The answer to this question is neither short nor easy. First a website can reach millions of people that might not otherwise be available. Second, customers can view products, services, or whatever you want to share from the comfort of their own home. No matter what type of business you are in, their are ways to grow and make money on the web for you.

When you recieve a visitor to your site, they will instantly percieve the quality of your services or products. The first impression a customer or potential customer gets depends on the appearance of your website. A visitor will be interested and explore your site if it is appealing and easy to navigate. You are marketing yourself and your business to the world over the Internet and it is important to show your best.

No matter what your needs, DoubleDrive Media can provide your business with the tools it needs to do business on the web.

An original design is one that is built uniquely for you. When you have definite ideas about your site's theme or color or navigation, then you'll likely want an original design. This also allows us to more easily incorporate your business name or theme into the site design.

But if originality is not a concern and you're on a tighter budget, you can select from a collection of professionally designed templates which can be customized for your site. There is a wide selection of templates available to you. If one of these meets your needs, then it's a more cost-effective way to build your presence on the web.

It's the common name that people use to direct their browsers to a web site and usually ends with ".com" or ".net" or something similar. These names are for sale through various online services. You usually buy them for a 1 to 10 year period. You have to renew your ownership at the end of the purchased time, or the name becomes available to the public again.

These names are used to simply direct people to the server that is hosting your web site. If you decide to move your site to a different server, you allow people to still find you by "instructing" the domain name to send browsers to the new location.

Most of the common or obvious names are no longer available. Getting hold of a good domain name sometimes requires creativity and diligence.

There are online services that offer to let you build a relatively inexpensive e-commerce site, but these sites tend to be generic-looking, limited in versatility, and often require a steep learning curve.

You can buy a domain name though DoubleDrive Media for $15 per year, although there are cheaper alternatives, if you pay too little, you may not actually own the name or may have a difficult time making any changes to it (like directing the name to point to a new site location).

If you purchase your domain name through us, we will take the hassle of registering, configuring the name servers, and renewing your domain name out of your hands and put it all into one simple bill. No credit cards or worries about online security!

You will. We simply manage the name, but you will be listed as its owner.

No. Most our customers ask us to arrange and manage their hosting, but some take care of that themselves (or already have their site hosted with a company that is servicing them well).

We'll set up your site on a host server, give you access to your web stats, define any email accounts you require, and deal with technical support when necessary.

No. We utilze hosting space through our friends at Dreamhost.com. We've been with them since the beginning and love their services.

Definitely! Most people build a web site because they want people to find you. If your site offers services, products or information that people might be searching for, then you'll want to make sure they find it on your site! The days of "if you build it, they will come" are long over. Just having a site on the internet usually isn't enough; you need to have the target pages of your site especially prepared to be recognized and properly indexed by the major search engines.

Every website DoubleDrive Media builds is submitted to the top 5 search engines. However, simply submitting doesn't mean that your site will rank at the top of a search engine when a user searches for content related to your site. A lot of work and research goes into getting your website ranked high. DoubleDrive Media is the only design firm in Northern Wisconsin with an experienced copywriting and online marketing specialist on staff who has had proven success in Search Engine Optimization.

There are many different ways to effectively promote your site, including off-line advertisement (print, radio, sponsorships, etc.). You can promote your site online by placing ads on other sites, getting other sites to link to yours, submit your site to appropriate search engines and indexes, work to get a stronger position in search results, pay for inclusion in certain search services, pay for advertising like pay-per-click. To learn more about some of the ways you can promote your own site, visit SelfPromotion.com.

Pay-per-click allows you to bid on certain keywords or keyphrases. The higher your bid, the higher (or more often) your site shows up when those keywords are used in a search. If you do this right, you can attract more qualified leads/buyers to your site and realize a good return on your investment. For more information, read about our Pay-Per-Click Campaign services.

One way that search engines rank the importance of your web pages is by considering how important they are to other web sites. Links to your site -- especially from other popular sites -- will likely push your site up in the search engine rankings.

What can you do to increase your site's link popularity? First of all, you may want to request a Link Popularity Report to see what sites currently link to yours, then work to increase this number. As you make work to establish reciprocal links, follow these guidelines:

Avoid the "link factories." Services that promise to get you hundered or thousands of links are probably worthless. In fact, too many links from long link lists on other sites may actually hurt you.

Links from popular, well established sites carry more weight, but actively pursue links from any web site that you recognize as good and useful.

Text links are usually better than image links.

Links that are within the context of information that relates to your site may carry more weight. For example, a link to your site within an article that talks about the kinds of services or products you offer is likely better than a link that appears in a reference listing along with many other links.

If possible, request that the text used to link to your page be the keyword or keyphrase emphasized on that page. For example, if your home page has been optimized for the keyword "cute trinkets" then it would be better if the link to your site appeared as cute trinkets rather than www.trinkets.com.

Because there is a lot more work that goes into building a site that manages the products or services you want to sell and then provides the means by which a customer can order them online.

There are online services that offer to let you build a relatively inexpensive e-commerce site, but these sites tend to be generic-looking, limited in versatility, and often require a steep learning curve.

There are many different options. Which one you choose depends on what you're offering, the volume of sales you expect in the first year, and the resources you currently have to work with. We can help you decide which options are best for you. Here are your options (from least expensive to most expensive):

Personal check or money order
Online pay service like PayPal
Credit card processed offline
Credit card processed online

In order for your business to be approved for credit card payments, you will need to set up a merchant account with a financial institution that provides these services. You'll have to go through an approval process and there are fees involved.

Additionally, a percentage of your sales will go toward processing fees and you will need to pay for a security certificate (about $100-150 per year) that allows your site to process credit card information privately & securely.

But since credit card payments are so convenient and expected as an online option by most web users, offering a credit card option is something most business will provide if they don't want to lose business.

Jake Kappus, our lead designer and CIO has been involved in information technology since the early 1990's. He started designing web sites in 1996 as the owner of several sports entertainment companies. Jake started Blue Spine Design, his own web design company soon afterward. DoubleDrive Media, Inc was formed in a Denver pub in late 2002 after Frank Vaughn, Mike Hinz and Jake came together with an idea to provide small businesses with custom design solutions at a price any small business can afford. In 2005, Jake returned to his native Northern Wisconsin to open a new office to serve the customers of his home state.

Although some small projects are completed within a week or two, we say it typically takes (from the time a design is approved and we have all the content from the client) about 30-45 days to finish a site and 60-90 days for an average dynamic (e-commerce, for example) site.

Each project is unique, so it's impossible to give a firm number without knowing more about a client's needs. Our fees for new sites have ranged from $500 to over $20,000. We provide free online estimate request forms so people can get an idea of what their web site might cost. For work that is billed on a per hour basis, our current rate for most web work is $60/hr. If your site is hosted with us, we offer great hosting and maintenance packages that cut your costs of keeping your site down to a fraction of what it would cost normally.

Yes! DoubleDrive Media offers many ongoing service discounts to our clients (for example: free search engine submissions, credit for active referrals, reduced fees on other standard services). Additionally, since our staff is currently serving or previously served in the U.S. Armed Forces, we offer a discount of design services for qualifying government organizations and especially for military members (active, Guard or Reserve) as well as Veterans.

If you host your website with us, we offer a great Hosting and Maintenance package tailored to your website. The price depends on the type of site you are hosting, starting at only $45 per month for BOTH hosting and maintaining your site. If you do not host with us, or wish to not purchase a H&M package, any work will be done at our hourly rate of $60 per hour. As you can see, you will definitely save money with our H&M packages!

Simple, with our basic plan and one low rate, you get 4 updates per month. We consider an "update" to be one communication to us stating up to ten (10) changes to your website. And you can send up to four of these in a month. (if you send five, we really don't mind either, we're pretty flexible about it in most cases). A change is considered to be a textual, image or content related change, deletion or addition. If a change dramatically changes the layout of the site (new color scheme, new interface, new menu system), then we will consult you in regards to extra fees involved.