Web Design Services

There are many people who call themselves as Professional Web Designers just because they own/pirate some web publishing software.

At HamaraShehar.com, we take your project seriously and work on them as sincerely as we work on our own company projects. We want our customer to be successful on the Internet, without which we can not be in this business. Most of our orders are repeated orders from existing customers for their various business units and new business plans. We've survived through the dotCom bust era because of our technical expertise, customer service, business ethics and professionalism. As you notice in our slogan, we want to be your partner in digital revolution.

We have over 80 man-years of experience and executed eCommerce projects in 1994 itself when the Internet was infancy status. We have expertise in the latest technologies and unlike other companies, our CEO himself is an expert in web technologies. We've invested in the best Web design software on the market and upgrade them quickly, and more importantly, we know how to make use of them effectively to give you the results you want. Unlike other web design companies, over the years, we have developed several software in-house to optimize the websites, to enforce company quality standards, to test as per international standards & deploy web projects into production servers and even to automate repeated tasks.

In addition, since we operate a small business with approximately 40 staff, we are able to give each and every customer the personalized attention they deserve. We interview 200 plus candidates a year and recruit just 1-2% of the interviewed candidates, which clearly indicates how much we value good skills and professionalism of the staff.

We are a full web service provider under a single roof.

Website a new sales channel to your business which works 24 hours a day 7 days week irrespective of whether you are on vacation or busy with something. When you open an office or showroom, did you do all of the interior decoration by yourself or some one with no-brand? I am sure you spend lot of resources and got it done in the right way by highly qualified professionals. You did that because, that office/ showroom is the one that gets customers or sends them away. No matter how great products or services that you have, that office or showroom is very important. Isn't it?

Note that, you have some people working in that office or showroom to interact with customers where as on the website, it has to do on its own without a live person in the website, since it is virtual showroom or sales office. Just imagine how many efforts your sales person puts to convince the customer about your products and services, which the website has to do by itself without any human presence which indicates how much responsibility a website has and how important it is for your business.

Do you really want such a highly important task for your business, which is the heart of your complete internet sales channel for the whole world which should work 24 hours a day 365 days a year, get it done by a fresh college graduate or freelancer? Even though I am highly a qualified professional with noted experience in these services, I did not do HamaraShehar.com myself, rather our office did it by taking it as if it is a customer project and by going through all the international standards and our company strict quality control process, because it is important to our business.

Website is the image you present to the Internet world. Either it brings more customers or even turns them away forever based on what and how you present it to the customer. If you think you have a great brand offline and can afford to have any kind of website, you are wrong. Having a great brand offline and lousy website will turn away the smart customers who use latest technology. They not only skip buying via your website since they know that you are not competitive in using latest technology effectively, they may also turn away from buying offline thinking you are still using ages old technology in all aspects of your company operations or they think you are technophobia

When you hire HamaraShehar.com, you can peacefully focus on your core business while leaving your online business strategy to the experts.

Yes, you can do it yourself or get it done in-house if you feel you are able to accomplish the things listed here on getting successful on the Internet. However, we strongly suggest enlisting the talents of a professional.

Your Website is your "24x7 salesperson to the whole world.” It is the only persuasive element of your website. Website content--if written properly--is what reaches your customers on a personal level and shows them how you are the solution to their problems. Words are our sole source of communication. They trigger our emotions and are the defining factor in most of our decisions (especially our buying decisions). A professional copywriter understands how to blend emotion, the communication style of your target customer, and the details and facts about your business into a harmonic flow that is well received by your clients and triggers a desire to buy.

In addition, if good search engine positioning is of importance to you, you need to realize that the selection of effective keywords and delicate balance of keyword saturation in your copy is absolutely vital to success.

For Web design, we use Macromedia Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver generates very clean HTML code that meets W3C validation standards compared to other products. In addition, we also use several in-house developed software to fine tune the code and to make sure it meets our company web design standards.

For Web graphics, we use Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Fireworks and Macromedia Flash, because they provide clear, compressed graphics that load fast so as not to keep your visitors waiting. Unlike the competition and freelance web designers, we use all licensed software.

The reason that we don't use Microsoft FrontPage (FP) is because it generates a lot of HTML code that is only recognized by the Internet Explorer browser. That means that a site built with FrontPage will often display beautifully in Internet Explorer (as both FrontPage and Internet Explorer are owned by Microsoft), but will be a jumbled, unreadable mess in the Netscape or FireFox browser.

Cross-browser compatibility is very important and your website should look same as you intended across a variety of browsers. We design websites in Macromedia Dreamweaver and tweak it to make sure it looks and works same across all popular browsers.

No professional web designing company uses Microsoft Word for web design. It is only good for converting documents to quick-and-dirty HTML. When customers give documents in MS-Word, we convert it to HTML using MS-Word and then use our in-house software to clean it up and use Dreamweaver to work on it.

Unlike other web design companies who hide their pricing, create arbitrary quotes based on how much they'd like to make, or charge monthly fees for life; we are honest and up front about our pricing structure. Nothing you don't want or need is forced upon you. You'll have a clear understanding of the cost before the project begins and no surprises when you receive the final invoice.

Please see our Web Design Packages for a wide variety of packages and custom website fees.

It varies from website to website based on the requirement. In the initial consultation, we will provide you the timeline estimates for your project.

If you have the content for your site written before the design process begins, it will help in completing the project quickly. Content should be in electronic format. Not having your copy completed before the design process can significantly delay the completion of your website.

Once the final payment is received, you will receive 100% ownership of your Website.

Once you place the web design order, customer service representative will be in touch you. Project Manager for your project also will also work with you closely. Account executive will be in contact with you all the time.

We'll make as many changes as necessary until it meets your approval. We do ask for a final approval to the design before adding the text and content to the pages.

Yes, however any major changes to the website template which triggers changes in other pages, after you have approved the draft will be charged separately unless you have a yearly maintenance contract signed with us. Minor changes which take less than an hour work are done at free-of-cost, but any work that takes more than hour will be charged separately.

We completely guarantee our design work. After viewing the initial draft(s), if you are not satisfied and we offer revisions based on your feedback. If you are not satisfied even after revisions and wish to discontinue work, we will refund 100% of your deposit. Please note that, all the work done by us until that point is owned by us and you can not use it in any manner without our explicit permission.

Please see "The web design process—Your web site the way you want it" which has detailed explanation.

Yes, you own the website and you can make changes at any time if you wish. You need to have a licensed copy of a Web design software and know how to transfer files to and from your live website (which are included in our website hosting setup documentation that is sent to you at the time of hosting).

As we designed you website, it would be easy for us to do changes and you may want to sign-up for one of the website maintenance contracts as appropriate to you. Maintenance contract is a separate service and is NOT mandatory to get web design service from us.

We also offer some good online tools (add ons) to help you with content and picture changes on your website. You might ask for more details if you're planning to update your website yourself. If you're getting a eCommerce or database solution from us, those tools give you a back-end where you can define and update content on your website fairly easy.

We receive 50% of your estimated total as a deposit prior to beginning work. We accept cash (if the amount is less than Rs 10,000), check, Demand Draft, online transfer to our HDFC or ICICI bank account and all popular credit cards including Visa, Mastercard, Discover, American Express through PayPal and Google Checkout and PayPal payments as well. The final payment is due immediately upon completion of the project.

If you have decided you want a website or have any questions, simply fill out our web design quote request form to start the process.

That would depend on the goals of your web site. If you run a business website you would include as much information about your products or services that your customers would need to purchase from you. Web design articles section has detailed information on recommended content for several industries.

Page layout is the geometry of a page. It will help us to define how many regions will appear and how they are visually organized.

Building a website without the website architecture its like building a house without a blueprint. We need to write on paper your ideas with our knowledge and suggestions before we start coding. We'll then code as planned. Otherwise imagine how difficult it might be for an architect to add or remove columns to a house and how expensive it might also be for you to pay for materials and resources each time the architect add or remove a new column. When we keep things organized it helps the process to get it complete quickly.

That's an acronym that means Cascading Style Sheet. CSS allows web designers to attach styles (fonts, colors, size, margins, etc.) to HTML documents. It works like a template allowing web developers to define a style for an HTML element and then apply it to as many web pages as they want/need. We can also use styles to display different elements for different media (screen, printers). Changing the style in CSS will change the look and feel of all web pages that uses it instead of changing it in every single page. It simplifies web site maintenance.

We can integrate the most common payment gateways (PayPal, Google Checkout, CCAvenue) on our eCommerce websites, however you might have a specific request and it might take some time to study that specific case. We are open to talk with you and help you during the integration process. It may impact the amount of time we initially defined at the start of the project.

There's a lot of competition to get good spots in the search engines for some specific keywords or key-phrases, so proper HTML syntax and a clean code help toward better rankings. Let's say we have two competing sites, both are suitable for the top spot and the search engine has a tough time deciding who to put first. Chances are that the validated site with proper syntax will be the winner. Validation of the HTML code on your site alone will certainly not guarantee or secure you a high rating, but as with so many other things it will help and might even be a contributing factor to get you across the line.

It's something that will help us visualize all your website sections. It is very helpful as it will help the development process. You, as the owner of the website, will know what areas your website will cover; a web designer will know exactly what pages he needs to build and the content developer (copy writer) will know what content he needs to build for each specific areas.

A “proto site” its just a preliminary drawing of your future website. It helps both you and Directory One establish the way your website will look. Elements such as page layout, colors, item position, navigation, etc. can be mocked up to speed the design process. If changes (colors, moving things around the page layout, adding columns, text, images, etc.) are needed they can be made before actual coding begins. Once you approve your proto site, we move forward and we will code the proto site you approve into your new website.

You will receive design consultation and one-on-one interaction with the Project Manager assigned to your project.

As a rule your home page should not take longer than 8 seconds to open. If it takes longer than that you can risk losing visitors. People on the web are usually wanting instant gratification. Graphics should be optimized to load quickly. You can save your slower loading pages for after you get the visitors attention. Your site should reflect your target audience's wants and needs. Your website should be easy to navigate so that your visitors don't get lost.

All the web pages developed by us are optimized to load quickly and if the website is hosted on our web servers, we also use server compression that decreases download time by an order of magnitude.

Websites are very flexible. What you start with can change and evolve as you need or want. A website is not like purchasing printed material where once it is printed you are stuck with it as it is. Your website can change any time you want. You can change anything from the text content to the overall design, or add new feature to your existing website any time you choose. Keep your visitors interested in returning by keeping the information on your website current and changing the website to include new information.

This all depends on how much content you have. Every business website should have an 'About Us' page (or something similarly titled) to tell your visitors about your business. After that, it depends on what type of business you have. A good rule of thumb is to not overwhelm your audience with too much information on each page. Disperse the information and break it up into digestible pages and paragraphs. Long pages of text tend to overwhelm the reader. Break the content up to truly get your audience's attention.

Web design articles section has detailed information on recommended content for several industries.

A static website is one that is written in HTML only. Each page is a separate document and there is no database that it draws on. What this means functionally is that the only way to edit the site is to go into each page and edit the HTML - so you'd either have to do it yourself using a web page editor or we can edit the site each time you wanted something changed.

A dynamic website is written using more complex code and can do a lot more. For instance, we can make an area where you can log in and change various parts of the website, such as adding information or products or changing existing products. eCommerce websites, news websites are some examples of dynamic websites. This is because each page is constructed based on the information in a database, and the information in that database can be changed via another interface.

Dynamic websites can reduce ongoing maintenance costs if you don't want to change things yourself with a web page editor or with the HTML. They usually cost more to develop, as they require more complex coding and a content management utility needs to be developed to help you manage your website information.

Another benefit of dynamic websites is that they allow you to change only the content of the website and not the design, so you will not be able to accidentally break the visual style of the website. They have other benefits when websites start to get very large, as they make data management much more efficient and your website more expandable.

Many clients do a combination, having some dynamic areas such as a product catalog where they have to change information or pictures regularly, and leave other pages such as contact information as static pages.

In order to design and format your Website, we need you to provide us with the following before starting. Additional things such as Power Point presentations, video files, articles, soft copy of forms for downloading are optional and can be incorporated if you have them.

Logo

Again, we can always use your existing literature to work from. Usually the logos on brochures, letterhead, etc. are more than adequate. If you have your logo in electronic file format, such as .GIF or .JPG or .PNG or .PSD or .TIF format. If you do not have one, we can design one for you.

Text or Content

If you have (or can get) the text-based information you want on your site in electronic file format, we prefer it this way. Acceptable file formats are .TXT, .WRI, .DOC, .RTF, .XLS, .SXW, .ODT, .WPD (Word Perfect), .HTML, .SXC, .ODS. Our next preference is to scan text from a printed page. Handwritten text is strongly discouraged (and there would be additional fee). If you do not have any existing content, please get it written by a content writer/copywriter, which you can use in your brochures as well.

Photos

Remember that the World Wide Web is a visual medium. If you have photos of your products, services, place of business or even yourself, we will include them. If you have soft copies in .GIF or .JPG or .PNG or .PSD or .TIF format, that is great. Instead, if you have actual photos, we will scan and resize and optimize them for you and include them. If you do not have printed photos, but have photo negatives, we can scan them as well. If you do not have any photos, but have them in your brochures, pamphlets, catalogs, etc. we will scan them even though their quality won't be as great as the previous options. If you do not even have brochures, pamphlets, catalogs, and if you are located in India, we can send our digital photographer to take digital photographs.

25 Word Description & Keywords

Most Web surfers use WWW search engines and directories to find your web site. These search sites use either a description or keywords in their search. Your description should include the words or phrases that someone might use to search for your business/ products/ services. You can submit as many keywords that you can think of. Remember these are words someone might use to try and find your site (i.e., bed & breakfast, or car repairs, etc.), so think of yourself as a potential visitor to your web site. We will help you in deciding those keywords.

Absolutely! Some of our clients have an internal graphic design department. We work well with other departments and vendors to accomplish a shared end vision and goal.

Like many service oriented businesses, it depends on our current workload. It is safe to assume that we would be able to start most projects within a week.

We are frequently asked to develop parts of a website such as a logo, new content, search functionality, banner ads, etc. We are happy to oblige, just let us know what your company needs.

Content is the heart and soul of your website. It's the reason people come to visit, stay to look around, and tell their friends to visit your site. Content includes articles, items for sale, music, photographs, organization statistics - anything you've ever seen or heard on a website. Basically, it's the information you provide for your visitors about your products and services. The purpose of your website determines your content. The specific words used in the content also help search engines find and categorize your website. Search engines use these “keywords” to match what you have to offer with what someone else is trying to find. Web design articles section has detailed information on recommended content for several industries.

Yes. We walk you through every step of the way. We want your business to succeed and will do what it takes to make that happen! We provide a project central access to you and you can see in which exact stage your project is in and you can post inputs and even send files and photos and read comments or questions posted by our staff from the same Project Central. For certain stages, project preview is made available to you from a temporary URL/website address. It will be made live only upon your approval. You can also stop by at our office if required and speak to the Project Manager assigned to your project.

Visitors do not appreciate scrolling forever down long pages. Breaking up the website information onto shorter pages makes finding important information faster and easier. And, the easier it is for visitors to find the information they want, the more likely they are to return to your site. Shorter web pages also load quickly compared to long pages.

Absolutely! we can study your current website, analyze it, discuss your goals, and redesign your website according to your requests.

Your input in the web site design process is highly encouraged, because you are the best person to talk about your business than any one else in the whole world. We will guide you and make suggestions based on our expertise.

Yes, we will provide references upon request. Our business is based off of word of mouth and referred clients count as a large percentage of our business. We have listed a quite good number of client names in our portfolio and you can contact any of them to find out about our quality of services and professionalism.

Yes. Our process has evolved over the years with our diverse clients and web development projects. Each project at its inception has phases, deliverables, tasks and timelines defined. Each phase works to refine a deliverable that will be presented to the client for approval before commencement of the next project phase.

No, it is not mandatory to host with us. Typically we recommend that our clients host with us because we have standardized our servers to handle all of the services that may be needed for the project deployment. Majority of our clients do host with us and very few choose to keep their existing hosting companies. We will work with you on any scenario.

We can build entire website in Flash but generally we discourage our clients from doing so unless it is justified. A flash website cannot be indexed by search engines. The Flash file is embedded into a single HTML page and only that single page can be indexed. The rest of your website content and links are completely overlooked.

If you really want to have, it can be done, but we strongly discourage these pages. They’re both outdated and redundant. People simply click on the 'skip intro' button or get frustrated that there’s an extra step before they can see your website. It’s far better to have a Flash header or have a Flash intro incorporated in the home page.

One more reason not to have them is because of search engines. Content of home page is very important. Search engines calculate how deep each page is from the home page, the deeper the pages are the lower the rank is. By having Splash or Entry page, basically you are pushing every single page on the website one level deep for absolutely no valid business reason.

An animated and 'flashy' introduction to your business. Much like the sign above a shop, the Flash header sets the look and feel of your website and company. Corporates generally use appropriate images for each page rather than Flash header, however in some designs, having a Flash header makes sense. Flash headers with moderate animation speed are good, fast animation slows down the computer and/or draws the attention of your website visitor while you actually want them to read the content and buy products or services.

The site needs to be marketed on an ongoing basis. Fresh information also needs to be put into the site to keep it up-to-date and interesting. If you sign-up for the maintenance contract, we will update the website as and when it is needed and content is provided by you.

You also need to monitor the website traffic, analyze the keywords that are being used to reach your website, where and what time of the day the traffic is good or bad and act on it to improve them. You need to monitor any emails or requests that are generated by the visitors of your website and reply them as soon as possible. Early replies get good image about your business.

Website hosting, email hosting and the domain registration renewals are the minimum annual costs for any website. If it is a e-commerce website which accepts data via secure forms, you need to renew SSL certificate on yearly basis, unless you purchase it for multiple years. If your website is very popular and exceeds the allocated bandwidth, there may be additional bandwidth fee.

Some website owners prefer to market their site more proactively, make regular updates, send email newsletters etc. Ongoing costs depend on exactly how you wish to use your website.

Technically, there is no limit on the number of pages your website can have. For example, news portals have millions of pages over the years. On the other end, there are some websites owned by small businesses with just 4-5 pages as well. The more information that you provide about your products and services to your customers or prospects, the better it is. Ultimately, it all depends on the type and size of your business, your willingness to share info and your ability to spare time to generate content.

We usually start the process by having you fill out our quote request form which gathers information about your company, services, audience, website goals, etc. We use this information to help us deliver an accurate quote.

Once your information is evaluated, we will send you a proposal that consists of basic outline of the work we see that needs to be done with all associated costs. If you agree with the proposal we will then send you a formal proposal requiring a signature. We require that our terms and agreement form by signed and sent back to us at this time as well.

We will start the actual design process.

If required, we will register domain name(s) on your behalf and set up a web hosting account.

We will carefully analyze your requirements and confirm these via on-site meetings, email and telephone as necessary. At this point we're trying to narrow down exactly what you're looking for in terms of design and layout. Your feedback is essential in the Web design process and is welcomed at any time.

You will provide us detailed information on your company, the products you sell, images and complete copy for the web site. We may recommend slight changes in supplied copy in order to assist in search engine ranking. We can provide royalty-free images if required.

Layout and navigation is one of the most important parts of your site. Site architecture is established at this point to insure your visitors don't get lost on your site. We use text links, graphic menus and buttons with rollovers to accomplish this. We will research most effective search engine phrases for your business as well..

Resizing photos, photo optimization, color sampling (for people who want to match a corporate color to their site design), product weight & pictures and similar tasks are all done during this phase of the Web design process.

Starting with your home page, the main page, we start building your Web site. After this part is completed and approved we move on. If you have requested your site be optimized for the search engines, it will be started at this time.

The sub-pages are now worked on until completion. Forms, Flash, programming are now added to your site at this time.

We will host the website on a temporary URL and URL is informed to you. You can browse the website and send us feedback if any other changes are needed and we will start working on the changes and update the temporary URL once complete.

Once you approve the website on the temporary URL, we will publish the website on your website. Your site is published for the world to see! You can now start advertising your site, telling friends, business acquaintances and publish print material. Final payment is now due.

Once you clear the dues, the complete website design files are handed over to you.

We will show you how to submit your site to search engines, or we do it for you - your call. Please view our search engine area here to start learning.