What you can do to help get your website built more quickly (and cheaply).

1. The most important thing you can do is provide a good outline of the site which will include the name of each page and a list of what each page will contain.

2. Write content yourself. If you want to use stock photos, research the ones you want to use and provide a list of the image numbers and on which page they go.

3. Provide all content in an appropriate digital format and in a final form. If I have to go through all your text and correct spelling and grammar (assuming you want me to), it will take longer. Appropriate text formats are .doc, .txt, or .rtf, image formats for photos include .jpg, .psd, .png, and image formats for logos include .png, .gif, .ai, .tif. Some other formats may work -- ask ahead.

The process of building a web site involves hundreds of steps. Most of these are straightforward, but some of them require spontaneous information from you before I can move forward. Therefore:

4. Please respond to my emails as quickly as you can. The entire site-building process can be held up when I don't have your answer to a question.

5. Please keep contact people to a minimum. Ideally, select one and only one person in your organization to be responsible for communicating your organization's directives to me. Each additional contact person usually doubles the time required to finish your project! If possible, the contact person should be tech-savvy. Though not absolutely necessary (since I'm proficient at translating Techtalk to English), it will speed things up greatly.

6. Try not to request changes in the middle of the site building process. Instead, try to think out how you want your site to look, what you want it to do, etc., before site building begins. What may seem like a simple change can sometimes involve scrapping and rebuilding a large section of your site. Having a well thought out site outline before site building begins is a great idea. I can help you create one.

7. If your site is a redesign or upgrade, please have all the digital source files from your previous designer/programmer available. If these are not available, extra costs and time may be incurred if I have to recreate certain things from scratch.

8. Be sure to tell me your deadlines. "Yesterday" is rarely a realistic deadline. Rush jobs may be charged a premium.

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