a client website

Our Philosophy

Dining Presence believes your website must be effective and affordable. Our websites just "work" and our fees are simple and inexpensive.

Our competition takes a very different approach. They are often graphic designers working at an average hourly rate of $85. They design websites for a wide variety of businesses, industries, organizations and even individuals. Every website they design is custom - yours might be their first exposure to food service. Design fees are based on the hours worked, often open-ended but in the neighborhood of $2,000 or more on the low end. At many times the Dining Presence setup fee that is a pricey neighborhood indeed!

As artistically trained graphics designers, they often focus more on form than substance...   complex custom flash animation (resulting in hours of billing), perhaps a half-dozen professional photos (about $250 each) and sometimes background music (yet another fee) to stitch it up. The start-up cost is simply, well, startling.

So for all that money, how does it compare? The heavy graphics, non-standard flash animation and music raise the requirements for your customer's computer or mobile device just to visit the website! Instead of getting the information they seek, they may be directed to download plugins and change their software configuration. By not following official W3C web standards, such a website may not be accessible by some customers at all. Those who can access it sometimes find an unusual, comic-like website with bizarre navigation and limited ability to print the on-screen information. It gets worse - bandwidth requirements are much higher resulting in slower load times and higher operating costs. Finally, if all this were not bad enough - these websites are difficult to maintain and become "fragile" (i.e. easily broken). Whew. Of course, if money is no object - and it often isn't to large chains and multi-million dollar properties - then some of these problems can be mitigated.

Now the recurring costs - the domain name ($30/yr), business class web hosting ($50/mo), website monitoring (quoted), backup (quoted), updates (quoted on hourly basis), problem resolution (per incident or hourly) and many other fees. These prices and fees vary widely, may require a binding contract and often total $1,000 or more annually.

The irony is that these websites, at many times the cost of a Dining Presence website (and frequently much more), are often far less effective. The use of non-standard elements as noted above is part of the problem. Another is the form over substance approach. For example, these websites often make their customers jump through hoops just to view the menu! Your menu is one of the driving factors behind your customer's visit. Restaurants which provide their menu as a PDF file require their customers to download, install and configure a proprietary browser plugin to view it. That is far from convenient and not the seamless experience your customers deserve. Dining Presence websites in contrast provide your menu online. Right there. Up front. Fast, clear, attractive. Information sought, information provided.