Studio MarcoAngelo - Mary Kay Director Website Pricing

Web Site Name Registration

You will want to select a web site name to use, such as www.cindywilliamsnsd.com, www.eileenbarlow.com, or other web server name.

The purpose of registering your web site name is to indicate to all machines on the internet how to contact your web site. A domain name registrar is a company that can register a name and essentially lease its use to you for a certain period of time, typically one or two years, and let you renew your registration indefinitely to guarantee that you continue to own that registration.

Typically a name ending in ".com" should probably be used, but you could select ".net" or ".org" if you wish. We can find out if the name you want has already been selected and already exists. You can of course test the name in your browser, but note that even if a web page appears it does not automatically mean that the name is taken, and just because a web page does not appear does not mean it is not taken. You can figure out for yourself if a server name has been registered by someone else at numerous sites around the web, such as at www.whois.net or at www.godaddy.com.

Web Site Hosting

Registering a domain such as "www.marcoangelo.com" for example, is not enough to be able to create a website. You also need somewhere to "host" your web site, which is a real physical computer connected to the internet and active at all times, so that anyone in the world can access your web site at any time. By telling the domain name registrar where your web site is hosted, anyone in the world will be able to access your web site by using your registered web site name.

If you already have a domain name registered and a web site hosting service set up, we can use that to put your new web site on it. We would rather not take over maintenance of an existing web site, as we may not have to right tools for the job and it can be inefficient and problematic. If you do have a website set up already, we require FTP access to be able to upload your new and modified files to it, but this is the standard way to allow developers access to the web server itself.

If you do not have a website set up yet, we recommend www.godaddy.com as an excellent way to both register your web site name as well as perform hosting. We have experience setting up registration and hosting through them so this is the quickest way to get you online.

By using www.godaddy.com, you can have a domain registered and hosting set up for two years at less than $150 (as of July, 2007), and the web site name will be active most likely within a week. It takes a couple of days for the new registration to take effect across the US and the globe as the new information has to be copied to a lot of name servers scattered across the earth. However, for access within the United States, the update time is usually quite quick.

With this service you also get to select 5 email addresses (as of July, 2007), and possibly additional aliases. These are separate mail boxes, and you can select the email addresses yourself. So people will be able to email you at "queen@mymarykaysite.com" as well as "info@mymarykaysite.com" and so on. These are POP mailboxes that can be accessed over the web, within Outlook Express on the PC, or Mail or Entourage on the Mac, and using iPhone or Blackberry devices and other smartphones that can access industry-standard POP mailboxes.

There is no discalimer that need be put here, as we get no remuneration or consideration from any use of GoDaddy's services you may use. We are simply a happy customer of theirs, and both www. marcoangelo.com and www. eileenbarlow.com are hosted on GoGaddy web servers.

What's "An Update" Exactly?

This is pretty nebulous, we'd have to admit, but an update would be something like adding a set of new documents for the training or consultants page as well as the links to them (up to a reasonable number), updating the list of events, information about a new company promotion, biographies of new unit members, family photos for your personal about page, unit event photos for the home page photo bar if appropriate, or unit member data used to create birthday and anniversary announcements. Updating unit member data and event data can be done at the same time as a single update request.

Something like adding a new web page or new photo album would be covered under new web page creation, which is a separate charge, as it is a more complex operation, but this would not count as a web site update.

Events and Unit Data

The information on events and unit member birthdays and anniversaries can be created in an Excel spreadsheet, and this is used to create a datafile that is put on the web server. On the events web page, the web page is mostly created from this information and will automatically be able to create information on how many days remain until the event begins, and the even will be highlighted if it already in progress, and will not be shown once the event has completed. This can be seen in action on the events page of the web site sample.

All this is automated and will update automatically when you access the page. On the "our unit" page of the web site sample, for example, the unit birthday and anniversary announcements are also automatically generated based on the contents of the unit data. Upcoming birthdays and birthdays that were less than a week before appear, as well as information about unit member anniversaries. This is also all automated and works off the data in an Excel spreadsheet.

Password Access

Due to the Mary Kay corporate requirement to have password protection, this is offered by default on all web pages created. You may select a user name and password, or even several.

What's Up With The Colors on the Samples?

The website samples were designed in such a way as to randomly use one of 36 hues for the overall theme, such as buttons, bars, logo, and other subtle details. You can select the color you want to view the sample in by selecting the desired color chiclet at the bottom of each page. From then on the color will be set within the sample web site. You can also click on the link to make the color selection random again.

This lets you preview a variety of color themes before selecting which one you would like to use. A consistent and elegant color theme is recommended to give the user a uniform navigation experience and keep a clean and uncluttered interface while subtly conveying a predictable overall feel.

Newsletters

We currently do not handle anything related to the creation of monthly newsletters, save for being able to add a PDF and link to your website.

References

My name is Mark Andersson, but I go by "Marco" to my good friends, because there are too many people already called "Mark" down here in Seabrook, Texas.

I am the web site developer and maintainer for Mary Kay Independent National Sales Director Eileen Barlow, so feel free to contact her for any questions regarding our service. You can send an email from Eileen Barlow's Mary Kay page by selecting the "Contact Me" link in the top left, and then "Click here to send me an E-mail message" or call her. I live within a couple of hundred yards of her house and have known her and her husband Mark since 1989.

Additionally, you can talk to Mary Kay National Sales Director Cindy Williams, herself who I know personally. I was lucky enough to be able to stay at her ranch in Bandera, Texas, during the evacuation of the Houston area during hurricane Rita in 2005, and will be her event photographer and guest at the 2007 Mary Kay Seminar. I even got to drive that sweet new top-of-the-line Cadillac XLR Roadster of hers recently. If that's not on your dream sheet yet, maybe it should be.

As smart businesswomen, you will no doubt appreciate these ways to "check me out" to make sure I'm legitimate and can be trusted. On the internet you can never be too sure so I expect you not to take my word for it.