Getting started with your website
So you want to get started… fantastic! There are a few things I’ll need from you in order to get underway.
Complete the design questionnaire
First of all, please download and complete my design questionnaire. (This is in rich text format and you should be able to open it with any word processing software, but if you have problems email me and I'll send it to you in plain text.)
Please complete the questionnaire in as much detail as possible. The more I know about you and your website requirements, the better equipped I'll be to provide you with your ideal website. Email the questionnaire back to me and I'll respond within a couple of days.
Pay your deposit
Once we've discussed the questionnaire and you've decided to go ahead, you'll need to pay a deposit of €200/$300. Payment is through PayPal using your account or any major credit card. Please note that this deposit is not refundable. I need to protect myself from time-wasters and ensure that I get paid for at least some of my time and effort should you decide to pull out before the project is completed.
Register your domain name and open a hosting account
If you haven't already registered your domain name, you should do so right away. I recommend using Go Daddy; they sell .com domains for just $9.00. Some other registrars charge $35.00 for exactly the same thing, so be careful where you buy!
For hosting, I highly recommend Hostgator. I use them for a number of websites, including this one. Their service and features are excellent and they have a very generous bandwidth allowance (important if you’re streaming a lot of audio or video on your site). Their "Baby" package is excellent value at $9.95 per month.
If you’d prefer to use a different host, that’s fine too. Please let me know before you sign up as I’ll need to make sure that they’re able to run the software I use. Be sure that you are signing up for either a Linux or Unix hosting account and NOT a Windows account.
Send me your photos and graphics
Next, I'm going to need some photos and graphics from you. To start with, I'll need several photos to use in the main website header and on the homepage. These should be high quality - poor quality photos will have a huge impact on the overall quality of your website. I highly recommend spending a little money on some professional shots if you can afford it.
If you have album artwork, a logo or other graphics you want me to work with, you should send me these now too. I'll be getting started on your design right away and will usually send you a couple of mock-ups with 7-10 days.
Gather together the rest your content
While I'm working on the mock-ups, you need to be getting together the rest of your content. It's worth putting a bit of time and effort into making all this as professional sounding as possible. If you have a PR person or someone who looks after your bookings and media enquiries, it might be worth asking them for some help.
This is what I'll need:
- Your biography and discography, plus individual band member bios if you want to include them
- A couple of recent new articles or press releases
- The songs and videos that you want to include on the site. Please specify which are to be downloadable and which are for streaming only. The songs much be in mp3 format and the videos must be in flv format. If you want to mail me any CDs or videos to convert for you, let me know and I'll give you my address.
- A selection of photos to add to your photo gallery. If you want to have different sections in your gallery, please specify which section the photo is to go in and also a caption, if appropriate. You don't need to send me all your photos, just enough to get the gallery built. You'll be able to add as many as you want later on.
- The information you want included on your contact page. People will be able to email you using a contact for, which enables you to keep your email address private. I'll need to know which email address to direct emails to. You might also want to include contact information for your PR person or record label.
You can send this to me in stages as you get it together, but it is important that I get everything from you as quickly as possible.
Completing the project
It usually takes me around 6 weeks to complete a website, but this is really just a rough estimate. It varies from project to project, depending on how much detail work is required and how many other projects I have on the go. If you have a specific deadline in mine, please discuss this with my before I start so that I can be sure that I'll be able to meet it.
Final payment
The balance of my fee is due on completion of your website, and again payment is through PayPal. As soon as I've received your final payment your website will go live and you can start telling the world about it!
If you have any questions at all about this process, please don't hesitate to email me.