Make your New Horizons Band Website Sizzle with Excitement

Focus, Utility & Affordable

My partner Jason and I started J2 Web Designs to build high-quality, low-cost, self-maintainable websites for small businesses and organizations that needed a web presence, but who couldn’t afford the big-ticket designers who churn out over-the-top websites requiring constant maintenance and costly upkeep by “trained professionals.” To meet this challenge we identified the WordPress platform as being the best solution for our clients. WordPress gives us the ability to design feature-rich websites that are focused on your audience, can be very easily self-maintained, and best of all are economically affordable for organizations like New Horizons. We believe you will be very happy with your J2 Web Designs website. After all…I’m not just a web designer, I’m a member of the second oldest New Horizons Band in the world.

Madison New Horizons Band

I think the thing that finally occurred to us was that our website was not really focused on anyone. We had a website because we thought we should have a website like everyone else did back in the 1990’s. We had a big picture of our band and a history of our beginnings and a few other static bits, but like so many other early website owners, we weren’t really targeting a message to anyone in particular…not to new members, the public and certainly not to our own band members. We just paid a monthly fee to more-or-less float it out there with no real expectations. Today that is all different and our modern website conveys real-time information to our members, allows the public to request concerts and gigs, explains how to join New Horizons, tells visitors who we are and where we came from, maintains a calendar of events, tells us what music we’ll be rehearsing at the next practice, lets us post videos, photographs and galleries of past events and even samples of our own music so people know what we sound like.

Our website has now become a vibrant, living part of our New Horizons experience—and we maintain it ourselves

Jon Nelson-Past President Hooked on Bands, Inc.

North Shore New Horizons Band

We just finished a website for the North Shore New Horizons Band, under the direction of Sally Bowers. The band had a website that was costing them a bundle to maintain. We developed a new website for their group with greatly expanded functionality, added a full-featured calendar and a way to highlight the up-coming concerts. Thanks to our popular Word Press format, North Shore’s website can be easily maintained by band members rather than a highly specialized webmaster. This spreads the workload among many members and that is a great way for the organization to ensure the website is kept fresh and relevant. Click Here

HI Jon and Jason, Thank you very much for working with us to create our new web site. It’s very exciting and a huge step forward in keeping our members and fans informed. I’m sure at this point you will be able to help anyone and everyone with their site.Thank You!

Sally, Barbara and Micki-North Shore NHB

NHIMA Music Camp Registration

Roy Ernst, founder of the New Horizons International Music Association contacted us to build a Music Camp Registration website that he could use and make available to member groups to handle the registration process for Music Camps around the world. The site can handle up to six simultaneous event registrations and automates the process of registration, instrument identification, registrant data and more. Roy has used it to register attendees now to several Music Camps around the country.

I’m very pleased.

Roy Ernst, Founder NHIMA

New Horizons Orchestra Fox Valley

Fox Valley started a new orchestra and needed a website to help get the ball rolling. They wanted to get the word out and build their membership. When Bob contacted us to build a website, we were delighted to be a part of their growth drive! Click Here

Thanks again for all your help and hard work. By the way, with the help of our new website we have nearly 50 people signed up to begin in our orchestra this fall. In comparison, last year at this time we were hoping for 25 just to break even!

Robert Schultz-Webmaster NHOFV

New Horizons Willamette Valley Orchestra

This growing orchestra needed a website that shared the joy of making music. “Come Play With Us” is the theme and it not only invited new members but it keeps current members up-to-date with all the latest news. Click Here

We are using the website as he focal point for our recruiting along with providing current information about rehearsals and performances to our players and fans. Jon and Jason were great to work with and provided us with an attractive website that we maintain ourselves.

William Gates-NHWVO

West Michigan New Horizons Music Ensembles

When the West Michigan group contacted us, they needed a website that they could maintain themselves without having to rely on a outside webmaster to make changes and additions. They have an enormous organization with many facets but we were able to encompass the whole thing in a stunning WordPress website that they can now easily control. Click Here

Thank you, Jon and Jason. I am very pleased that we could work with you and that things look so nice. I will not hesitate to recommend you to our other associates!

Dr. Nancy Summers-Music Director

J2 Web Designs Can Help

J2 Web Designs built the NHIMA website and is proud of our association with the New Horizons International Music Association. As a current member of the Madison New Horizons band and a former board president, I fully understand the financing challenges each band faces. I also understand what an integral part a good website can play in the development and growth of a band. Web development has changed since most bands first had a website built and the biggest change is that you no longer need to hire an external resource to manage and maintain your site. That is never convenient and seldom timely…but it is usually expensive. That’s where J2Web Designs can help your band. We can build you a very economical website, like the sites above, that you can maintain yourself with very little fuss. In fact, if you can handle MS Word or Facebook, you will become an expert in maintaining your own website in a matter of minutes…not days or months. J2 Web Designs will help you do something really good that will delight your members, help attract new members and lighten the drain on your budget.

But What if You are Still a Planning Group

If you are still in the planning stages of your New Horizons Music Group, we have something especially for you too. It is called our Two-Page Planning Group Website and it is designed to gain publicity for your group, interact with Facebook and Twitter, register potential members and capture their registration information for that all important follow-up. This is a very economical option for groups in the early stages of their development and can help you create “critical mass” for your new group. Learn More About the Planning Group Website Here!

33% Discount for our New Horizons Friends

We want to do our part to help keep the New Horizons spirit thriving. So to that end, J2 Web Designs will design and implement a new, full-featured custom website for your New Horizons Band for only $800. That’s at least $400 off what we would minimally charge for a custom website and most likely a thousand dollars (or more) less than any other commercial website design group would charge you. The websites above are a good example of what you can expect. Contact us today and we can get started right away.

What We’ll Need to Get Started

We will need a primary contact (decision maker) from your band and they don’t need to be a “web guru.” We can typically import content from an existing website if you have one. Bands (orchestras, ensembles, etc.) will be responsible for contributing their own content such as history, photography, etc. If you need a logo, we’ll develop one for you for free. (Logo development typically costs several hundred dollars if you use an outside graphic artist.) You will need a hosting account. Commercial hosting accounts cost in the range of $8 to $15 a month, and if you would prefer, we can host your account for you at a very economical rate. You will also need a registered domain name or URL. We don’t register domain names ourselves, but we can help you find an inexpensive initial registration that will only cost you a few bucks. (Once registered, there is a small annual fee to keep your domain registered.) We will help you arrange all of this and help you find the best bargains. We require a down payment ($600) to get started and the balance isn’t due until we “go live” with your new website. If we need to purchase photography or a plugin to complete your website, these additional costs will typically not exceed $60-$80 at most and will be itemized and invoiced along with the final billing. Below are typical of the custom-level features you can expect. Are you ready to take the first step? Great! Contact us today.

Managed Hosting

J2WebDesigns offers Managed Hosting on our servers for our clients as an option to private hosting on your own hosting account. Typically with private hosting, you are responsible for maintaining the up-to-date status of your WordPress installation, your themes, plugins, php, etc. If your site gets hacked or something breaks, you would be responsible to fix the problems yourself or you could request fee-for-service from your hosting company and go into their service queue.

Managed Hosting is the alternative. As a J2WebDesigns managed hosting client, we take care of all the updating and maintenance of your website, as well as provide you with free technical assistance if you run into problems. We also install Defender on your account to protect your website from hacking and other malicious attacks from nefarious characters who want to hijack your website for their own purposes.

Most Managed Hosting programs are expensive and are a premium service level priced in addition to your basic hosting account, but J2WebDesigns keeps your managed hosting fees manageable…and they include your hosting account. For small organizations and associations having a fixed cost for your annual hosting as opposed to a variable cost is a budgetary benefit.

For $20/month (for 12 months) you receive your own hosting account, proactive maintenance, threat detection and elimination…a service that otherwise would cost you $50/month if you got Defender on your own… as well as assistance when you need it service (as opposed to a fee-for-service queue). Payable in advance and auto-renewing we are confident this special package will be a very economical choice for worry-free hosting. But wait…there’s more (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase in a promotion) if you want to sign up for 24 months, we will provide you with Managed Hosting for only $18/month also auto-renewing and payable in advance.

If you are interested in Managed Hosting…just let us know and we will include it in your quote.

Here’s what You can Typically Expect from Your J2WebDesigns Website.

Custom website look
Complete admin control
No per-incident charges
12-months free support
About page

6 additional pages
Fully functional weblog
Event Calendar
Special announcement space
Practice updates

Board information
Samples of your music
Photo gallery
Membership information
Appearance request form
Contact form

Don’t Wait. Contact us today and we can get started building your new New Horizons Band website right away.

Need a New Webmaster?

When J2WebDesigns develops a site for you we work with your original webmaster to orient them to all the features of your site so they can be effective for your organization. We also provide 12 months of free support to make sure everything on the site is working right and that your webmaster is confident and up to speed.

However, we understand this isn’t a perfect world and sometimes a webmaster for your organization might depart unexpectedly. Unless you have a backup webmaster (something we highly recommend), someone new has to step into their shoes. Unfortunately that someone new will likely not have the knowledge or skills to be effective. For that situation, we offer clients for whom we have developed a site and trained the original webmaster a Reorientation Program for new webmasters.

Webmaster Reorientation Program

Here’s what’s included:

Live screen-share orientation to all the major features of your website.
How to create and publish posts.
How to add photos, videos and graphics to posts.
How posts are displayed on your site.
How to create and publish pages.
How to add photos, videos and graphics to pages.
How to add pages to the menu.
How to add content to your calendar.
How to upload photos and videos.
How to upload music.
How to update your site.
How to back up your site.
And more as is determined by the structure of your site.

Additionally we will include six months of ongoing support to answer questions about how to effectively use the features of your website.

Cost is Kept to a Minimum

We don’t want to add to your frustration, but it does take time and resources to bring a new webmaster on-board. So big job or small, we provide this service for a flat fee of only $210 and we will get your new webmaster ramped-up to speed and able to be quick and confident in handling your website…as quickly as we can.

Continued Website Support Program

J2WebDesigns provides free support for our clients for at least 12 months after your site goes live. But we realize that you will likely need continued support beyond our initial 12 month commitment. Our continuing service program includes:

Routine site maintenance involving monthly checking your site for WordPress and plugin updates.
Testing to make certain that all the pieces of your site remain compatible with each other.
Answering questions you may have regarding your administration activity and steps.
Fixing things that might break (yes unfortunately some things on the websites do just spontaneously stop working correctly).
Walking you back through the steps to effectuate features of your site.

While we charge $75/hour for a la carte maintenance, we can make the above services available to you for a substantial discount because of our existing relationship. Contact us for your rate.

If you are interested in making structural changes to your website such as adding forms, a band camp registration system, or adding new pages/menu items, we can provide you with a not-to-exceed quote to develop and test those types of modifications.

Please let us know if you would like to participate in our Continuing Website Support program. We believe it is the most economical program your organization can invest in for the uninterrupted maintenance and availability of your website.