wish.

Q. What are your payment terms?

A. Our terms dictate that we require payment within 10 working days of the date of all invoices. Any unpaid monies will result in your site being removed (i.e. taken down from the internet and a 'sorry this site is down for maintenance work' holding page will replace your website) or, your sites code and graphics will not be released to you until payment has been received in full.

Q. How do I know how many people are visiting my site?

A. For a small additional fee, we can add some code to your website that will add an invisible page counter. You will then be able to log into the tracking account and find out what your traffic is like and where it is coming from.

Q. I've had a website for a while now and am getting less than fifty visitors a week! Why?

A. Just because you have a website, it does not mean people are suddenly going to start visiting it! you need to tell people about it. Make sure you update all of your printed literature to include your URL, tell all your new customers about it and actively encourage use of your site to all existing customers. As well as marketing your website offline you can also do lots of things online to help increase traffic.

Visit message boards relating to your products/service and tell people to visit! Agree to exchange links or banners with other sites. Get your site listed in the many numerous paid and free internet directories that exist. Pay to advertise on portals...There are lots of things you can do, and Adult Web Designers/Wellymedia have more experience than most web designers in how to help you grow your online traffic, just let us know what your objectives are and we can develop a strategy to help you meet them.

Q. How do we go about starting the design process?

A. Once you have received our quote and have decided that you would like to use Adult Web Designers/Wellymedia, we will ask you a number of questions, the answers to which will allow us to formulate a full design and development spec which we will then share with you to ensure all plans meets with your full approval.

Once the design spec has been approved we will ask for a deposit. Once received, we will go on to create an agreed number of homepage visual mock-ups for you to choose from before we go on to build you website. Once your website is completed and approved, but before we put the site live, we'll invoice you for a second time and ask that the remaining balance is paid. As soon as the final payment is received your site will be released to you or put live on the internet.

Q. I have a website, but I can't find it in Google/Yahoo/AltaVista. Why is this?

A. Just having a website does not mean that you will automatically get listed in any search engines! To get listed in a search engine a number of factors come into play, including how new your website is, how your site was coded and put together (is it search engine friendly?), the market you operate within, the sites user friendliness and inbound and outbound links.

Also bear in mind that just because you can't see your site in the listings, It does not mean that your site isn't listed! Getting a top 5 or even a 1st page listing is almost unheard of for a new website (depending on competition) so don't expect your website to be the first thing that pops up when you do a search for it!

Q. How do I get my website to the 1st page of the search engines?

A. In years gone by, to get a good position in a search engine was relatively easy. You could employ a number of tricks of the trade to ensure your site was riding high, but along with the explosion in the number of website's and the diversity of subjects covered by website's, search engines have had to become ever more sophisticated in their ability to rank and filter their results.

Every UK and international search engine has a different set of rules that will determine how attractive or useful a site is in their eyes. Complex algorithms are in place that check a massive number of variants and each have an effect on the search engines perceived 'value' of your site. If your site is deemed highly relevant and valuable, then your site will be listed higher than a site of lower value.

Creating sites that are high in value is the Holy Grail of all Search Engine Optimisers. SEO is difficult because not only are there different rules for every search engine, the rules continually change, and keeping up to date with the best practice guidelines of the major engines is a full time task. Now, because there are different engines with different rules it is simply not possible to adhere to every rule - for example, whilst Google might specify 12 keywords in the META description, Yahoo might specify 14. Too few and your site is seen as 'less relevant' or 'valuable' too many and you can get marks against you for 'spamming'. SEO is a delicate balancing act and we can help tip the balance in your favour.

We'll look at the most prevalent rules and ensure your website adheres to them as closely as possible. We can't offer the impossible promise of a 1st place position, but we can ensure you website has a very strong, fighting chance to get listed and ranked well.

As well as many years of experience in this area Adult Web Designers/Wellymedia also use advanced page and website analysis tools that will crawl your site and pinpoint areas that can be improved, ensuring that when we have finished the SEO process the odds are stacked firmly in your favour!

Q. I've heard that sites don't need to be submitted to search engines as they will get listed anyway, is this true?

A. Yes, search engines do send out their 'robots' or 'spiders' all the time to roam the web and pick up new sites to add to the engines listings, but we always manually submit sites once they go live anyway, to ensure your site doesn't get missed.

Q. My site was submitted to Google/Yahoo/AltaVista a month ago and we are still not coming up in the search results. What's gone wrong?

A. Nothing has gone wrong. Yahoo and AltaVista routinely take around 4 months + before they will index a new website and since December 2004, Google typically takes between 3-4 months before it will list your site (though this can sometimes happen faster). You must be prepared to wait, and eventually, your site WILL get listed.

Whether your site comes up or not, also depends on the keywords you are using to search for your site. Whatever keywords you use, the site should be optimised towards these. The same words should appear in headings and text throughout your site and in hidden (META) content, expressly for the benefit of search engines. For this reason, we offer an additional Search Engine Optimisation service, normally taken as a secondary service where websites have been designed elsewhere, but included as standard in all of our website designs.

Although as standard your site from Adult Web Designers will be coded to ensure it is search engine friendly, further optimisation may be required in the future to help you improve your sites visibility.

For more information on search engine submissions and optimisation, visit search engine watch