Ebony wanted to maintain her very active role in creating her own website, but with a consultant on-call for when she faced the tougher problems of customizing the theme and the functionality of the shopping cart.  Ebony ended up with a very customized website on which she sells quilting notions, pre-cut die-cuts, and quilting patterns, and we enjoyed working with her immensely.

Orders are processed at the website, while the payments run through PayPal.  Some of the special features of this project include a custom-designed illustration and logo by Yours Truly, a JQuery Lightbox to display the photo collections, and a slideshow of featured products on the homepage.

If you have custom products you would like to sell, contact us today to get started designing your own online storefront!

The program is very simple: for every new client you refer that purchases a new website from Main Street Web Development, you get ONE FREE MONTH of website hosting and support.  That means every referral you send us earns you a service valued at $29.95.

Do you know several people who need a new website?  Tell them about Main Street Web Development, and save yourself that monthly cost!

The Main Street Referral Program is our way of saying thank you to our loyal clients who recommend us to others.  We couldn’t do this without you, and we want to show you that you are appreciated here in Helena, Alabama.

Need a New Website?

Here at SitesOnMain.com, you have two main options when it comes to getting a new website:

1. The Entrepreneur Website

For a $149 setup fee, we will create your basic website and customize the color scheme to match your brand.  We purchase your domain name (if you don’t have one already), setup your site on our top tier servers (used by companies like Nike and MSNBC), and upload all of your content, photos, and logo.  All you have to do is give us a call and send us your content, and you can have a website in as little as one week.

2. The Small Business Website

Are you looking for a custom-designed, professional website?  For as little as $499, we will create your customized website using a professionally designed theme that will give your company an edge over the competition.  Just like our Entrepreneur websites, we purchase the domain name, setup the website, and upload your content, photos and logo.  The Small Business website has lots of extra bells and whistles available, like dropdown menus, photo slideshows, and e-commerce options.  We set it all up for you and let you know when it’s ready to preview.  Getting a website really couldn’t be easier.

Looking For Custom Design?

You may have in mind a completely custom-designed, made-from-scratch website.  We do those too.  However, our Small Business websites are so beautiful and so affordable, we can help you achieve the exact look you want more quickly and more cost-effectively by starting with a Small Business theme.  We can customize any design or any functionality to look and work the way you want.  But if you still want a completely custom website built from the ground up, contact us for a quote.

Already Have a Website?

We can help you update it!  Whether you just need some content edited, a new photo uploaded, or a whole new face on your existing site, we are here for you.  If your website is already built into a content management system, we can even train you how to update your own site.  Unlike other web design companies, if you already have an existing website, we do not expect you to enter a contract where you pay us a monthly fee to maintain your site.  We only bill you for the work we do.

Save Money, and Update Your Own Website

When Main Street Web Development builds your website, we create it with a content management system that is very easy for you to use.  Our low monthly fee of $29.95 covers your website hosting and unlimited phone and email support.  We are here to help you when you have questions about updating your own site.

While I have plenty to say about the HBPA, I suspect I will have more to say as I get more acquainted with the delightful characters who count themselves among its membership.  So instead of focusing this article on the association itself, I am going to launch a series of interviews that the meeting today inspired in me.  Now, I’m sorry if this disappoints you, but this series of interviews is going to be self-administered question and answer sessions with…Yours Truly.  In the process of moving to Helena to run our web design business, and in preparing for meetings like the one today, and just in every day conversation, I find myself answering many of the same questions.  And I figure, if the folks I’m talking to face-to-face have these questions, then chances are–you do too!

So let me introduce you to today’s guest…ME!

Yours Truly Interview, No. 1

Hi Heather.  It’s nice to meet you.  What business are you in?

Well, I own a company called Main Street Web Development.  We specialize in creating professional websites for small businesses.  We aim to make websites more affordable by offering pre-designed themes, or designs, which we then custom-fit to suit the needs of each business.

So where are you located?

Actually, my husband and I work from home, so even though you don’t see a Main Street Web Development sign in Old Town Helena, we are officially licensed to operate by the City of Helena.

That’s interesting.  So you and your husband work together?  Who does the most work?
  Funny you should ask that.  (No joke–this is a real question we got today.) I do, of course!  Well, I did, anyway, back when we first started.  See, I started making websites about six years ago after my daughter was born, and my husband had a full-time job as a church administrator.  What started as a sort of hobby turned into a money-making venture, and I eventually honed my business model to a point that it could be a self-supporting entity.  Once I built it to that point, I became overwhelmed with the work.  Bill and I decided together (after many months of prayer and consideration) that we should take the plunge and go ALL IN.  If the business was to ever grow any bigger than I had it, I had to have help, and honestly, I didn’t want to open a public office and hire employees.  It’s much more fun to work in my pajamas and tell my husband what to do.

So, what is your division of responsibilities?  Who does what?

That’s an interesting question right now, because since we are so new at working together, we are really in a transitional phase of dividing up responsibilities.  Historically, I have done it all, from administrative and accounting tasks to graphic design to writing CSS and XHTML to training clients in updating their own websites.  Now that Bill and I are working together, we have a lot of decisions to make in terms of who does what, and I am learning which things I have to let go in order to make the most of the business.

I can tell you, however, that I will no doubt be the main graphic designer and web designer.  I have gained quite a lot of expertise in creating websites over the last several years, and any project that requires custom graphics or custom code will be in my hands at some point.  For now Bill will be mainly focused on operations detail, such as marketing, finance, administration, and even customer support and training, so that I can keep my head buried in e-commerce integrations and website builds.  But he won’t hesitate to tell you that he has built more than one website himself!

Heather, it’s getting late.  We know you have to get up early tomorrow, so we will just ask you one last question.  What in the world made you choose Helena? What made you just pick up your family from the middle of the Great Plains in Oklahoma and plant your feet in a bedroom community of Birmingham, Alabama?

Hahaha.  That is a great question!  And you are right–5am comes very early every day!  Well, we chose Helena for a lot of reasons.  And a lot of people surely thought we were crazy for the path that we chose.  But to make a long story way too short, we discovered Helena, heard that its schools were top-notch, and caught wind that Helena had been voted one the Top 100 Places to Raise a Family by Money Magazine in 2007.  Since Helena brought us closer to our families (we’ve already vacationed at the McKelvey lake house) and returned us to our Southern roots right in the heart of the Deep South, we decided that Helena, Alabama would be our new home.

Heather, thank you for  joining the Main Street Interview Crew in this, the first of many interviews with you.  We’ve already got some more questions simmering for our next visit with you, and we can’t wait to find out more about what’s going on at Main Street Web Development.

And folks, that wraps up our inaugural Interview with Heather.  Stay tuned for our up and coming round of interviews with Yours Truly.

Studio One Altus now has a first-class website that provides up-to-the-minute news, scheduling and event information, and even allows students to pay online.  The online payment system offers the opportunity for her to spend less time tracking down payments and more time on the dance floor.

Did you know you can use PayPal to accept recurring payments?  With just a simple button generated from your PayPal account, your customers can subscribe to a recurring payment each month, saving you the administrative work of invoicing, and them the hassle of writing a check.  There is no setup fee from PayPal; they simply deduct a small fee from each payment, which is much more affordable than obtaining a merchant account to accept credit card payments.

This website, like all of our Small Business and Entrepreneur Websites, is very easy to update by the office staff.  We are always available by phone or email to assist you when you have questions, and we provide plenty of documentation and training to make it easy for you to update your own site.

The portable toilet website gives the customer a place to order toilets online through an online form that sends Ricky an email.  In fact, many of our customers use forms on their websites to accept orders from customers, request information, etc.

We want to make your website work for you.  Using online forms can reduce your phone calls and make your daily work easier.

We also created the Check-in Connect logo.