YOUR Local Pittsburgh Website Services Partner!

Truthfully, this depends on you!  Not all websites are equal. Some websites can be taken from inception to launch in a few weeks. Others may take a few months. The timeline to publishing a website is impacted by many factors, including size, development customization, the availability of decision-makers, the timeliness of feedback, final approved content, available photography, staff availability, scheduled holidays, other timely internal projects that require attention — and more.

We do our best to keep your project on track with weekly schedules and due dates.  If it brings some comfort – we have never missed a deadline in all of our years of service. 

From our years of experience in this industry, we firmly believe that hosting should be under the control and ownership of the client.

Too often, we have come across clients that have turned control over to an agency or outside IT vendor years ago.  As a result, they have difficulty regaining control.  It can be a real hassle when the outside firm cannot be reached; they have closed; they have moved;  or they are just acting like a bunch a’ jagoffs!

We can help guide your hosting decision, based on factors such as the number of websites, security considerations, your budget, development/staging environments, scanning, monitoring, and more. Experience tells us that owning all of your website assets is always the best solution.

We do our best to identify all expenses when it comes to the estimate for your new website.  But there are always instances over the course of the project, where unexpected fees occur.  For example, website hosting, domain management, speed, purchased photography, and security tools are popular additional costs that may not be covered in our estimates.

Unforeseen costs often surface in relation to third-party tools that weren’t initially scoped, or new requirements that become paramount over the course of the project.  We can’t always account for everything,  but we do our best to foresee any “hard turns” that are needed, maintaining an open dialogue so you are informed along the way to make the best decision for your organization.

This is where we need to have some idea of the text for each interior page. You as the client can develop this content, or we can help at 4C.  But no question, content is crucial at this stage because any graphic, photo, or supportive sections should clearly follow the lead of the topic on each page.  Keep in mind that each interior page should have at least 300 words in order to meet minimum standards for SEO and preferred Google rankings.

With approved content, our approach is to build your secondary/tertiary pages, and then obtain feedback once key sections are complete. There are cases where there might be an illustrated  process, infographic, or supportive icons needing input before they are finalized.

This process has helped clients save time and money as the secondary and tertiary page design is addressed in the building of the actual website.  In addition, 4C offers any design element to you at the end of the website project for use in other complimentary marketing materials, ensuring consistency in your company awareness effort.

Yes!  Depending on the platform you are using (or considering) we evaluate how to best “plug into” your website as part of the discovery process.

Most quality third-party applications and portals provide a script that can be easily integrated and enabled on your website. This integration can vary.  For example, payment processing can be a portion of a larger workflow, relying on an additional third-party vendor to present data clearly for the user.

If you are evaluating third-party tools in a post-launch situation, we do our best to create an elegant solution that works for all involved.

It depends. Access can be a big challenge in migrating an existing website to a new environment. In some cases, this can be difficult if an incumbent agency or IT firm holds control over your domain name, hosting, and administrative access. In addition, some clients find this approach cumbersome because of how your website was constructed to start. If there are technical or structural concerns, sometimes there is a path to easy remediation, but other times the solution may trend into “rebuild” territory.

We suggest “scraping” existing content manually from your existing web pages to utilize as a starting point.  Regardless of the challenge, you can rely on 4CDesignWorks to be upfront and honest about what options are available and optimum for your goals.

Yes!  This is a key consideration and many clients prefer to build their website on WordPress, since it has editing capabilities “baked in.” WordPress is an open-source platform, originally used for blogging and page publication. It has grown to be used for 43% of all websites!

We also like WordPress because of the flexibility it allows our clients. Not only in working with us as a partner/agency but in how the websites can be built.  (We also have experience with other popular platforms such as WIX, Squarespace, Webflow, and others.)

Regardless of the platform you select, if content editing is important to you, we focus on constructing your website in a way that allows you the freedom to make day-to-day edits without getting too lost in global structure. We are also always available to make changes on your behalf if you prefer!

We do! The benefit of a CMS (Content Management System) is that you have instant access to the text and photography on your site at all times.  We typically offer clients one 2-hour CMS training session with selected staff to explain the editing process.  This session is accompanied by a CMS explainer document that can be used as an easy reference. We are also available for additional future training to accommodate new staff members.

Needs vary for our clients. Some are incredibly self-reliant and only reach out to 4C if there is an odd issue or roadblock that prevents them from making edits. Others simply provide us with all the information (content, photos, and more) and ask us build pages, posts, or entire new sections for the website on demand.

Page builders have been incredibly helpful as we identify “sections” that can be copied and reused, retaining visual presentation and responsive settings.  This offers a starting foundation for CMS resources, allowing for efficient text or image edits/replacements.  The bottom line here?  You can always reach out to 4C for CMS help.

We do offer this service at 4C, tailored to your needs.  We can also develop these reports with a standard Google Analytics tracking code, which is free and provided by you.  We can also consider additional purchased tools that provide even more insight, such as click-tracking and scroll-mapping.  This is a topic we often dive into as part of the post-launch process and website close-out.  We typically suggest reporting in consistent intervals, every two or three months.  The reports will include 4Cs recommendations for website improvements based on our observations and overall results.

We do provide site maintenance support at 4C.  This is important, especially for WordPress, because regular maintenance helps with site security, speed, and overall operation. As part of the project close out, we offer to schedule your site for a maintenance review every 6-months — or more frequently, if you so desire.  The time we take to actually perform the maintenance varies, based on complexity.  Maintenance support can be as little as a few hours…or it can be more extensive, based on major code-base changes, new plug-in tools, updates that result in broken code, or a long span of inactivity between updates.

To make this more relatable, we suggest approaching the maintenance of your website like your automobile Every car needs ongoing maintenance, like new tires, an oil change, and state inspection. Yes, they may stop working altogether when they age.  Websites are exactly like this, because you learn to expect the unexpected.  By performing our scheduled 6-month check,  we can also inquire if there are other marketing or content needs to improve your web presence. This practice also helps us potentially get ahead of any impacts (like a major hosting PHP upgrade) or other influences that are out of your control.