Questions & answers

Richard tends to wear his heart on his sleeve when showing clients his work. Sometimes that means putting on a brave face while butterflies dance around in his stomach.

The name is also an homage to the bravery that it took to leave well-paying, rock-steady jobs to commit full-time to Richard the Brave.

But we’ve been building websites for clients since late 2008, before Richard the Brave was a full-time business.

Our love for coding began long before that. In fact, Richard was building websites for fun back in the mid-to-late 1990s, and typing something-or-other on a keyboard since the late 80s.

For more on our story (including bios), check out the About Us page.

We take care of all the jargon-y and technical stuff so you don’t have to.

And when we do need to bring you up to speed about something technical, we’re well-versed in making the information relatable.

Here’s a scenario we see all the time: a client comes to us who took a DIY-route to get a website, and they need help. Maybe they used WIX or Squarespace. Maybe they had a friend give them a hand.

But their site is performing poorly, and they’re frustrated. It doesn't appear in any search results. It looks terrible on smartphones. It’s slow. The template doesn’t suit their brand quite right.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

They don’t realize how much is broken at a technical level. They don’t realize the choices they made when building the site negatively affected search engine visibility. They don’t realize how the language they use is helping or hindering the flow of converting visitors to customers.

But is it any wonder? Websites are complex. Building websites isn't their area of expertise.

Think about it this way: Canadian Tire sells all the tools you need to fix your car. But does that mean you should skip the mechanic and just DIY it when something goes wrong?

Of course not. So why is it different with something as important as your company’s website?

The online world is tough. Competition is strong. Building and managing websites is complex.

If you want to be successful online, you need to also be competitive online.

And to be competitive, we think you need the expertise of a professional who has your best interests in mind.

We generally prefer to not work on websites that we didn’t build, but there are exceptions to that rule.

The best thing to do is get in touch with your details. Contact us with what you’re looking for and we’ll have a look!

Head over to the Portfolio page for a curated list of website projects designed and developed by Richard the Brave.

The exact cost depends on your specific needs and goals. The competitiveness of your market can also play a role.

For a firm price, please get in touch to set up a free consultation session. Afterwards we’ll provide a solid estimate of the total cost of the project, with no obligation for you to continue.

You will require a domain name and a website hosting plan in order to have a public website. Both of these services come with an annual invoice.

Domain names cost around $20 per year, per domain. (We recommend using Namecheap to register domain names.)

Website hosting plans vary a lot, both in terms of cost and quality. We offer hosting plans to our clients at a rate of ~$150 per year.

Keep in mind that these fees only cover the cost of keeping your website up and running. For most clients these are the only ongoing fees.

This is because your website will include a Content Management System (CMS). The CMS will empower you (or your staff) to update and maintain your website’s content without our intervention.

Generally speaking, additional charges only apply if you wish to add something to your site that was out of scope of our initial estimate.

The scale and complexity of the website will also affect the overall timeline.

6-8 weeks is typical for a small business website for a local company with a brick-and-mortar presence. The development time for a large online store, on the other hand, would be considerably more.

At the beginning of your project, we will agree to a series of milestones in order to set clear expectations and keep your project on track.

Instead of buying a ‘theme’ or using a DIY website system (like WIX or Squarespace) and forcing your content and branding into it, we build all of our websites from scratch. That means unique code and content for each individual project.

There are many benefits to this approach, including limitless customization and features, impressive speed, and lean, high-quality code behind the scenes.

But most importantly, our hand-built sites give you a leg up on your rivals, and empower you to be competitive online.

You can update your website by accessing a password-protected admin area. We generally refer to this as a Content Management System – or CMS for short.

Some of our clients have Richard the Brave maintain their website for them. Other clients request fine control over every character and every photo.

The exact amount of control you have of your website depends on your needs. We’ll tailor the website editing experience around how you prefer to work.

All of our websites are built from the ground-up to be mobile-friendly. Every site we build includes a ‘responsive’ design.

From tablets to phones, widescreens to laptops, your website will work and look great on any device.

We have different options on how best to handle transferring large amounts of data, such as when streaming high-resolution video. We’ll take the approach that is best suited to your goals.

Whether you are dealing in physical products, digital goods, or a combination of both, we can help you sell your wares online.

Online sales also requires setting up a payment processor so you can complete secure transactions online. We’re here to help walk you through any steps that may be required on your end during the project.

If your audience speaks a language other than English, we can build a custom multi-lingual system for your website.

Just keep in mind that we only provide copywriting services in English, so you would need to provide all translated content as required.

If you don’t have a logo that’s ready to use and you want to get online ASAP, we can create a simple text-based logo for you.

We also offer logo design services when you are ready to create a professional mark for your company.

For example, the domain name for this website is richardthebrave.com.

Domain names most commonly end with .com, but other options are available as well. Here in Canada, using a .ca domain name is popular.

You need a domain name in order for visitors to easily find your website. If domain names didn’t exist, you’d need to memorize a long, random bunch of numbers for every website you wanted to visit!

Domain names are registered online through a ‘domain registrar’. We recommend Namecheap. Most domain names cost $15-20 per year.

But don’t worry too much about the technical stuff for now. We’ll be here to walk you through the entire process of choosing and registering your domain name when you’re ready.

If you choose to stop paying for your domain name, it will eventually become available for someone else to purchase. Your website will no longer be findable at that address, and any custom email accounts you have set up will stop working.

If you accidentally let your domain name expire, you typically have a 30-day grace period to renew. This gives you extra time before it becomes available again to the general public.

As you can see, it is important to keep your domain name registration current. Remember to watch for email reminders from your domain registrar, and to keep your payment information with them up to date.

Think of website hosting like renting out a digital locker. All of the files, databases, characters, images, and code that make up your website are stored in this digital locker.

In order for the public to see your website, you need to rent space on one of these digital lockers. Once you have a hosting plan your website can ‘live’ somewhere!

In reality, a website host is just a computer, commonly known as a ‘server’. This computer lives in a cold, dark bunker. It runs 24/7, surrounded by 1000s of other servers, all serving up websites for visitors.

Hosting plans are rented out on an annual basis. Unfortunately, we’ve found the price and quality of website hosting can vary greatly.

To simplify things, we offer robust, no-fuss website hosting to our own clients at a rate of ~$150 per year.

Remember, you won’t need to worry too much about this technical stuff. We are here to do all the heavy lifting related to securely hosting your website.

Our clients can choose to use our robust website hosting through InMotion Hosting. This platform is tried, tested, and true, and meets the demands of 99% of our typical clients. We charge $150+ per year for hosting, depending on your needs.

If you prefer, you can also acquire your own plan to host your website. However, we do need to approve the quality of your choice, which can vary wildly from company to company.

We do not offer hosting-only services.

When you build a website, there are a handful of distinct roles that need to be filled.

But to generalize (and get to the answer of this FAQ), websites are usually designed first, then they are developed.

The design phase is very visual. You will see ‘mockups’ of what your website will look like. You may go through multiple rounds of feedback and revision. Eventually, you give approval for the visual design.

When the design is approved, the project moves on to the development phase. This is the part of the process when your mockups are converted from what are just photos of your website into functional code that can be interacted with.

Many designers outsource the development phase.

We prefer to stay involved at every phase.

When you build a site with Richard the Brave, we take care of every step of the project.

From design to development, copywriting to content strategy, we make sure nothing gets lost in translation.