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Website Design FAQ

WordPress is an exceptionally flexible and robust content management system (CMS) used to build modern business website’s. WordPress is one of the largest CMS globally and has tremendous amounts of support. The WordPress platform is very easy to use for end users and allows the changing of basic content such as text and images with little to no knowledge required.

We recommend that a website should only be used for 2-3 years before it should be rebuilt or refreshed. The main reason for this is because technology changes dramatically in that period of time as does peoples tastes in design. A website that has been left to age disgracefully will generally lose conversions and not help to grow the business. You can get a full audit of your existing website at the bottom of this FAQ page.

In the modern day all business owners should have a website for their business. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in or the size of your business. If you want your potential customers to find you, learn about you or buy from you then you must have a website that works.

Let’s be realistic here, if you are looking at this website and reading this FAQ then in all likelihood you already know the answer to this question. In case you would like to know more about your overall website performance then please organise a website audit at the bottom of this page.

The most common question we get asked is how much does a website cost. In reality there are many factors that govern the cost of a website including functionality, services required, time frame and much more. To give you an indication our website design and development services typically range in price from $3000 – $25000 or more depending on options chosen.

Ultimately you are responsible for providing all written content for your website. We can help you with this for a fee or we can direct you to some great content writers who can help you to get your page content together.

Once your website project is complete their are several options available to you. Typically we will handover the keys and provide any basic training within the first 2 weeks of the site going live and the final payment being made. From there you can continue to work with us via one of our care plan services or you can choose to manage your website updates and changes yourself. Please note we do require all websites hosted on our servers to be well maintained at all times.

We do request that all new website builds be hosted with us for the first 12 months of their life. This allows us to better monitor things that could go wrong with the website and to guarantee that all the elements being used in your website are compatible with the host. This is why all new website’s sold include the first 12 months hosting absolutely free. We do also require any client on a care plan to host with us as well as we can not guarantee host compatibility with our care plans.

We have quite an in depth process for building and developing websites and we work through multiple phases during this process. The main phases are as follows:

  • Onboarding
  • Planning & Setting Up
  • Design & Layout
  • Development
  • Pre Launch & Launch
  • Post Launch & Training

This varies from project to project however standard 5 – 10 page websites without eCommerce and other special functions typically take between 3 and 12 weeks. We will let you know an estimated timeframe for your project during your onboarding process.

Care Plan FAQ

Modern CMS based websites are a lot like your car in a way. They are made up of lots of little components (programs) working together to achieve a purpose. Just like your car needs regular servicing so does your website. You can learn more about the types of maintenance here.

No level of security is 100% fool proof, if someone really wants to get into your website they will. Our care plan products take all necessary precautions to minimise the risk to your website. We scan regularly for malware, install a firewall on your website, setup strict password protocols and 2 factor authentication as well as take regular additional backups.

Unfortunately no, we do not perform ad-hoc support on an hourly basis for non care plan clients. Our care plan clients can pay by the hour at a discounted rate for work to be completed. If you are not on a care plan we will need to perform a few tasks ahead of time before we can work on your site such as a paid discovery session (this is where we get a feel for what your website is made from) and then we can work on your site. Non care plan websites will have to buy a prepaid time block of 5, 10, 15 or 20 hours.

We respectfully request that all Care Plan clients host with us or in an approved hosting environment such as WP-Engine. The reason we ask this is because most budget or cheap hosting environments have inadequate resources available to your individual site. This lack of resources affects website uptime, performance, security, backups and much more. We only reccomend certain hosting environments for all of our clients because website performance and security are paramount.

This means each month a member of our team can help you perform certain types of tasks on your website. These tasks could include:

  • Updating or changing written content.
  • Updating or changing image or video content.
  • Performing basic page layout changes.
  • Adding new items to the site menu.
  • Other non-development tasks.

Your plan may include quick tasks as well. These are small tasks that take less than 10 minutes to complete. Quick tasks may include adding a new blog post that you are providing the written and visual content for, changing basic text or adding text, adding images to a gallery or simply adding items to an existing menu.

Care Plan clients have access to additional time at a discounted by the hour rate.

Typically content updates are performed  within 3-5 business days from when they are submitted. Some clients have opted for having all updates completed by a certain date each month and this can be organised for you as well.

Sadly no, Conceptual Creative specialises in working with WordPress and so we have made a business decision to only offer care plans for WordPress website clients. If you are unsure as to whether your website is WordPress based we are more than happy to investigate this for you.

Each month you will be entitled to a strategy call of between 30 minutes and 1 hour. During this call we will discuss your aims and objectives for your online marketing and website and go over some strategies that might help you to achieve those goals. From time to time we may also offer group strategy calls that you can participate in. Please note all strategy calls require you to book in directly with our team via our calendar booking system.

We feel we are offering a reasonable amount of inclusions each month that are more than adequate for any business owners regular needs. For this reason we do not allow any part of your care plan to roll over to the next month or to be saved up for later use. We do allow you to purchase more time at a heavily discounted rate for achieving additional work at any time.

We require all care plan services to be active for a minimum of 3 months. This is to allow us to improve your site and to recover the costs involved with the initial setup and security configuration of your site. You may cancel anytime after the first 3 months by letting us know in writing via email.

Yes you can choose to pay annually for your care plan services by prior arrangement only. Any care plans paid annually are non refundable and if cancelled will continue to have access to the service until such time as the prepaid time expires. By default all care plans will be paid via monthly direct debit.

Yes we do offer a discount for multiple care plans. Please contact a member of our team to organise a multi care plan policy. Typically these discounts are pay in full for the first website each month or year and get each additoinal website at a 25% discount rate.

We offer support for WooCommerce and ecommerce in general on our top tier VIP care plan only. This is because there is a significant investment time and knowledge wise in supporting these sites and as such we only offer this support on that tier.

Graphic Design Plan FAQ

Our graphic design plans are designed to give your great value and as such we have a specific process for how the plans work.

  1. Firstly you would subscribe to a plan and we would onboard you and get you setup in our system.
  2. You will have access to our self service portal where you can complete a graphic design brief for each project you want completed.
  3. Our team will then process your submission and get to work creating your design.
  4. You will then access 2 rounds of revisions to make any changes to your project before we deem the project finalised.
  5. You can purchase more rounds of revisions if you wish.
  6. Once completed our team will package up your design including all source files and variations and send them to you for download.

Please note we are not required to keep or store backup copies of your files. Whilst we may store them for our own records we cannot guarantee they will always be available.

No we offer certain types of projects as parts of our graphic design plans. Whilst we can design most things if your project is not covered by the plan you are subscribed to then we will need to quote you on the custom work.

Of course you can send us multiple design requests in a day however each request will be placed into the queue and worked on within standard time frames. If you submit more requests then your plan covers we will either bill you extra for the additional requests or put them on hold until next month.

Of course we can do one off designs for your business. Simply reach out to our team for a quote on your next graphic design project.

Where possible we always try to complete your design projects within the standard turnaround times however we understand that priority designs do pop up. If you have a specific deadline to meet we can usually accommodate however a priority job fee may be charged. This fee will vary depending on the complexity of the job and the turnaround required.

You are welcome to upgrade your plan or downgrade your plan at anytime. However the new plan will not take effect until the next billing cycle.

Sadly we do not allow you to pause your subscription however you can suspend your subscription for up to 3 months. A suspended subscription means that we can simply reactivate your account during that period without having to reset up direct debits and payment plans.

Typical turnaround times are listed below and are based on the complexity of the job.

  • Standard 1-2 page designs (including double sided) 3-5 business days from submission.
  • Standard 2-10 page designs (including double sided) 5-7 business days from submission.
  • Standard 10+ page designs (including double sided) 7-14 business days from submission.

Priority submissions 1-2 business days but may incur a priority fee.

Yes, we have arrangements in place for printing of most items and can arrange printing of your design. Please note that printing costs are additional to your subscription and will be quoted on and billed separately.

Website Lease FAQ

A website lease is an affordable entry point into owning a professionally designed business website. We build a website for your business using our professional systems and you lease it from us for a period of 12 months from the date it goes live. This allows you to break down the cost of a website for your business into manageable monthly amounts. At the end of your contracted 12 month period we will give you multiple options for moving forward.

Just like our bespoke website design services we go through the same process to develop the site. This means you get all the same benefits of our full design and consultation process. The only difference is that a leased website is not owned by your business unless it is bought out at the end of the lease. Our leased website packages do however have page limitations and a few other rules that must be adhered to.

Your website lease is for a period of 12 months. After 12 months you will have multiple options available to you for moving forward.

Your website lease includes website hosting as part of the plan. However you will need to purchase your own domain name. We always recommend that business owners purchase and register their own domain names and we can assist you with this registration through our domain registration system.

Yes all of our website lease plans come with website maintenance and care included in them. For more information on what inclusions are with your plan please refer to any documentation we have sent you or to our website lease page.

At the end of your 12 month lease you will have 3 options available to you. We have outlined these 3 options below.

  1. Renew your lease for another 12 months and we will provide a free website refresh and all of the same great benefits for another 12 month period.
  2. Buy out your existing website lease for a one off fee of $899. You will then own your website and can choose to move it away to a host of your choice or we can organise annual hosting and care plan services for you.
  3. End your lease and we will archive your site. We will then store your archived site for a period of 3 months after which it will no longer be recoverable. Should you choose to recover your site during that period we will charge a small recovery fee and you will need to choose either option 1 or 2 above to continue.

Website Hosting FAQ

If you think of your website as being the home of your business on the internet then the hosting is effectively the land on which that house was built. Every website needs some form of hosting to store the site. Website hosting is at its most basic a powerful storage system attached directly to the internet with the aim of storing and displaying your website.

Shared website hosting is where a company stores multiple websites securely in one storage facility or hosting server. For example we host our clients website on a shared virtual private server, this means we lease a large amount of storage space and resources and we then share those resources amongst our clients hosted websites.

 Cheap website hosting is done this way only they may store several hundred or thousand websites in that same space. The key to good shared hosting is to not overload it with too many websites competing for resources.

If we follow the website is a house and the hosting is the land analogy then your domain name is your street address. It is the address people will type in to get directly to your website via the internet.

You should always register your own domain and control the ownership of your domain.

Bandwidth is the amount of traffic allowed to visit your site in a time period. This includes both ingoing and outgoing traffic typically. This means anytime someone visits your site it will use a small amount of bandwidth in each direction. As a rule we recommend making sure you have enough bandwidth to fully transmit and receive your own website at least 10 times over to start with. Most good hosting providers can help you calculate the bandwidth you will need in a month.

Typically we suggest having at least 3-5 times the size of your website as a minimum storage amount. So if your website is 500mb in size then your disk  space should be at least 1500-2500mb in size. This will allow for growth. If your also storing emails on your hosting account then we suggest making sure you have a minimum of 2gb of extra storage space.

In the past it was common practice to host your emails with your website. However over time these email hosting methods have proven to be less reliable, less secure and overall nowhere near as effective as a business needs. As such we made a business decision to stop hosting POP and IMAP emails with our hosting accounts.

We now offer assistance with setting up and implementing Office 365 and Google based commercial email services. These services are much better and more reliable than the older email systems and far superior in functionality.

An SSL certificate protects the data stored and transmitted by your website. This helps your website visitors shop or communicate with the confidence that their data is being encrypted and protected. All of our standard hosting plans come with a basic SSL certificate. If you need a more powerful certificate we can organise this for you for a fee.

We take all necessary precautions to protect your hosting environment for cyber attacks. We are not responsible for any attacks especially when a weak password is used. We do take backups of our servers however, we recommend that your website should be backed up yourself on a daily basis. If you have a WordPress based website we can help you protect your site with one of our care plans.

Our website control panels whether on our server or through WP-Engine both have backup facilities available please reach out to us directly for guidance on taking your own backups with these systems.

If you have a brand new site built by us then we will host that site for the first 12 months as part of our development and commitment to giving your website the best chance. If you are one of our care plan clients then we do require you to host with us as part of that care plan service. Our website lease clients also must host with us. 

Media Production & Editing FAQ

In house our team can help you with photography services including:

  • Portraits (environmental, professional)
  • Product Photography
  • Commercial Photography
  • Drone Photography
  • Studio Photography

From a video perspective we can assist with the following:

  • Drone Videography
  • Talking Head Videos
  • Interview Style Videos
  • Basic Commercial Videos

We can help you with all other forms of photography and videography through our service partners.

We can also assist your with the creation and recording of podcasts both audio and video based.

We do not outsource our production however we do have strategic business partners that we can call on to complete the work on our behalf. We work with some of Brisbane’s best photographers and videographers to cover just about every form of media production available.

We use various types of equipment depending on what the project is below is just a short non comprehensive list.

  • Nikon Full Frame Cameras
  • Blackmagic Design Video Camera Equipment
  • GoPro Camera Equipment
  • Rode Sound Equipment
  • Much More

This all depends on what needs to be captured. A shoot could last from as little as 30 mins through to a full day or several days. Reach out to our team to discuss your requirements and get a more accurate price and timeframe.

Your editing time will depend on how long your shoot was, what type of shoot was completed and the complexity of the end product. We will let you know an approximate timeframe when we schedule the shoot with you.

We do not provide RAW unedited photographs or footage. This is a request we get from time to time and it is very much like asking the company who made your dining room table for the off cuts from the timber used.

We have already worked with you to choose the best parts of our work that suit your needs and have edited them in our style which is part of the reason you chose to work with us in the first place. Giving over our RAW files for someone else to edit or display is simply poor business practice.

All shoots we perform will come with an element of licensing for the use of the images or footage and typically some guidelines on where things can be used and how many time they can be used. We do this to protect our copyright interests and intellectual property. In saying that we are usually pretty flexible and have some very affordable licensing and rights usage prices for additional usage rights. Reach out to our team for assistance with licensing of your images and footage.

You sure can! we love to see our clients getting the most from items we have created for them. That’s why we have affordable licensing and usage rights available when needed to expand your allowable usage rights.

We are not required by law to keep your shoots and images etc on file. In saying that we do try to maintain a library of work from most of our shoots. We do not guarantee however that we will have a copy of your data available so suggest that you make multiple copies of your shoot in order to protect them for future use.

Search Engine Optimisation FAQ

SEO or search engine optimisation is the art of setting up your website so that pages, posts and other elements are visible in search engines. SEO is about finding the right keywords and phrases for your content and target market and adding them to the correct areas of your website so that your website gets ranked on search engines over time. SEO is a long term game and not an instant fix for poor sales performance.

All websites should have basic SEO installed on them. This includes basic on page SEO optimisation such as adding keywords and phrases as well as the addition of monitoring such as Google Analytics.

Conceptual Creative will always include basic SEO (on page SEO) with your new website providing you complete the keywords and phrases you wish to appear for on each page.

There are many great ways to find the keywords you should be using and these could include online software tools, chatting with an SEO specialist, or simply asking your customers what they would search for to find your business.

We can help you with this by booking you a session with one of our helpful SEO experts that we work regularly with.

SEO is a long term game and your website if it is brand new may not rank straight away. It can take up to 3 months for search engines to start ranking your site properly and up to 12 months before you start to see real results from SEO and search ranking improvements. SEO is not a quick fix for poor website performance.

If you are only doing organic SEO as your main strategy then you can expect it to take between 3 and 12 months for you to start to see good results in search engine rankings. If you want or need instant results one of our SEO expert consultants can help you better understand Pay Per Click and SEM advertising.

SEO or Organic SEO is all about making sure your keywords, written content and website are performing optimally when it comes to search engines.

PPC or Search Engine Marketing is all about paying for traffic to your website. 

Whilst SEO can be done by yourself or your own team free of charge there is usually some form of management fee involved in having it done for you and this is usually the best way to go for a new site. Ultimately your PPC or SEM advertising will not be nearly as effective without great organic SEO foundations.

There is no hard and fast rule on this but we recommend page content should be no less than 650 words. 

Ideally blog posts should have at least 650 words and will be more affective around 1300 words.

Product descriptions and all other written content we suggest aiming for 650 words but a minimum of at least 450 words.

We perform on page organic SEO in house and outsource our ongoing SEO management and PPC work to our trusted local suppliers. With our SEO outsourcing you can usually choose to be billed by us and have us manage things for you or be billed directly by our suppliers. We work with some of Australia’s leading SEO providers as well as several of Brisbane’s more boutique and niche suppliers.

Email Hosting FAQ

Reluctantly we can no longer provide POP and IMAP based emails with our hosting accounts. These older email systems are both inefficient and high risk when it comes to the overall health of your hosting account, our server and your inbox.

We recommend utilising commercial grade email systems from Microsoft or Google. Microsoft Office 365 is our go to email solution however we can also help you get setup on Google Email Services (Not Free Gmail). Please note both of these services have a small monthly fee per email address.

Our office 365 providers also include anti spam technology as part of their service offering.

Both systems offer a great set of features and almost identical functionality. This really comes down to personal preference from the end user.

Personally our team recommend and use Microsoft Office 365 services however this is just what we prefer. We can help you with both.

Yes, we can organise and set up Office 365 accounts for you and also provide access to a spam filter system as part of this platform. When you purchase Office 365 accounts through Conceptual Creative we can handle all of your billing and support as part of our service experience.

Yes, we can assist you with this however we will be guiding you through setting up your account directly with Google. Our assistance will come with integration with your domain name and assistance with setup of the account within your website and hosting environment.

We offer a full DNS service with all of our website hosting accounts. This means we can assist you with adding of any DNS entries your email provider requires. You will need to provide detailed instructions and DNS entries of what you require added. Please note we will not add any DNS entriess that seem suspect or pose a potential risk to our hosting environment.

Yes, our team can assist you to migrate your existing POP3 or IMAP emails over to office 365. We generally offer this service for clients who are hosting with us however please reach out if your just looking for the emails without website hosting.

There is a small fee for each inbox that needs migrating and we will provide you with a complete quote prior to commencement of the work.

Billing & General Admin FAQ

With any ongoing subscription you will be required to sign up to our direct debit system. We use go-cardless as our direct debit payment provider. They allow us to direct debit from your nominated bank account and we pay the fees. 

Our direct debit system will still send you an invoice with a payment due date on it, this due date is when your direct debit will be processed. When you are set up in this system we will automatically debit all invoices for your account on the due dates this includes any additional one off work or payments.

Typically our invoices are due 7 days from date of issue. The exception to this are certain types of invoices such as deposits for websites, pre-paid time blocks and a few others. These exceptions are generally due upon invoice or on a certain date.

If your invoice is for a subscription based service we will typically try to take the payment again a few days later if this payment fails a second time we will ultimately suspend your service after it becomes 7 days overdue. You will then need to make payment to re-activate the service. If the service remains unpaid for longer than 14 days from the original due date we reserve the right to commence recovery actions if applicable.

If you have a charge or payment that you are unsure of please reach out to our team for clarification. You can find our contact details on our contact page.

We get it, it happens to all of us at times. We are human beings and we are here toi help. We would rather you contact us and make arrangements then have to suspend or cancel your services. If you find yourself needing help please contact us.

We do not generally allow changing of due dates however in extenuating circumstances we can assist you. Please note we need a minimum of 48 hours notice to make changes on all direct debits. Contact us if you need assistance in this area.

No, we do not offer refunds for change of mind or project cancellations. This includes when your project is cancelled by either you or Conceptual Creative. We will generally only cancel a project when it becomes abandoned by the client or we have reached an unworkable solution. Generally we have already put in the value of work covered by any payments you have made by the time we get to the point of cancelling a project. We only offer refunds where required by Australian government law. We operate under the laws of Queensland, Australia.

General Project FAQ

We set deadlines for things like providing content and making milestone payments etc. Our deadlines are created to better allow us to stay on track and meet your goals for project completion. If we can continue without your content we will and this may include providing you with a beautiful website that is full of dummy text and images that you will need to replace in your own time. If we don’t hear from you for quite some time we will declare your project abandoned. At that time any remaining fees and charges relevant will be processed on your account.

If your project has been declared abandoned then you have a few options. Firstly we declare a project abandoned when we have tried several times over a period of 3 months to complete your project but we either have not been successful in reaching you or gaining your input to move forward.

If your project is declared abandoned we will process any outstanding payments on your project automatically up to and including any fees for work completed and any agreed upon project fees. We will then archive all of your project data and store it for a period of no more than 3 months. During this 3 month period we can re-engage your project for a one off re-engagement fee equal to the initial deposit paid for your website. If we still have not heard from you after 3 months we will send a backup copy of your website to your nominated email address. If you have any outstanding fees that have not been collected we will commence recovery action at our discretion.

Yes either party can cancel the project however this will forfeit any fees paid on your project to date. If additional work has been completed beyond those fees these will need to paid in full before the project is considered cancelled. Project cancellation must be completed in writing only and can not be done over the phone or via voicemail.

Any fees already paid will be forfeited and any additional work completed will need to be paid for. Once this has been paid out in full we will provide you with archived copies of all work completed. We typically only cancel projects for 3 reasons those being project abandonment, client misconduct or client taking too long to complete tasks required.

As a client of Conceptual Creative you will have access to our support portal, this FAQ and your project portal. We use basecamp as our chosen project management portal and will provide you access to your project environment.

In most cases the best ways to contact us or to communicate with us during your project is via our support portal, your project portal or via email. We prefer all contact in writing so that we can have a hard copy of what issues or topics need to be discussed. Verbal communication can be used to discuss written communication but all communication should be directed via one of the above forums.

Yes, please submit a support ticket via the form below or reach out to our team via our contact page.

Yes, depending on your project you may be provided with any number of informational items including written manuals, workbooks, training videos and much more. We look forward to making your experience with Conceptual Creative as positive and stress free as possible.

Cant find the answer you are looking for?

Conceptual Creative are committed to answering your questions and helping you to find the best solution for your needs.

If you can not find the answer you are looking for please complete the form on this page to submit a ticket.

If you need an answer quicker please call our team on 1800 776 463 (during business hours)

You can also chat with our team using the chat bubble at the bottom right of the website.

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We understand small and medium business and know that what matters most is leads through your website and sales through your business. That is why we have spent over 25 years perfecting our website design and development with a focus on visitor conversion.

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