Home › Services

Site Development

The biggest question on each client's mind is, "What's it gonna cost?"

Using a general rule-of-thumb, the process detailed below requires approximately 2 developer hours for general website setup, and approximately 1 hour per page. Not all websites share the same complexity (or simplicity), so this is a rough gauge. Feel free to use our web estimator to develop an on-line quote.

Remember, all content developed for you, is owned by you and can be duplicated or moved to another provider at your discretion.

Preparation is the Most Important Step

Preparing for your website is one of the most crucial steps. Poor preparation leads to dissatifaction with the site layout/content; thus requiring additional development time (money) to make changes.

Foxstone can assist you in each of these steps, but the primary responsibility in the preparation for your website lies with you, the website owner.

  • Domain Name - New sites need a name. If you do not have a domain name Foxstone will assist in choosing an appropriate name and will do the registration for you.

  • General Needs - Identify your overall requirements such as Shopping Cart, Database, User Logins, Photo Gallery, User Forum, Number of Pages, etc.

  • Storyboard - Similar to storyboarding a movie, you should outline what your menu items will be, what the pages they point to will say (text and graphics) and do.

  • Content Development - Your are the only one who knows what you want to say and what graphics to display. For each storyboarded page, organize all the text and graphics for input.
Website Motif (Look & Feel)

Choose the general look and feel of your website. This selection will carry through to all your pages.

Many clients start with our Template Wizard and either select a Template or use one as a starting point. Other clients will ask that their site be made to look or function similar to an existing website. Still others like to start from scratch with their favorite color scheme, corporate logo, and other graphics.

Foxstone will assist you with this process whichever path you choose.
Formatting and Publishing Your Content

The next step is preparing your graphics for the website and integrating them with the textual content.

Generally, grapics and photographs will need to be scanned, resized, optimized, or enhanced (sharpened, drop shadow boxes, etc.) for publication on the web. Text and graphics are then published for your review.

After the initial input, those sites with Content Consoles will have the ability to make future changes in the WYSIWYG editor. For those with more advance knowledge of the web, use of FTP and SH are always available.

Response Forms and More...

Response Forms (user fills in a form, submits, error checking take place, results sent to you) generally require 1.5 developer hours per form.

Most large add-on software packages such as User Forums, Picture Gallery, etc. are released under the GNU General Public license (GNU GPL) and are essentially free. You would pay for the developer time to integrate the software into your site.