Cloud Islands

A: There is a general process we will follow when creating your Project, which is similar for websites, print materials, and advertising content:

First Draft or Mockup:

• Based upon the Project outline, meetings, email, and the content you provide for us, we create a draft (for text) or a mockup (for web pages, printed materials, ads, etc.)
• We send you the draft and ask for changes or your final approval
• You either request that we change something or you give us your final approval

First Round of Changes:

• If you request changes, we revise according to your requests and send the revised draft or mockup back to you. At that time, we ask if there are any more changes or if you are ready to give your final approval.
• Once again, you can request changes or give us your final approval.

Second Round of Changes:

• We make the requested changes and send the second revision back to you. At this point, we've gone through two rounds of changes.
• You may request that we continue to make revisions or changes, but after this point we may charge you extra for changes, based on time and materials.

This process allows us to work with you to refine your design and helps to keep the Project on time and within budget.

A: Content is the “stuff” we use to create a website, brochure, press release, business card, storefront sign, etc. Content consists of words and pictures, including photographs or graphics. If you don't have any “stuff,” don't panic! Helping you create the content that best represents your business is a large part of what we do.

For example, if you don't have the time to write text, we will interview you and our copywriter will write text designed to present your business most effectively to clients. If you already have text but it needs to be edited, updated, expanded, or optimized for search engines, that is another service Cloud Islands provides. If you have photographs we can optimize them for your website. If you need photographs, we can take them for you, help you find a photographer, or locate stock images to use. If you have an old logo we can update it; if you need a new one we can create it.

Ultimately, we rely on you to help us create or collect the material that goes into your website, your brochure, your press release, or your ad. When we create a price estimate in the Project Outline, it is based on the assumption that you will be providing us with most of the raw material we need, and that it will be in a suitable electronic format. If we need to write most of your text, re-type the text because it isn't in a suitable electronic format, or create scans of images that aren't in an electronic format, we may charge extra for those services at our usual hourly rate.

A: Absolutely! Websites can stop working because of a problem with the web host, hackers, or other unforeseen circumstances. It’s absolutely critical to keep an up-to-date backup copy of your website files in a safe place. Therefore, once we’ve finished your website, we’ll provide you with a copy of your website on CD or DVD, including all relevant HTML and CSS files, images, and scripts.

If Cloud Islands is going to be updating and maintaining the website, we will keep two up-to-date backup copies of the website files and data as follows: one copy on a hard disk drive in our office, and one copy stored offsite with an online data hosting provider.

If you will be updating and maintaining your website yourself, you will be solely responsible for backing up all website files and data. In addition, if you’re updating your website and you break something, we have to charge you to fix it.

A: That's called a domain name, and it's a fairly simple process for securing one. First you have to make sure that no one else is using the name you want to use; like a phone number, a domain name has to be unique. Once you've found a unique domain name, you must register it and pay a small annual fee to hold that registration. As long as you pay the registration fee, the domain name is yours.

We use Namecheap as our domain registrar. You can search for a possible domain name on their site and then register it. Their prices aren't as low as some other domain registrars, but the reason we like Namecheap is that they don't try to sell you a lot of additional services you don’t want. You just set up an account and they leave you alone.

If you don't want to be bothered with searching and registration, we can do that for you and simply send you the bill.

A: There are several disadvantages to using free website space. One, you often can get only a really convoluted address such as: www.comcast.net/~bobbymcgee/home.htm. Now how easy is that to remember? And what’s that little squiggly thing? And why does it sometimes come out as www.comacst.net/%7bobbymcgee/home.htm?

Free web spaces are often severely limited in the amount of storage and bandwidth you get. They also don't support useful technologies like PHP and MySQL which make software like WordPress available to you.

All these annoyances (and more) can be avoided by registering your own domain name and hosting your own website. It's very inexpensive for the domain—around $12 per year—and the monthly web hosting fees are reasonable too.

A: While Cloud Islands doesn't provide hosting, leaving that chore to reliable web hosting companies which are much more efficient and inexpensive at providing hosting than we could be, we do recommend a secure and reliable web host for your site. Cloud Islands is hosted by Laughing Squid, and most of our clients use them, too. They're a small company run by great folks—they offer outstanding service at very competitive prices and their quick personal response to any questions you might have is among the industry's best.

A: Like many clichés, it's often true that you get what you pay for. The budget webhost/domain registrar/template warehouses may be cheap, but there's a price to pay for the low cost. By having your domain registration and your webhost locked together, you lose the flexibility to change webhosts if you decide you want to do so later on. Most package deals only give you the ultra-cheap price on your domain registration if you also have your website hosted there. These companies keep the price down by keeping the volume high and the overhead low; that means lots of people sharing servers, with very few customer service reps.

In the worst-case scenario, you'll get a disreputable registrar who will sell your domain out from under you. This has happened—really!

And don't get us started on templates! If you want your website to look like 10,000 other identical sites, then a template is probably just the ticket. If, however, you want your site to be unique and to reflect the character and style of your business, organization, or idea, then a template just won't do.

A: When we set up your webhost for your new website, we will also set up one or more email addresses for you. It's helpful to have more than one email address so that you can direct email to the appropriate place and also to thwart spammers. For example, you'll probably want a personal address, like BobbyNorton@mygreatco.com. However, you may not want to use this email address except for personal contacts so as to protect it from spammers. You can set up other more anonymous accounts like inquiries@mygreatco.com or supportstaff@mygreatco.com. Note: We recommend you avoid using common names like sales@mygreatco.com or info@mgreatco.com; these addresses are particularly vulnerable to spam.

A: As we use the term, “identity” refers to every element of design. These elements need to work together to create a singular image for your company or group. Your logo is typically the most visible sign of your identity, but color combinations, typefaces, and a unifying overall style all contribute to making sure you stand out from the crowd.

A: Cloud Islands has established business relationships with several printers whose work and delivery schedules we know through personal experience to be reliable and of the highest quality. We are always happy to recommend such businesses to you or to work with them as your representative.

A: If your goal is to attract visitors to your website with the purpose of converting them into clients or customers, you will need to have a planned campaign to build your business's visibility online and throughout the community which you are trying to reach. (Note that community can be both the physical community within which you live and work as well as the online community of people who might be interested in your product or services.) A Marketing Plan lays out in explicit detail the kinds of things that can be done to increase your visibility.

A Marketing Plan includes (but is not limited to): blogging, writing reviews, using email signatures, leading and participating in user groups, issuing press releases, giving workshops, creating relevant link exchanges, listing your business with the Open Directory Project, and optimizing your site’s content for search engines.

A: Absolutely! You can not only find out how many visitors you have at any given time, you can know where they come from, what search words they use to look for your site, how long they stay on a particular page, what search engines they're using, and more! All Cloud Islands designed websites are created to take full advantage of Google Analytics, a free program which gathers the kind of information described above so that you can learn what is and is not working about your website. We provide clients with our experience in reading and interpreting Analytics in order to make everything on your site as effective as possible.