About Project
What sort of services do you provide?
I provide a wide range of services from design to website development to website hosting. I partner up with a few people for digital marketing.
Read more at the Services page.
How long does it take to build a website?
It depends on the complexity of your website. A simple 5-page brochure website won’t take more than a month but a complex website like eCommerce, online booking or marketplace website will take at least 2 months to complete.
What information do you need for me before starting a project?
- In order to proceed, we have to make sure that the requirements of the projects and the intended deadline. The requirements of the projects are usually as below but not limited to:
- Logo Design
- Colour Matching
- eCommerce
- Contact Form
- Integration of Payment Gateways eg PayPal, Stripe, iPay88
- PDF Generator
- Custom Animation
- eDM eg MailChimp
- Google Analytics
- After confirming the requirements, I will need your domain and hosting details. If you haven’t already registered, I can assist you with choosing the best domain name for SEO purpose and hosting companies that has good speed and good service.
- The other important information you need to provide me are some high resolution images to be used everywhere on the website, content, email addresses that will receive form notifications, form entry notification email contents, login details for your payment gateways and eDM, API Keys etc.
- Google Analytics can be setup right before the website launch, so you can provide me access to your Google Analytics account at a later stage.
I work with a designer that can design the website for me, can you make my website look like the custom design?
Yes I can if you can provide me the PSD files, but most of the time static design will look different from the actual website, because we need to cater the design for different screen sizes. I will advise you on what is doable and what is not after I have seen the design.
If I show you a website, can you make my website look like that?
Certainly! I usually ask for 3 websites you like and 3 websites you don’t like so I can have a rough idea about what sort of design and functionality you want on your website.
How much does a project cost?
It depends on the complexity of your project and how long does it take to complete all the requirements.
Functionalities of a website
I need to send bulk emails to my customers/clients/subscribers, what do you recommend?
You can have a look at MailChimp. You don’t have to be tech savvy to use them, because they have drag-and-drop function that allows you to design your email without any HTML knowledge!
My designer has created a design for the email for our upcoming event, can you help us turn that into email blast?
Yes I can. You just have to give me a deadline and the PSD files of the design, as well as the login details for your eDM platform.
Which payment gateway do you recommend for my country?
The most common one is PayPal, but it doesn’t mean it is good for every country. Why did I say so? Because even though PayPal is widely used and most people nowadays have an account with PayPal, they charge hire rates compared to other payment gateways.
For Australian and Singaporean websites, you can consider Stripe as one of your option, because their checkout process is fairly straightforward and the rate is lower than PayPal. And know what, Stripe now accepts Bitcoin payment!
For Malaysian websites, you can compare the local gateways. Check out https://www.sitegiant.my/malaysia-payment-gateway/. I personally prefer iPay88 because they charge lower rates and has no annual fee. They are also easy to setup and has good customer service.
I want to implement live chat on my website, but I don’t have the budget to hire a customer service team.
No problem! With the advancement of social media, you can easily link them to your Facebook page so you can chat with your customers from there!
Maintenance
What are the things that need to be done after the website goes ‘live’ and can I do them by myself?
If it is just a brochure site to display information to your customers, maintenance is needed but you don’t have much to do. The most common things are updating content, changing images and renewing your domain and hosting.
However if your website has more functionalities, apart from those items mentioned above, you also need to regularly check if your server is compatible with payment gateways like Paypal, upgrade your hosting plan if your website becomes too large, update WordPress and plugins so they are compatible with third party systems you are using.
I keep receiving emails saying that my WordPress has been updated. What should I do and do I need to update WordPress regularly?
Nowadays WordPress helps you update to the latest version automatically. During each update you should always monitor if your website is still running smoothly and let me know if you or any of the users encounter any problem when using the website. WordPress updates usually strengthen the security of the website and add extra features to the Content Management System, but it is not always necessary.
What are plugins and do I need to update them?
Plugins are commonly used in WordPress to add functionalities to your website. Updating plugins without prior programming knowledge might lead to website crash. Also, you must always make a full website backup before updating anything. Updating plugin is not always necessary, depending on the complexity of the website. For example, it is advisable to update a security plugin as they might add extra security to your website in the current update. Other plugins that should be regularly updated are WooCommerce and other plugins that support WooCommerce, Captcha and SEO plugins, however you must be very careful when updating them, it is best to ask for professional advice before updating.