Mark E. Buckley

Choosing a Web Site Design Team

As a business owner, you pride yourself on your individuality, your attention to detail, your ability to provide the highest level of customer service, and your cutting edge use of current methods and technologies. Your customers have come to expect these things from you. Don't you expect the same from those you hire to help you? Whether you are "subbing out" work to other contractors, sending out a job to a printer for an advertising campaign, or buying supplies and equipment from a vendor, don't you expect that they will give you the same kind of treatment you offer your customers?

In promoting your business on the internet, you will want your website to reflect your personality, your detail-orientation, the uniqueness of your business and your services. Of course, you do not want a "cookie cutter" version of what everyone else has. Of course, you want to feel confident that your site will meet or exceed current industry standards.

Unfortunately, many web site design/build firms are making false representations of their services. Words like "custom", "unique", and "individualized" are being used very loosely in these firms? advertising. To many site designers "custom" means that they have merely taken a template (a pre-designed program) and inserted your company's name and identifying information in the appropriate spots. This approach means that your website will look very much like many others out there. In fact, some site designers "specialize" in a "niche market", for example contractors, or martial arts schools. By "specializing" they can take two or three templates for that market, offer them as a "choice" to their clients, and insert the information. This approach is not much better than what you could do yourself (if you had the time) through an online service. What's worse is that, while this process only takes the design firm a couple of hours, they bill you as if they took ten hours to build you a custom site!

There are other, "behind the scenes" reasons why the cookie cutter approach to web site design is a bad idea. Think of it this way, if you pay someone to remodel your home and they throw something up quickly, they could make it "look good". You may be happy with the appearance of the final product. But, if the quality of the workmanship and materials are poor, you are sure to experience problems later on.

We pride ourselves on honesty and integrity. We will not build you a "cookie cutter" website. We strive to use only the most current methods in building your site, and we will be honest about how many hours were put in to customize your site.

-Janet