Web Site Designing Companies Perhaps one of the first issues needing to be considered when building a web site is whether you want a template or a custom designed site.  Templates give you group of set pages that you can add your information into.  A Custom Design allows you to hire a web designer to create a personalized web site.  The Template pathway costs less (often included in the cost of hosting) but is less personalized and sometimes can be frustrating because of the limited options (a few styles/sizes fits all) while the custom design can give you what you want, but at a much higher price. Other issues include how much Storage Space* do you need, what is the Transfer Rate** of the information, E-mail Addresses included in the deal, what kind of Commerce helps are provided (PayPal buttons, etc.), how many Pages are allowed and more.  Beside the fee for the web site (set up fee + monthly fee) is the cost of a Domain Name.  This is your site’s address.  Many web hosting companies will obtain the domain name for you for a cost (or free with some kind of commitment to hosting).  If you already have a domain name then there might be a cost for transferring it to a new hosting site.  Some recommend obtaining the domain name from a different company than you have do your hosting.  A couple of the best sites for obtaining domain names are www.namecheap.com ($8.88/year) and www.godaddy.com ($9.99/year).  Locking is one valuable feature to obtain in purchasing a domain name which  means that it cannot be stole by another without your permission.  Also, both in getting your domain name and your hosting look for coupons (namecheap had a .90 off for the annual fee for domain name and hostgator had a coupon for the first month hosting free).  Look at www.DNCoupons.com or do a search. In designing a web site they are many possibilities that will determine what you want from a site. www.liquidweb.com has some helpful information on these (e.g. blogs, portals) and www.top-10-webhostchart.com shows various companies and their offerings. *Storage Space: As you create your website, the online software automatically saves the text, images, and any other content, and stores the files on secure Web servers that allow visitors to view your website 24 hours a day. To give you an idea how much space you might need, one site claims that their average single Web page uses about 0.4MB (400K) of storage space. High-resolution images, audio and multimedia files generally use a lot more space than text files: a 1-minute audio file occupies about 1MB; a 1-minute video file about 4MB. Another (Omnis.com) says experts say that you should not have a page of more than 100K including images. Normally the file size of a starndard HTML page is around 10-15K. Remember that, many of the images linked to your pages are common. If you have a 400x300 pixel image, the file size of that image should not be more than 30K. Buttons are normally between 3-5K. **Data Transfer (Bandwidth): The amount of information visitors can download (and upload, if your website contains forms or blogs) from your website over a specified period of time. When a visitor views a page on your website, the text and images that make up that page travel from the server to their computer via the Internet. The bandwidth included with your account is the maximum volume of data that can be transferred to and from your website in a month. The larger your files, and the more visitors you have, the more bandwidth you'll need.   Idea of costs for web site (costs as of 9/2007) www.hostgator.com     $9.95/month for 100 GB storage, 1000 GB Data Transfer, web statistics, site builder software www.web.com              $11.95/month for 5 GB storage, 20 GB Data Transfer, web statistics,    $19.95/month for 10 GS storage,   Domain Name: $14.95/year www.startlogic.com     $4.95/month for 300 GB storage, 3000 GB Data Transfer, web statistics, free domain name. www.homestead.com  $9.99 for 25 MB storage, 5 GB data transfer, 5 pages, domain name (I year prepaid),   $19.99 for 100 MB storage, 15 GB data transfer, unlimited pages, domain name (6 month prepaid) www.heritageweb.com  $39.99/month for 5 GB storage, 500 emails, 5 hrs/yr updates and changes, 500 auto responses, etc. www.church111.com    $15/month for set up + $50 sign up fee www.liquidweb.com    $14.95/month for 2 domain names, 1000 MB Storage, 60 GB transfer, detailed web statistic,  $19.95/month for 3 domain names, 1500 MB Storage, 100 GB transfer, detailed web statistics www.netsolutions.com   www.yahoo.web       $8.96 for 5 GB disc space, 5-25,000 pages, 200 GB data transfer, domain name,     $14.96 for 10 GB disc space, 5-50,000 pages, 400 GB data transfer, domain name,   $29.96 for 20 GB disc space, 5-100,000 pages, 500 GB data transfer, domain name