“Websites for the rest of us.”

Located on the “scenic peninsula” on Maryland’s Eastern shore, Bay Hundred Web Design specializes in websites, social media campaigns, e-commerce and digital media. With more than ten year’s experience in user experience design, content strategy, copy writing and visual design. Building a website for your company or organization can seem complex, but should actually be simple and straight forward. We specialize in elegant, no-frills designs that are easy to maintain and update. We also focus on accessibility, search engine optimization, and standards-based best practices. Always offering special discounts for local businesses and neighbors.

Three Basic Options Based on Your Technical Comfort Level

We Set It Up, You Take Over

We design all of our sites on a standards compliant, flexible WordPress content management system. This system is “components-based” meaning it’s rather easy to maintain once you have your basic design in place. Depending on your level of comfort, we’ll create a training manual with all the standard tasks, like adding a new post or image, that you can login and do on a regular basis. Any additional support will require an additional contract.

We Set It Up, Help You Manage

A good “middle of the road” option if you want to manage your day-to-day content (like blog posts, articles, etc.) but need periodic help with more complex “back-end” things, like creating new pages, security updates, SEO optimizations, PHP updates, and so-on. We can work on a monthly or yearly retainer basis to take care of the important but tedious behind-the-scenes things to keep your site fully optimized.

We Do It All, You Relax

Many of our clients prefer to stay out of updating the website entirely, which is totally fine. You can simply send us an email with the changes you want at any time and we’ll get everything updated for you quickly, generally the same day. More complex changes like adding a new page or image may take a bit longer. We’ll let you know when it’s updated and you can login to take a look. Pretty simple.

What’s a Bay Hundred?

Talbot County is located in the heart of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Founded around 1661, it’s named for Lady Grace Talbot, sister of Lord Baltimore, the first proprietary governor of Maryland. The section of Talbot County stretching from Claiborne to Tilghman Island has long been called the Bay Hundred. In colonial times, the entire region was sectioned into “hundreds” for administrative purposes. The term can be traced to medieval England, when shires were divided into segments that could produce 100 fighting men. Today, the county’s 5th voting district, which includes Claiborne, Wittman, McDaniel, Sherwood and Tilghman Island, is still called the Bay Hundred by long-time residents.

Read More: MDNR Talbot County

The Process: How Does it Generally Go?

Step 1. Understanding Your Goals

→ Around 1-2 weeks

While having a basic web presence is “table stakes” for any business today, it’s important to begin with your goals for why you need one. This could be as simple as “so people see me in a Google search.” We’ll start by sitting down with you to understand what you’re trying to accomplish and what “success” for the site will look like in your mind.

Step 2. Sketches and Concepts

→ Around 1-2 weeks

Once we have an idea of what you need, we’ll put together a plan and some concepts for you to review. If you already have a logo, color choice, etc. we will work to incorporate this (if not, no problem, we can help you with the basics here). Once you like the direction, we’ll start building the actual site for you. You will get to approve it as we go.

Step 3. Build and Launch the New Site

→ Around 3-4 weeks

After we have your approval, we will publish the site to go live. This is when you will be able to see it on the internet, and it will also start to be ‘crawlable’ by Google and search engines. You can share the URL address at this point, and we can continue to make minor tweaks and updates as people begin to see your content live in production.

Step 4. Maintain and Optimize

→ Ongoing, as needed

The heavy lifting should be done at this point, but it’s important to remember that a website is a living thing! Search engines like Google will want to see that you are updating your content, keeping up with the latest security requirements, and remaining relevant to your users. We can help you track traffic and make ongoing adjustments.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does it cost to build a website?

Since we do all custom work this totally depends, but we can create a basic site for most of our customers in the $5k to $15k range for the initial build. This is considered a fairly typical range for contracting a free-lance web designer or developer. Ongoing maintenance can be very cheap depending on what you need, ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand bucks a year. Supper simple or complex sites may come out on either end of this range. Again, we are primarily designing for small businesses and organizations, so if you need a more complex solution involving customer data, API integration, or databases we recommend going with a larger shop (these services will typically start in the  $50k+ range).

What other costs are involved in running a website?

To get anysite “live” on the internet, it’s important to understand there are several ongoing costs of doing business. The two primary overhead costs are, one, your domain name (i.e. the URL that appears in the web browser, like bayhundredwebdesign.com) and, two, your hosting fees (i.e. what you pay to keep the site running on a server 24/7 so people can find it in Google). Both of these are fairly inexpensive and provided by companies you’ve likely heard of like GoDaddy, Bluehost, Dreamhost, etc. A basic domain name can be licenced for as little as $20-50 / year (note this is assumes it is not already used or a ‘popular’ URL) and will need to be renewed on a regular basis (this is essentially the ‘rent’ you pay to be able to opperate on that site). Hosting fees are a bit more expensive, generally $50-100 / year for a basic plan, and scale up or down depending on the functions you require. We can help you get the best deal on all of these services. Finally, while not technically “required,” we highly recommend a security certificate (https) to make your site secure on web-browsers (even if you’re not collecting user data). This is an additional nominal cost per year, but is becoming highly preferred by search engines. We can also source and install this for you.      

Can't I just make a website on my own?

Absolutely! We strongly believe that everyone should have access to digital technology, especially since it’s gotten a lot easier to do over the years. Gone are the days where you must pay an expensive development team to create a custom site in Flash. That said, it’s important to understand that “DIY” products like WIX are seldom that simple to get right unless you want to put a lot of time and effort into it. Most of our clients want to focus on what they love and do well, and just need some help with the rest. We also totally get that people have varying levels of technical knowledge / interest, and we’re used to partnering with you based on your comfort level. 

What's the difference between you and other web developers I see advertised?

Simply put, we’re small, local, and do all custom work. A lot of the larger companies like American Eagle you may hear about do good work, but may be overkill for what you need. In order to be profitable, they a need high-volume of sites, so they tend to sell you a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Additionally, we find that much of the advertized pricing winds up being much more expensive once you start customizing your order. We encourage you to research these options and others to determine what you’re most comfortable with.   

What's wrong with just using WIX or Squarespace or whatever?

“Do it yourself” web design products like WIX or Squarespace have gotten very popular, and for good reason — they do in fact make it easy for a “non-technical” person to create a site. That said, if you are serious about your business, we don’t suggest these tools as an ideal solution for several reasons. One, while they are advertised as “easy to use,” we repeatedly hear that it can be frustrating to create exactly what you want. Customers often complain about not being able to get things to “line up” or look right. This can certainly be figured out, but may wind up resulting in a lot of time, effort, and frustration on your part. The second big reason is that the code produced when you take this DIY approach can sometimes come out as “junk code,” i.e. not as standards-compliant as is desirable. While this can certainly “get the job done,” it’s not always the most professional or accessible option, and can result in lower search engine optimization (SEO) and other issues. 

Do I need to have my own logo and fonts?

Nope. Many of our clients already have a logo or branding that they use for non-digital media, such as business cards, flyers, signage, etc. We can use this as a starting point to create a “digital version” for the website, including your logo, color-schemes, fonts, etc. (Note that in converting your logo for digital use there are sometimes special considerations for “web-safe” colors, so it may look similar but not exact; we can help with this process). In this case, we will need high-resolution coppies of your logo, etc. for best results. If you don’t have a logo or colors figured out, or need help creating them, no problem — we can also help you with this. We have designed logos for client sites that they have then gone on to use on stationary, letters, and even mugs.

Can you help with photography and images?

Yes. We’ll always ask up front for you to send any existing photos, diagrams or images that help explain your business that we can digitize for use on the website. (Note that digital images have certain requirements for size and file type, such as progressive rendering, so they will likely need some processing). But if you don’t have any, or they are old or hard to see, we can absolutely help with new photography. We can also create diagrams, charts, or infographics to help describe your offers, pricing, or other complex things.

Can you help with copywriting and editorial?

Yes. While, we always find it’s helpful to have you describe “in your own words” your business and how you would like your customers to read about it online, we understand that you may not have the time nor interest in getting this “ready for showtime.” We can help take your outline of offering or ideas and do the actual writing and organizing required to get it on the website. This can typically include service descriptions and offerings, pricing tables, frequently ask questions, contact information, policies and legal terms, etc. Many clients will simply send their overall thoughts in an email or word doc and we’ll use that as a starting point to do the rest (you get to review and approve everything, of course).  

Do you only work on the Eastern Shore?

Nope! We live here so we’re partial to the area, but of course these days websites can be made from anywhere. That said, we do like to be close enough to be able to visit your business location for photography, etc, if required. Many of our clients are in the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore metropolitan areas.  

Can you guarantee my site will be #1 on Google?

In a word: nope! Anyone who tells you otherwise is giving you bad information. There is no way to “force” your site to rank on Google and other search engines; this placement is awarded based on complex algorythms that are constantly weighing multiple criteria. That said, you can certainly try to “tip the scales” toward your favor by incorporating best-practices in your design, commonly known as SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The exact formula is never know, but some top factors are:

  • Quality content (up-to-date, well organized, original, appropriate length)
  • Backlinks (how many people link to you, a sort of search engine stree cred) 
  • Search intent (matching your content to the type of info people are seeking)
  • Site speed and mobile friendlyness 
  • Domain Authority (or DA, generated by Moz)
  • Keyword best practices (title tags, ALT text, right keyword density, etc).      

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