vmac | creative is excited to introduce the newest web solution to the family: the brochure site.
The brochure site is a perfect web solution for anyone with a small budget. The site setup, design, and hosting is only $199 for one year.
No, really, that’s it. $199 and you’re online for a year, no additional fees, no monthly hosting fee. The end.
The brochure site functions as a static site with up to four pages. It includes 5 GB of space and have the ability to include photos and video, and accept donations. We design a custom header and background, and setup your email addresses to forward, put in your content, and it’s finished. If at some point in the future you start to outgrow your brochure site and the need for a Standard, E-Commerce or Custom site is realized, then we’ll talk about upgrading, but don’t worry, we won’t take you to the cleaners or pressure you into moving to our other solution plans.
If this sounds like a solution that might best fit your business needs and budget, then check out the specifics. And yes, we’re serious when we say talk to us today and we’ll have you online tomorrow.
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You’ve determined a need for a website, found someone to design and build it, bought your domain and are ready to move into your new home on the web. After looking around though, you notice this monthly fee for something called ‘hosting’ and it seems like everyone has a different price. What is hosting? Why do you need a host and how do you pick one? And what about cost? Well hold onto those online plans and let us clear up this whole hosting debate for you.
Hosting: What it is and Why you Need it
Hosting, just like good design, is a necessary service for a website. Think of it as the binding that holds a book together. A host provides online space to store your website files on. In our case, we provide you with 150MB, 250 MB, or 1 GB solutions.
Selecting a Host
If you are serious about doing business online, your choice of web host is just as important as your location or equipment. Free or “discount” accounts are not for anyone even half serious about doing business on the web. Some people say that there are three types of Web Hosts: free hosts, cheap hosts and good hosts - and we believe there is more than a grain of truth in this.
Putting a Price Tag on Hosting
The cost of web hosting ranges anywhere from totally free to thousands of dollars a month for a dedicated server. However, the vast majority of people fall into the category of needing an account that will run in the ballpark of $10 to $50 per month, depending on the features you need. If your site will be static (like a book) or dynamic (with blogs, regular updates, etc.) and how much disk and bandwidth you expect to use (sites heavy on photography or user-interaction will require a lot more of each than, say, a business card site that just lists your name and phone number) then the amount of space you need decreases/increases accordingly and thus your cost per month will follow suit.
If your site is indeed intended for serious business, you need to ask yourself a few questions and jot down a few more important points, such as:
- Will I need e-commerce services and capability (i.e., am I planning on selling goods or services online)?
- Do I want to be able to be update my site myself or pay someone else to do it for me?
- How much space will I need?
- How much am I willing to pay to get the best service necessary to fulfill these requirements?
Whatever the cost of your host, check whether there is a requirement to sign up for a minimum period; and if your package is scalable, meaning that upgrades will not be a problem or burden for you when the time comes. There is nothing worse than suddenly finding yourself successful and in need of more space or bandwidth, only to find that your host can’t expand your package. Why let someone else’s scalability issues limit your business’s growth? We will always work with you to determine the best hosting package to fit your needs.
Our Solution
We treat every customer exactly like we’d want to be treated; each and every one is our partner. Part of this commitment means that we are a firm believer in the old “you get what you pay for” mantra— we don’t cut corners in order to try to compete on price. Our systems are built to enterprise-level standards, with daily backups, full-time 24/7/365 technical support and server monitoring, and the latest security, server, and software updates continually applied. This type of standard doesn’t come cheap; even clients on our $50/month entry level plan are hosted on servers that cost us more than $800/month. However, we believe that our track record speaks for itself: in over a decade of business between partners, our servers have never been compromised by hackers or virus infection.
We currently serve customers with monthly plans ranging from a $50 shared-host plan up to a $4,500 premier level that includes an entire rack of dedicated hardware. Regardless of the plan, however, all of our clients receive access to our award-winning and easy-to-use content management system (CMS), which allows them to maintain, update, and change their website themselves, without additional cost—from content, to photography, to the site design itself, all aspects can be controlled through the CMS, customized by our professional staff to fulfill your exact needs. From the feedback over the years from our clients, this independence from paying for (and waiting on) a web designer to do even basic updates actually translates into huge savings in time and money; after all, for the majority of our clients, our monthly package, including the CMS, is less than what they’d pay for a single hour of a designer’s time … so if they only had one update a month, their hosting package almost pays for itself!
As a result of our track-record, our technology, and our care and concern for our clients, we believe that if we are truly doing our job and meeting your needs, that we’ll have the privilege of re-earning your business each month by you choosing to use our CMS and host with us.
Are you ready to get started on your website? Fill out this form and send it to us.
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Welcome to the revamped, rebranded, vmac | creative blog. Well, the revamped and rebranded vmac | creative.
It occurred to us that we needed to practice what we preach. Yes, we offer many solutions such as web design, photography, copywriting, marketing services, pr support, and more, but it was served up as a mixed message with our previous (lack of a) marketing plan. So welcome to our new plan. This is phase I.
We have split our business into three separate entities: Web, Photography, Design.
Web - Our new vmaccreative.com is finally what it should’ve been long ago. We are thrilled with the new design and absolutely love everything about it.
Photography - One of our passions; We have split this off entirely. The photo site will serve as an online portfolio and there is an additional proofing/ordering site.
Design - This site will eventually showcase all designs portfolio-style. From logos and business cards, to wedding invitations and programs, you’ll find it here.
Our intention for this blog is to write about industry news, subjects that would interest someone looking to build a website, and anything web-related. We will have guest writers on occasion, feature promotions, and more. We hope that you’ll like reading it so much that you subscribe to our RSS feed.
Thanks for hanging in there with us during our revamp and rebrand of vmac | creative. We appreciate your continued support and would love to hear your feedback.
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