eSilverStrike Consulting offers the main benefits of a large digital agency without the cost. Our decades of real world experience and expertise in website design, marketing, and management ensures if you decide to use our services, you will get quality and value for your money.
A company’s online presence is an important part of what makes a business successful. Our main goal for your website is for it to become your best sales tool. By providing a consistent design that fits your branding, along with an excellent user experience, will lead to more sales. When combined with our search engine optimizations, this will ensure your site will be found more easily online by potential customers looking for the services and/or products you provide.
The services we offer can be divided into 3 main areas. Most projects we take on touch on each area of our expertise to varying degrees. Some in more areas than other depending on the project scope, goals and budget.
Our areas of expertise include:
Design
We follow a proven process when we design and develop a website. This ensures everything from the first consultation to the launch of the website flows smoothly. Through our Brand & Website Questionnaire and Website Proposal, we want to make sure that not only we fully understand the goals of your project, but you understand what is required from us in each phase, to complete the project.
The tools we use makes the entire project run efficiently. For example, by using wireframes/mockups and having the content ready early in the process helps keeps revisions to a minimum and costs down.
When developing a website, the software we choose is well researched not only on what features it provides, but on how well it is maintained, and how much easier it will make our clients lives down the road when they want to add/update content.
WordPress
Our platform of choice is WordPress. It launched back in 2003 and now powers 40% of all websites. When compared against other CMS's WordPress has a whopping 61% of market share. With this popularity comes support by 3rd parties including 55,000 different plugins.
100% Ownership
WordPress is open source and free. Any required plugins are either open source and free, or are open sourced but require a fee to receive upgrades. All photos, and graphics supplied by us are licensed for your website.
Custom Design
We identify your Brand, Mood, Colours, and overall style and make sure it is consistent across your entire website. We work with you through wireframe mockups to figure out page layouts, image selection and placement. Multiple revisions ensures the design is just what you want.
Responsive
Your website will respond to all screen sizes. From phones all the way up to desktops. The design will adapt to the user device ensuring a great look and easy navigation.
Secure
Websites are setup to be safe and secure. Files are locked down and a Firewall will be in place to help protect your site from bots and hackers.
Fast
Your website is developed with speed in mind. From compressed images to caching we make sure your visitors are not waiting around for a page to load.
SEO Friendly
Websites are designed right from the start to be SEO friendly. They are built with best practices in mind to take advantage of ranking factors that are important to search engines.
Social Media
All your social media channels can be represented on your site through visit and share buttons, and by displaying your feeds.
Custom Forms
Need to collect information from your visitors? No problem! Forms for Contacting, Newsletter Signups, etc... are all possible.
3rd Party Services
Whether it is an email service like MailChimp or MailerLite, a communication platform like Slack, a ecommerce solution like Shopify, or donation functionality from CanadaHelps, we can integrate it into your website.
Training
You will receive a website guide and hands on training on all the main functionality of your website including how to edit and update the text on pages with no coding experience required.
FAQ
Most communication is done over the phone and email. Video calls with screen sharing may also be done.
If it is a complicated project ideally a face to face meeting during the design phase will make it easier to review all the page layouts and design decisions to determine if revisions are needed.
This depends on many factors, including your requirements, functionality needed, the number of pages and page layouts, along with the overall complexity of the project.
To give you a ballpark, small websites may cost between $2,000 and $5,000 CAD, while larger projects that can take up to 6 months may cost $15,000 or more.
We do not offer flat rate packages. While on the surface our prices may not look the cheapest, when you take into account the value we provide along with the increase in sales you will experience thanks to our understanding on what makes a website successful (SEO, User Interface and Experience, Marketing Strategies, understanding your Audience, Sales Funnel, etc…) you will be than happy in the end to have chosen us.
You can find out more on how we break down our Pricing here.
In our Learning Academy, you can also check out our Guide for Website Buyers and more on website costs in general.
If the website already uses WordPress and has a lot of content then maybe yes but we would have to do a full audit of your website to confirm this. Even then we would most likely recommend to start completely fresh and migrate all of your existing content over and update it as needed.
The reason for this is in a lot of cases it is easier and faster to start with a fresh install of WordPress than deal with the decisions other developers have made for older versions of WordPress.
The major advantage of an existing website is its text content. Good content takes a long time to create and if we already have this and it still fits the goals of the new project with minimal editing then this could decrease the timeline of the project significantly.
Yes. All our websites are designed to be viewed on different devices and viewports (screen sizes). From phones all the way up to desktops.
This will depend on the scale of your project and the nature of your website. You also play a role in the schedule since you will be supplying the content (unless otherwise planned) which is required before we move on to certain phases and steps of our process.
All timeframes will be discussed with you and included in the quote prior to us starting working on your project.
To give you a ballpark, small websites may take 4 to 6 weeks, while larger projects can take up to 4 to 6 months.
Find out more about our Process so you can better understand the time required to create a website.
For more information, in our Learning Academy you can find our Guide for Website Buyers and more on the time it takes to build a website.
Yes, unless stated otherwise in the contract you will own the entire website and all assets it uses. Some plugins we use may require annual license fees to be able to receive updates.
Yes, almost all the text can be edited from the Admin section of the website (unless it is embedded in a image). Depending on the projects goals, certain page types and/or posts can be added/updated using an interface similar to a word processor.
Yes you do. We will provide guides on using your new website along with a hands on tour of all the features of the Admin section. Plus, we are only a quick email/phone call away if you have any questions.
Through our Design Inquiry, Consultation and Brand & Website Questionnaire we will ask you about:
- Details about your company
- What services you offer
- Who your audience is
- What you are looking for in a design
- A list of pages that you require
- Any other relevant information that may be beneficial
In most cases Clients also supply the text content for the pages of the website along with most of the images.
For the text ideally yes but with direction from us. Hopefully some of the content we need has already been written through existing website content, brochures, etc. which can be adapted for the new website. We realize not everyone are content creators and do offer a content writing service. Any content you supply will be reviewed and go through an edit process to ensure it is optimized for search engines.
For images you may supply some like your logo or those depicting your business. If you don’t have these we can create a custom logo for you and provide a professional photographer for the others if needed. Images, icons, and illustrations can also be licensed from stock media companies.
We do offer Maintenance Care Plans which includes hosting along with the day to day management of your website.
If you do not wish to sign up for one of our care plans we can recommend a quality host and hosting package for your website. Setting up your website on your host is always included in our Projects.
Maintain
Owning a website requires on going management and maintenance. If left, you can leave your website vulnerable to security threats with no way to restore your website if something goes wrong.
Software updates have to be researched and performed, backups scheduled, security notifications reviewed, uptime monitored, and analytics analyzed. With our Maintenance Care Plans we can do these critical jobs for you on a regular basis.
Maintenance Care Plans can also include other services as well depending on your goals. For example, you may want user content like comments manually checked and approved. Some clients on a regular basis need text and media content updated or added (like blog posts), but do not want to have to worry about doing it themselves.
Our plans may even save you some money in license fees as we often can switch your paid plugin licenses over to ours (developers get better deals) which will then be bundled into our care plans and will be cheaper for you to pay.
Each website with its size and functionality is different and the scope and cost of our Care Plans reflect this.
Updates
WordPress and Plugin updates are an important part of the health and security of your website. Updates are researched and tested before being applied. If issues do arise we can quickly restore the site from a backup.
Backups
Daily or weekly backups are performed and stored on a remote server. Backups are done before any software update.
Uptime Monitoring
Websites can go down for a variety of reasons including bot attacks, software issues, hardware failures, and network troubles. Our Uptime Monitoring service notifies us when your website is not accessible so we can launch an investigation.
Security
We will monitor Security Report summaries regarding your recent traffic and malware scans.
We will also review notifications about potential threats and security flaws found in the software your website uses and react accordingly.
Analytics
Your traffic is monitored to ensure it stays on target. If traffic patterns change in any significant way we will let you know. If traffic goes down, it may indicate a problem. If traffic rises, you may be able to take advantage of the situation in a number of different ways.
Content
Don't have time to update or add your own content like blog posts? Send us your images and text and we will do it for you, or we can create the copy ourselves
The same with user generated content like comments. We can monitor and approve any quality submissions and delete the SPAM.
FAQ
When setup and managed properly, WordPress is a secure platform. We also make sure the plugins your site uses have a decent security record. That being said, nothing is 100% secure and new software vulnerabilities are found all the time and patched. This happens with all types of software and hardware.
When we launch a website or add one to our maintenance care plan, we take additional steps to lock down the website including adding/updating appropriate web server settings and making sure our preferred security plugin is installed to help us monitor the risks and implement additional security measures.
Unfortunately no. You can set up WordPress to do this but in most situations it is not advisable. Just like with any other software, from time to time an update may cause problems by either failing during the upgrade process or by introducing bugs which may affect the features your website is using. In the worse cases an update can cause your entire website to go down. That is why we always research any updates (for WordPress along with the theme and plugins installed) before applying them and perform backups before updating any software. In some cases where we are not sure of the outcome we may even run a copy of the website updated in a staging environment to test things before applying the update to a Live website.
Yes! The organic traffic to a website is the primary indicator of how well your website ranks in search engines. Most of the time your traffic will not vary much week to week. What you want to watch out for is spikes in traffic (either up or down) that is out side the norm.
If your traffic goes down this may indicate problems search engines are having finding your website pages, or other ranking issues.
If a websites traffic goes up, this may lead to opportunities that you want to take advantage of. For example if a page on your website was linked to by a media organization, tweeted, or shared on Facebook and has gone viral. You may want to add additional information or Calls to Action to this page to increase sales or add other similar pages to supplement the popular content and grow that particular traffic source.
When reviewing your traffic you need to realize that patterns do depend on the niche of your business, the current season, and holidays.
Market
A website should always be passively marketing itself. Search engine bots are constantly spidering the internet looking for new and updated content so it can rank and display it in their results. That is why Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is always part of the design and development of any website we create. Did you know that part of what Search Engines like, is what users like as well. This includes quality content that is organized in a well thought out structure with informative headings and descriptions. There is more to it than this but rest assured we follow all the best practices when it comes to SEO.
Part of marketing your website is to make sure the major search engines know as much about your website as possible. This is why we always setup important website accounts with search engines like Google and Bing. This also may include a Google Business Listing so your company will be found more easily in places like Google Maps.
Our marketing services can go much further than this for those who need it. This includes analyzing your audience and visitors using Google Analytics data, and setting up and managing Google Ads (paid advertisements that display in the search results).
We also can audit your existing website and advise you on SEO strategies like creating backlinks (websites linking to your own website) and, when and what website and social media content should get updated or created.
SEO Strategy
We will register your site with Google Search Console and make sure they find all your pages thanks to your Sitemap.
If you already have a website we will ensure to build on your current rankings and not to start from scratch.
Audience Research
Find out more about who are your potential customers and what marketing strategies appeals to them. Content needs to be tailored to your target audience.
Content Strategy
It is important to write not only for your users but search engines as well. Based on your business, competitors, and audience, we will identify keywords and phrases that should be used throughout your content. When adding the content we will ensure that Structured Data is used where appropriate.
Optimize Conversions
We analyze the flow of traffic on your website (sales funnel) to determine what improvements are need. This can include updating the information hierarchy (sitemap) and landing pages of the website to reduce the number of clicks it takes visitors to meet your goals (i.e. a sale, newsletter signup, contact form, etc...).
Social Media
Increase your sales by leveraging Social Media. Whether it is to funnel visitors to your website or for increasing your brand awareness by maintaining a business page and actively participating in your target audiences Facebook Groups to build trust.
Google Ads
Identify important keywords for your industry that have a better chance than others to convert visitors into customers. Setup an Advertising Campaign on Google Ads with these keywords. Figure out a bid price and budget that makes sense for your business finances when compared to the overall conversion opportunities.
FAQ
In simple terms Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of improving your website with the goal to increase its visibility in search engines thereby increasing the number of visitors to your website. The higher you rank on a search engine (like Google) for search phrases and keywords the more traffic you will receive.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not require for a website to function and be accessible but it is highly recommended that a strategy is put into place when you are designing and developing a website and creating content. SEO can also extend beyond your website and can include other things like your Social Media presence and websites linking to your website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are sometimes used interchangeably but in most cases SEO refers to the free organic search results only while SEM refers to paid search engine listings and advertising.
Social Media Services like Facebook are great ways to reach a lot of people to create brand awareness, promoting your products and services, and local engagement. Most of this really falls under online marketing.
In terms of SEO, creating a business presence on Social Media for example by opening a Twitter account or setting up a Facebook Business Page is an indication to Search Engines that you have a thriving business. This may help boost your website rankings. You can also use Social Media to post about your website content and include links to it. If other users that follow your business share this content in their feeds, you will have not only created more brand awareness but more links back to your content. This is another signal to search engines that your website deserves to rank higher.
Backlinks refer to links from other websites that point to a page on your website. These links are a primary way that search engines use to evaluate/signal how important not only your website as a whole is, but individual pages. Plus, the more important and relevant the website is that is linking to you, the better ranking signals you will receive.
Link Building is a SEO method of getting other websites to link to your website. There are proper/sanctioned ways to do this (called White Hat) and incorrect/underhanded ways (called Black Hat). The best approach which requires no direct work on your part is offering quality content on your site. The reason for this is when someone who is writing an article or web page related to your material may view you as an expert In the field and quote your content in theirs and add a linkback for reference.
For marketing your website, quality content is one of the most important parts. It doesn’t matter if it is text copy, images, or videos. You need clear, relevant and keyword rich content that is on message. Search engines serve only relevant web pages to answer their users question. So it is important to deliver quality content that is not only designed for your target audience, but engages them to take action as well.
Need our Help?
- Have an existing website you are not happy with? Why not request an Audit!
- Not sure what we offer or how it all works? Read about our Services and our Process.
- Find out more about our Pricing, and while you are at it ask for a Quote.