Website Design & Development Services

Websites are increasingly important because they provide your customers with your company and/or product information 24 hours a day worldwide. McGrath Electronics, Inc., located in Phoenix AZ., has been developing websites since 1997. From simple information only “Yellow Page” ad websites to complex online ecommerce sites with credit card processing and database websites. We also provide maintenance, search engine optimization, and upgrades for websites and web based applications. For more information about our website development services or a free quote, please feel free to contact us.

Our primary mission when developing your website is to save your business both time and money, while at the same time improving your business' image and providing existing customers and potential customers with a useful and meaningful site. We construct your business’ site based on your input and our experience, and always develop our sites around the employees, customers, or potential customers who will use the site.

There are a number of considerations for you to make before deciding on creating a new website or upgrading your existing website. Whether you have McGrath Electronics design you website or another company, the steps outlined below should be followed in order.

What is the Purpose of the Your Web Site?

The purpose of your website is the first consideration you need to make when deciding about creating a new website or upgrading an existing website. Is your website a “Yellow Page” ad for your business or are you going to sell products. If you are going to sell goods or services online then you need an ecommerce website and accept credit card payments securely. If you need to setup a merchant credit card account you can click here for more information.

What Content Will the Website Have?

One of the most important and overlooked part of any website is the text that will be displayed to the people that visit your site. Having all of the text written before you attempt to create the site will save many headaches and this is something that only you can do! A web developer can help with suggestions as to what the content should be on what pages and you should consult with one but they are not experts about your business, you are! For proper search engine optimization (SEO) each page should deal with one specific topic and should have at the least 250 words of text. For more information about SEO please see our SEO Marketing page.

What Will the Website Look Like?

Next you need a clear idea of what your website will look like. From the general layout of the pages and navigation structure to the colors used on the site and the type of fonts used for the text. It is a good idea to find a number of existing websites that you like and do not like. This is a good frame of reference when you are trying to communicate your vision to a web developer.

Who will do the Work?

If you are not going to create the website yourself, then deciding on who will create the website for you is extremely important. There are many “amateurs” pretending to be web developers which can makes it difficult to decide who to select. Many web developers can make a nice looking website but that is not the most important thing to look for. Also keep in mind that the actual looks of the site are dictated by the person that wanted the website created not the person who designed it. A website that you may not find appealing may be exactly what their customer wanted. To really get an idea about a web designers skills you need to look at the underlying code that was used to create the website. An improperly written website may look fine on the surface but there can be many problems that especially affect search engine rankings and cross browser compatibility.

Checking the code on a web page may sound like a daunting task but it is very easy for you to check. To check if the pages are properly written you can visit The W3C Markup Validation Service and type in the URL of any page you would like to check. (The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international consortium where member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop web standards.) Another important thing to look for is the existence of a “robots.txt” file. This file is used for telling the search engines what to index and what not to index on your website. To test to see if the file exists, you can type "<www.domainname.com>/robots.txt" in the address bar of your browser. For instance to view our robots text file you would type "www.mcgelec.com/robots.txt". If the file does not exist on the website you are checking, then it is a safe bet that the site is not properly setup for search engine optimization (SEO).

You should always check samples of a web designer’s work before you decide on who is going to get your hard earned money. Please see our Website Samples page for samples of our recent work.

Browser Compatibility:

Browser compatibility is one of the biggest problems we see with websites and now with the release of Internet Explorer® 8 (IE8) your website will be displayed in standards mode by default which potentially affects the way your website is viewed. One way IE8 determines how to display the page is with the <!DOCTYPE> directive. Properly using the <!DOCTYPE> directive is one of the best ways to ensure your site is properly displayed in most browsers. To check if your current pages are properly written you can visit The W3C Markup Validation Service. If you need your site rewritten to conform to these standards, Contact McGrath Electronics for a free estimate on updating your site.

Website Development Costs:

Simple information only websites start at $250.00 for the first page and $105.00 for each additional page. The more information in the form of pictures and text for the website you can supply keeps the cost down. Complex websites such as online ordering systems and credit card processing require dynamic pages which involve scripting, database access, and other more complex programming tasks. The price for these types of websites vary greatly so we encourage you to contact us for a price quote. The costs for maintenance and upgrades websites vary dependant on complexity. McGrath Electronics can also host your business website so you only have to deal with one company for both services.