1. Chimpy Design Studios DOES NOT have any hidden fees. The price we agree on is the price you pay. The end.
2. You, the website owner, will have the opportunity to learn basic html so that you may manage your website after the design process.
3. We will keep your completed website files stored on a disc in case you need to revert back at some point due to a mistake or change in hosting providers. You will also receive a copy of these files on disc.
4. Chimpy Design Studios wants to help you. This is a very sincere statement.
5. Flash Websites Will NOT be designed by Chimpy Design Studios. You want a website that search engines can find and crawl. Flash limits those capabilities and we will not let you waste money.
6. Honesty is very important to the success of Chimpy Design Studios and your small business. We'll always be honest with you.
7. Your website will be very well optimized for search engine rankings before going live. We will work with you to develop the necessary content to achieve the best optimization possible.
8. We will help you.

Chimpy Design Studios is in business for one reason and one reason only; we enjoy helping people. We help people by offering affordable website solutions to their growing business and we'd love to help you, too. We can help by making sure your website performs well for you. This is what a website should do:

1. represent your small business accurately and effectively
2. build a sense of professionalism for your small business
3. be easily found and indexed by search engines, which directly relates to people
4. work for you, not against you
5. provide a simple to navigate and easy to understand information platform for your customers
6. communicate your company's purpose and capabilities
7. offer another method of communication with customers

Today, so many web designers are using Flash to build websites, and while we all agree that Flash can be fun, it's not a good fit for many end users... meaning, Flash is fun but it doesn't meet the requirements above. In order to meet these basic requirements many times a designer will create two websites for the client (and charge their client twice, too), a Flash website and an HTML website. Once the website address is typed into the web browser the user will have to make a choice. Do I want to see the Flash site or the low bandwidth HTML site?

Many times, the HTML site is the preferred choice. Some times, the HTML site is the only logical choice due to browser restrictions and/or other limitations determined by a plethora of possibilities like connection speed, plug-ins, and processing speeds. It sounds like a lot of unnecessary extra work and money to have a Flash website, right? Right. Not only that, but forcing your website visitors to make a choice before they even get to the information they seek is not very intelligent. So, why do people have Flash websites?

Technological advances is the answer to why so many people want a Flash website. Many people believe that the newer the technology, the better everything will be. In many cases, they're right, such as when you buy the newest cell phone model or upgrade to Blu-Ray from standard DVD. But when it comes to designing entire websites using Flash, wrong is the first word that comes to mind. Don't tell them that however, because they are certain they did the right thing by taking the second mortgage out on their home to pay for their website design.

For the reasons expressed above, Chimpy Design Studios does not design Flash Websites.

Many Web Design companies charge an additional per page or hourly fee for Search Engine Optimization. Chimpy Design Studios includes Search Engine Optimization at no additional charge. What is Search Engine Optimization? We're glad you asked.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it's commonly referred to, is the process of making sure each web page is at its best for the search engines to read and add to their results. An example of good SEO is the website SKIPcares.org. If you type military care packages into Google's Search Engine, you will see SKIPcares.org ranks near the very top of more than 3-million results. Wouldn't you like to see your website rank near the top of common search queries like that? It can.

Search Engine Optimization is all about trial and error. You'll never reach 100% optimization for a web page, but you can definitely try and you can spend hours or even days working on one page and a month later go back to it again because you're still not ranked high enough for the search query you entered. Plus, there's a lot more to SEO than just your web page

Search engines take several factors into consideration when pulling from their list to show you the results. They examine domain longevity, one-way (non-reciprocal) links coming to the domain, popularity among web users, and quality of the content on your page. For example, you could have your web page 99.9% optimized for a very popular search phrase, but if you're site isn't popular enough or have enough incoming links it still won't rank anywhere the top 100 results. So, how can your website earn a top ranking position? Slowly and steadily. It has taken SKIPcares.org about a year to reach the top 20 for most mission-related popular search queries.

What we recommend for all newcomers is that you start SEO by signing up for as many social networking sites as you can and in your profile list your new website as your website. Every time you do this, you're adding a new link and another opportunity for the search engines to find your new site. Once you've done that, make some friends on the social networking sites and post a link to your new website on their page. Don't spam people, but you can send a link with something you believe they might be interested in. For example, let's say you just made a new friend on your favorite social networking site. You want them to get to know you quickly and what better way than by providing them a direct link to your new website full of information about you and your start-up small business? That's another incoming link.

There's a lot more to getting high rankings in search results, but hopefully you now understand some of the basics.

We encourage you to look at what other designers can do for you and compare that to what we will do for you. When designing your website, we'll make sure you are set-up for success. In fact, we'll even help you learn how to manage your website, and continue helping whenever you need it. To do this, we provide each client an introduction packet complete with log-in information for managing your website, some basic HTML examples, and tips for improving your search engine rank.

Chimpy Design Studios encourages you to experiment with your website. Yes, it's true, we love it when our clients get their hands dirty with HTML. And you can experiment without concern because if you make a mistake and need our help to fix it, we'll repair the mistake and tell you where the problem was so that you can continue learning and experimenting. Most website design companies will offer similar assistance, but only if you're willing to pay them by the hour. Chimpy Design Studios will repair or update your new website once a month at absolutely no additional charge. Updates/repairs beyond once a month^* are only charged $25 per hour and we don't set a minimum requirement. In other words, if the repair or update takes 15 minutes to complete, you will only be billed $6.25.

^* Any repair requiring less than 15 minutes to complete is always free.

Management of your website can be handled by us. If you do not like the idea of managing your own website, we can do it for you following the same rates as mentioned in the paragraph above: 1 free update each month and $25 an hour thereafter. Compare that to most other website design services and you'll be amazed at how low our rates are, guaranteed.

Chimpy Design Studios keeps our rates so low by keeping our costs low. In other words, this is a 2 person company and we work from home, and we only get paid for design/management work. Therefore, if we're not working on a project for a client we're actively looking for clients and not getting paid.

Jobs that we cannot handle in-house, i.e. advanced PHP or Javascript coding, we bring on a specialist for by taking bids for the job. We hire specialists based on skill level and bid price. The unfortunate side to this is that because our rates are so low, if we need to hire a specialist you, our client, will have to pay the specialist's fees. That's why we always seek the best bid price for the skill level we need. Although most small business websites will not need to worry about this, we feel it's important information to share up front.

When we begin designing your website we will start by collecting information. The information we collect will be about your business and your competition, popular search phrases for your type of business, the leading businesses for those search phrases, and your exact wants and needs for your website. This information is crucial to the development/design process and may take 1-2 weeks to complete depending on your wants/needs and your website's competition gunning for the top 10 results with the search engines. By the end of this phase, we'll be ready to plan the structure of your website and develop content for your pages.

Page content is the most important element of the design. Our goal is to make sure your page content (the words on the page) for each web page meets the optimal requirements for the top search phrases you choose based on the results we pooled from collecting information. The requirements will be different for every page and the content must also be different for every page, but no matter how long this process takes we'll work with you every step of the way.

Let's say you want a website with the following pages: Home, About Us, Our Products, Store Locations, Contact Us. We've already developed the content for each page and we're ready to start designing the layout or design of your website when you realize we've left out a very important page: Mailing List. No problem. You can introduce a new page at any time during the construction process. We'll pause the current progress long enough to gather the information and get the content written, then add your new page to the design. If the entire site is designed before adding the new page, that's okay too; we'll follow the same process.

Designing your website is the fun part. During this stage we'll provide you with a basic layout (wire frame) that you get to provide feedback for. Once we agree on the wire frame we'll add some life to the party with graphics (your logo, photos, etc), fonts, and colors. Again, you'll have the opportunity to provide feedback. Finally, we'll add the content and once you approve the entire website, we'll upload it to your server and verify that everything's working the way it's intended to work.

At the end of the design process we will mail you a copy of your entire website on disc and we'll retain a copy of it just in case we need to revert back to the original content/design.

Practical Approach to Designing Websites

Phase 1: Compile Information
Phase 1 is the most important part of designing your website. During this phase we will collect as much information as possible from you about your business. This includes any photos, logo, and other graphics that you wish to see on your new website. If you do not have any images to provide us, we will use stock photos as placeholders throughout the design process until you can provide the images you want. We will also ask for a copy of your business plan. If you do not have a business plan, we highly encourage you to create one, but a detailed description of your business will be acceptable to get us started. By detailed description, we mean at least 2 pages and preferably more.

Once we have the information we need about your business, we'll compare that to other similar businesses with active websites. We will utilize that information to help set the stage for developing your website content and links. Our goal is that your website will eventually outrank your competition using generic key phrases. For example, if you are opening a kiosk at your local mall that sells brand name sunglasses, we want your website to rank in the top ten results when someone searches for sunglasses your town. If you are starting a high-end art gallery that you expect most of your customers to discover via the Internet, we'd want to get your website ranked in the top ten results for art gallery online. Depending on the competition for the search phrases we're optimizing your website for, you may see the top ten results quickly or it might take months to even come close. We don't control that, but we will provide you with some useful tips that may speed up the process.

Phase 2: Secure Good Web Hosting
We don't do web hosting, but we know of a few good companies that do. You can find our recommended Web Hosting companies listed on the resources page. We can however, relieve the stress from you by walking you through the process or taking care of everything for you. If you want Chimpy Design Studios to register your website with the Web Hosting company of your choice, we will bill you in advance for the registration fee(s). Chimpy Design Studios does not charge anything extra if you want us to register your website, but we will need payment for the Web Hosting company before we can register your website. All payment processing on ChimpyDesign.com is done through PayPal or Google Checkout – 2 very respected and secure companies who handle payment transactions with ease.

Phase 3: Content Ideas and Site Map
Using the information you've provided us, the information we compiled about your competition, and your new website address, we'll begin breaking everything into segments for individual web pages. We may need to add some text or remove some text in order to meet optimization requirements for the key phrases we're looking for high results with, but once we have finished we'll send a map of your website pages and text for each page to you for review. While waiting for your approval, we'll move onto the next phase.

Phase 4: Basic Page Design
The basic page design, or wire frame, is primarily image and text free, but it will show you where your website navigation will go, fonts and font colors, header and footer, advertisements if desired, and where the primary text body will be. Basically, this will be the custom template that we will build your entire website from. All we're seeking here is approval for fonts and basic layout. Background colors/images and all the fancy stuff comes later.

Phase 5: Basic Website Layout
Again, we will have limited text and graphics, but we'll build a page that will represent basically how your website will look to visitors with backgrounds. Once you approve this we'll move onto Phase 6.

Phase 6: Finalize Content
When we reach this phase you know we're getting close to launching your new website. This is the phase that we finalize all of the text that you'll have on your website. Again, we'll work very hard to make sure each page is optimized for search engines before sending the website link to you for testing website flow and reviewing any content changes.

Phase 7: Finalize Design
We'll finish the design including your images and any added features. This is your last opportunity to make any changes before your website becomes visible to the world. So, look through it carefully for typos, image placement, etc before approving the design.

Phase 8: Upload the Website
Your website will go live and be available to the world. We will need FTP and/or control panel access for the web hosting company you choose. Before this phase, we'll tell you exactly what we need access to.

Phase 9: Accessing Your Website
We will teach you, if necessary, how to access your administrative files for updating your pages.

Your marketing platform is the crucial element to drawing traffic to your website, building your professional appearance in your community, and keeping your customers coming back for more. Chimpy Design Studios is always learning new marketing methods because that's what we focus on. You should be focused on building a following for your business and retaining that following for years to come. Your website can help attract new customers, but only if your current customers and new prospects know how to find you. That's where Chimpy Design Studios comes in.

Every client we accept for website design projects has the opportunity of working with Chimpy Design Studios to develop a marketing platform strong enough to build onto and flexible enough to make your own. This platform is all about the basics, what you need and where you need it. For example, if you own a small diner you'll need business cards and maybe some fliers to give customers advertising your website and that you now accept call ahead take-out orders. The full menu is on your website complete with prices and the phone number to call for your customers to place their order. If your webpage is optimized for call ahead take-out orders along with your town/city name you'll be drawing some traffic to your website and hopefully building a larger dedicated following to your diner.

As you saw in the example above, it doesn't take tens of thousands of dollars to launch a solid marketing campaign. The business cards might cost you $50-75 for 1,000 plus $10 for the design, and the fliers you can get 1,000 black and white copies at a local copy center for 10-cents per page with 2 fliers per page totaling $50 plus $15 for the design. Your 5-page website design, if done by Chimpy Design Studios, cost you $250, and your website hosting fees are $100 a year. On the high-end, that's less than $500 to design and launch your first campaign. And the best part, this campaign could continue for days, weeks, months, or even years without changing a thing.

There are companies out there who specialize in marketing. Many of them will say you need to invest more money than you have before they can help you. Then, because you don't have the money, the best advice they can offer is to contact them again when you do have the money. That's customer service at its best and helpful advice, right? Well, Chimpy Design Studios isn't one of those specialized marketing companies, but we won't close the door on you either. We will help you even if you don't have much money to invest in marketing. That's customer service at its best, and we'd like to meet the person who disagrees.

What we won't do is:

• Ask you to spend more money than you have
• Tell you that the best way to raise money is to spend money on expensive advertising
• Provide you with useless facts about how successful our services have been for million-dollar companies
• Tell you to come back later

What we will do is:

• Ask you to advertise yourself
• Tell you about low-cost alternatives to high-cost advertising
• Provide useful resources to you for growing your small business
• Tell you the truth

A Realistic Approach

Let's take a closer look using a pretend company
Company Name:	Elegant Sand Castles, Inc.
Purpose/Mission:	Custom sand castles for weddings and corporate events.
Location:	Miami, FL
Website Address:	SomeWebsite.com
Marketing Budget:	$450

Elegant Sand Castles only has $450 to invest in marketing and they need that to stretch for at least 3 months. They've come to Chimpy Design Studios for help.

At first glance you're probably thinking, that's impossible, but what you're missing is that Chimpy Design Studios loves this type of client and yes, we can help. In fact, we've decided to make a deal with Elegant Sand Castles, inc. and we're going to design their 10-page website for $100 now and in 3 months they'll pay us the remaining balance of $250. This leaves them with $350 today to pay for other things. So, we get them set up with a good web hosting company that charges them $100 for the year and they're down to $250 for 3 months of marketing. Your run of the mill marketing company would laugh at them, but we're here to help.

Like the remaining website balance, we agree to bill them for business card and flier designs in 3 months and we design 2 variations of business cards and 1 flier. So, in 3 months they'll be billed for a total of $285 to finish paying us for our services. Notice, we're not charging them for support along the way... Elegant Sand Castles is only paying for the design work, as agreed. No client will be billed for our support.

Elegant Sand Castles is a new company that has limited capabilities to reach potential high profile clients, so we ask them to get their friends and family involved in the process. Friends and family, we explain can be the most powerful marketing tool you have at your disposal. Ask them to place a link on their social networking profiles for your new website. Ask them to bring some of your fliers and business cards to work with them and give them away like candy. Be honest with them and they'll do whatever they can for you. 250 copies of the flier are distributed to friends and family at a cost of $18. 1000 business cards of each design are printed for $120. A business card is stapled to each of the 250 fliers given to friends and family.

Oh no, there's only $112 left of the $450 marketing budget! That's okay, we're going to do some free marketing now.

The owner of Elegant Sand Castles is encouraged to sign up for numerous free social networking websites. Use these websites for what they are, social networking. Your objective is to raise eyebrows and get people to check out your website. After a few coaching sessions, Elegant Sand Castles starts making some great connections for corporate events and a few potential wedding customers. But, after a couple of weeks nobody has hired them.

Let's mix things up. Since Elegant Sand Castles is a business that really should be promoted outdoors, we encourage them to go to the beach and take some business cards with them. Their new objective, build a sand castle that draws a crowd and maybe even creates a buzz on social networking websites. You'd be amazed how many people will post a message from their cell phones... you know, those same cell phones that can attach a photo to their social networking post. By the end of the day, the owner of Elegant Sand Castles is exhausted from answering questions about the business and giving out business cards like they were candy. But, it worked and plans have been made to return the following weekend, this time with 250 fliers that cost $18 to print, and is repeated once a month thereafter.

Three months later, Elegant Sand Castles still has $48 of the original $450 marketing budget and has their third job booked for next weekend. The local news station really helped out when they came to the beach the second month and interviewed the owner, saying how original this business is and referring people to the website for more information. The local papers picked up on the story too, but they didn't tell people how to get more information. And of the hundreds fliers and business cards given out at the beach, only 2 people followed through with their promise, but the sand castles at their events were amazing!