In its entirety this page is a hefty read
(Although I would like to think a very useful one for someone branching out into the internet for the first time).
You can jump quickly to any section through the contents below, but I recommend pouring yourself a nice cup of Earl Grey, Mountain Chai, or a Double Espresso, and giving it a thorough pass.



Table Of Contents
  1. Organizing Your Content
  2. Your Critical First Take
  3. Goals and Site Expectations
  4. The Basics of Web Development
  5. Calculating a Working Budget
  6. Getting on the Internet on a Tight Budget
  7. The Money Trap
  8. Wikiddmedia's Development Costs






ORGANIZING YOUR CONTENT
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BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING, SIT DOWN AND ORGANIZE YOUR CONTENT. '

You need a website (probably yesterday) - you have an idea of the design you want (a rough sketch), it's going to be very similar to XXXX.com but with a few changes - same "basic" pages, similar content etc. etc.... You tell your developer "I'll send your some text for the splash page later in an email, a few images tomorrow, some more images next week... OK. GO!..."

No. No. No...

AT SOME POINT, YOU SIMPLY MUST GET YOUR DEVELOPER ALL YOUR CONTENT - SO WHY NOT DO IT AT THE BEGINNING?

If you jump into web development without all of your content organized, it is impossible to have a 100% clear vision of what you are developing.

Without that 100% clear vision shared between you and your developer at the beginning, numerous unforeseen - undiscussed changes are bound to come up.

These changes will slow down your project, and effect your budget. Take the time to organize at the beginning, and start on a solid foundation.

Of course, in any project circumstances change during production - you may see something on another site and wish to add it on one of your pages, changes may occur in your business that completely eliminate a planned section of your site, or you may be inspired in the middle of the night to add a subtancial amount of more content, who knows - a good developer will always support you throughout a project - working with you and never against you. But there simply is no advantage in starting in a disorganized manner.

Ideally, at the time you discuss a project with a developer, you should have all your content ready.

Text of your site should be delivered as MS Word or similar text files, Images should be RGB jpgs - organized and ready for transfer. You should have an outline, sketch, and/or reference sites compiled.
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YOUR CRITICAL FIRST TASK
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You sell widgets (or whatever product or service you offer) you are not a web developer, so don't make your number one goal to be one.

It is fantastic when a client approaches me with a specific game plan both in his web sites look and functionality - however it is not your job as the client to develop the site. it is your job to relay your needs and deliver all of your content. Your developer is the web professional, let him make recommendations on how to present your site - let his techincal knowledge be applied to what you've presented.

Focus on defining who you are. In most scenarios, your designer is not going to be familiar with your company, in some cases he may not even be familiar with your industry.

YOUR MOST CRITICAL JOB IN CREATING YOUR WEB PRESENCE, IS PAINTING A CLEAR PICTURE OF WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT YOU'RE ABOUT, AND GETTING YOUR DEVELOPER YOUR MATERIALS TO WORK WITH.

The stronger this picture, the more solid the representation the designer can produce for you.

You may have precise ideas and concepts about how you want your web site to look - and if you have them you should absolutely express them, but there may be things - small things, obvious things - you've overlooked about yourself which will make the difference between a solid online representation, and an outstanding one. Take a moment to explain some things indirectly related to the website your building... why you do what you do, what makes you different then everyone else in the industry, your personal goals etc...

Also, sometimes its easier to communicate feelings, and abstract concepts rather then specific directions. If you want to make an awe inspiring web presence, say so. If your site needs to make people laugh, stress that to the developer. These simple instructions open up whole new directions to a good developer.

Finally a sure fire way to emphasize yourself is by referring to something. Nothing paints a clearer picture to a designer then seeing the picture itself. Showing the designer a site whose clean crisp layout looks wonderful to you, referencing a magazine layout in last months issue of field and stream, or telling your designer to watch the transition of the NBC logo on the 6 o'clock news are all good examples.

Communicate - emphasize yourself, and your web presence will do you justice.
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GOALS AND SITE EXPECTATIONS
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When you sit down to organize your content, you should list your specific goals for your site.

Maybe your site is just a point of contact site for existing customers, maybe you need to sell 100 products today, and want to expand to 500 by years end - these are goals, and you should list all that are applicable.

Whether your website reaches your goals depends on an array of business and market factors... whether or not your website even has a chance to achieve these goals is dependent on its development.

Successful web development begins when a clients budget realistically meet his/her expecatations.

You may need to sell 1000 products on your website. If your budget for development is $1000, thats simply not going to happen. You may need to set up a user sections with personal customizable profiles, and a vast a database to collect user information. If your budget is $1000,thats simply not going to happen.

You'll need to discuss your project and your goals in detail with a developer to get an accurate idea of cost. Common sense will tell you, when it comes down to the bottomline of dollars and cents, the old adage rings true...

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR -
IN AESTHETICS,
IN CAPABILITY,
AND IN SERVICE.

Before we move on to Budget issues, lets take a quick look at what factors in to developing a web presence.
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THE BASICS OF WEB DEVELOPMENT
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The internet and web development is a very unique medium. When you surf the web on a day-to-day basis, you see an incredibly wide spectrum of craftsmanship, quality and capability of websites. On one hand you have people with no professional skill or training setting up sites in their free time... On the other hand you have major corporations hiring fully staffed studios to produce their web presence.

In truth a single, most simplistic web page can created and published to the internet in about 30 seconds!

Now, on the same token big design studios are charging high 5 figures if not 6 figures for major commercial websites! (such as NBC.com, Nike.com, MTV.com etc.) So obviously something is going on that can make web development much more complex...
What exactly separates a simple site from a complex site is not always easily recognizable especially to the small business expanding to the web.

Lets take a look at what you need to consider when sitting down to develop your website.

There are 5 aspects to any web development project. While each of these is important to any project, any one element may be more or less important depending what YOU as the client brings to the table or what YOU as the client needs. Because, there is such a wide variance in each of these aspects its nearly impossible to get any standardized formulaic pricing structure. Every project has to be looked at and assessed uniquely. However, you can apply some common sense to get an idea of where your project stands budget wise in each area:

THE ASPECTS OF CREATING A WEB DEVELOPMENT PROJECT ARE;

1) Creating The Visual Design of the site.

Aesthetics:

The web is visual - Period.
Unless you happen to have the one website that has exclusive rights to whatever you're selling - your going to be competing with someone else - You need to stand out and be visually appealing.
Art is hard to define and very subjective, but you'll be able to assess designers with good artistic eyes, and capabilities by reviewing their portfolio of work. The more artistic and appealing their work, the more talented, the more original the work, the more expensive it will most likely be.



2) Building the "Front End" of the site. The amount of content you have correlates to how much time the project will take.

Time:

The amount of RAW CONTENT you have directly translates into time needed to publish it to the internet. If your site has 10 pages of text, it will take a lot less development time then if your site has 1000 pages of text.
If your site has 12 pages, but each page has only one photo and 1 paragraph of text it will take a lot less time to develop than a site with only 6 pages where each page has 50 pictures, are 1,000 words of text to format.



3) Building the "Back End" of the site. The pages visitors don't see but which directly effect the way the site functions.

Capability

The majority of sites on the internet are informational - they present pages of information to the visitor.
Many site however do offer various capabilities... some examples are;
  • search field
  • storefront where products can be purchased
  • online interactive game
  • form for collecting visitor information
  • user login and profile area
  • file transfer capability
  • MP3 and Video playback capability
  • database that compiles and organizes user information


4) Establishing the Sites Presence. Implementing Search Engine Optimization techniques and additional Marketing Efforts to get the site recognized.

Marketing

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and website marketing is an entire industry in itself. While many website rely on word of mouth, and direct point of click visitors if you want to ATTRACT new leads to your site, you must enter the fray. If you're looking to cut corners, and aren't worried about increasing traffic to your site you won't need to set aside much money for your marketing budget. On the other hand if you're in a competitive field and you want to be seen, and have people clicking into your site you need to set aside a substantial budget.



and as with ANY business venture or project,

5) Building a solid working relationship with your developer.

Business Ethic & Service:

Time is money.

You're spending money to get on the internet, and you don't want to waste your time.
You want someone professional, who will be responsive, supportive and pleasant to work with.
DO NOT OVER LOOK THIS.
The market is flooded with people who have no understanding of the business relationship. Ideally, you want to work with someone who will be there the whole time your presence is on the web, switching developers takes time and energy, which you can better spend doing something else.

Further, is the person you choose to develop your site a "goto guy (or gal)" - meaning can they take care of all your needs, as you business grows and things "pop up"? Or are the mainly specialized in one area. Do they have the experience not just to deliver - but to recommend and consult as well? All very valid MONEY SAVING points to consider.

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CALCULATING A WORKING BUDGET
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As I mentioned earlier, web development is a flexible medium. And the market is flooded with "so called developers". Whether you have a budget for $100, or $10,000 someone somewhere will sell you the world, and accept your project regardless of their ability or intention to see the project through.

TREAD CAREFULLY.

After reading this page, you've got a basic understanding of the aspects involved in creating a website. But unless you yourself come from a techincal web background, or have already done some market research, you aren't going to be able to translate your thoughts of what you need into a dollar figure.

To get an accurate cost you need to discuss the details of your project directly with a developer.

However, if you don't want to approach a developer without any idea of budget, with a little thought you can assign your own value to the areas I've pointed out and come up with a working budget of your own.

First, on a piece of paper jot down each aspect of web development.

Now ask yourself how important each of these factors are to representing your business on the web, and what are you willing to spend on each.

FORGET ABOUT THE SPECIFICS TO YOUR SITE RIGHT NOW. FORGET ABOUT TRYING TO THINK OF MARKET RATES OR HOURLY WAGES OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT - just assign your own dollar value to each of these aspects.

Now that you have your initial figures, you can adjust them based on the specifics to your site. Look at each aspect individually and we'll adjust your figure accordingly. You could use any system, (a 1-10 10% increment for example), but for simplicities sake we'll go by half if it seems less important, leave it as is if you think its of standard importance, and double it if you feel its of critical importance...

1) Aesthetics - Most professionals will say this is more important, and many (especially those in a competitive field) will say it is extremely important.
2) Front End - Whats the volume of your content? a few pages with little content, hundreds of pages with vast content?
3) Capability - Are you trying to integrate a few capabilities? many? none?
4) Marketing - Is this more or less important to you? Are you trying to get new business from visitors surfing to your site - or are you using your site mainly as a point of contact for existing customers?
5) Business Service - Is this more or less important to you? I deal with so many clients that come to me after having used a less than professional developer (trying to cut corners on their budget) with disastrous results - they wind up spending more time and money and have incurred unnecessary stress.

Add up your final figures... You now have a working budget for your web development project.

Is this budget realistic?

Theres no way to answer that without seeing what the particulars to your site are... If you were honest, and started with a serious figure you should have descent working budget when approaching a developer.
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GETTING ON THE INTERNET ON A TIGHT BUDGET AND STILL BEING SUCCESSFUL
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Quite often I'm approached by a small business that wants to get on the internet and their expectations far outweigh their budget. These clients want flash intros, ecommerce solutions, integrated blogs, and other complex features for miniscule budgets. While this is simply not possible in any kind of professional capacity, these clients are not lost. I give them one simple, but profound piece of advice...

STRATEGY, STRATEGY, STRATEGY.

When you're on a tight budget, for whatever reason, you must scale down the scope of your web presence.

A SINGLE PROFESSIONALLY DEVELOPED WEB PAGE IS WORTH AN ENTIRE SITE DONE AT AN AMATEUR LEVEL.

If your budget is very small, develop small... and grow.

Impression is EVERYTHING - if someone comes to your site that only contains a handful of pages (even if there are no bells and whistles, and little functionality) but it is presented professionally you will not lose the lead. On the other hand If someone surfs into your site and you have lacking design, a clunky ecommerce solution, and other sub par functionality, 95% of visitors will simply click the back button to google and hit the next link of one of your competitors - you will lose the lead.

Clients new to the web usually don't believe this concept - they think because other sites on the web are offering all these different features, they MUST have them in some capacity (even if its poor) in order to compete. This is wrong.

IF YOU PORTRAY PROFESSIONALISM, ACCURATE INFORMATION, AND FRIENDLY SERVICE A SMALL PRESENCE CAN COMPETE AND ESTABLISH A SUCCESSFUL PRESENCE.




THE MONEY TRAP
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When you're trying to get on the web under a tight budget, don't fall into a common trap, and choose the cheapest solution you can find.

The three most common cheap solutions are; Students, Giant Template Companies, and Out Of Country Firms.

When you work with Students, or recent graduates who are willing to work at a nominal cost (or even for free solely looking for real world experience and portfolio pieces), these freelancers, although perhaps quite artisticaly talented and theoroetically knowledgeable, have no practical knowledge.

They are learning as they go - and learning on YOUR TIME. This almost always means longer then expected development times, unexpected problems and a bug ridden website.

These industry newcomers also don't understand the business relationship and are prone to outright waste your time. They will promise you the world, accepting your project with no real understanding of how to complete it.

Without the responsibility of a professional level financial commitment, and the concern of keeping their reputation in good standing they may back out of your project on a whim - LITERALLY DISAPPEAR.

EVEN IF YOU HAVEN'T PAID SOMEONE A DEPOSIT, YOU'VE LOST TIME.
YOUR TIME IS MONEY.
ON TOP OF LOSING TIME, YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH THE WHOLE PROCESS OF FINDING ANOTHER DEVELOPER AGAIN!!

Giant Template Companies may appear to give you a cost effective solution on the surface. They offer a "complete" website for a couple hundred dollars. But these companies deal with hundreds if not thousands of clients. Like the fast food industry, they've streamlined the process, and look to crank out quantity instead of quality. Even if a cookie cutter template web presence is somehow acceptable to you, the service is almost always completely inadequate. Many times these companies don't allow you to contact a real person for support, they aren't available at all times, and in general are just a basic hassle to deal with.

Regardless of the companies service, once you purchase a template you still need to customize to reflect your own business. Even with straightforward web based administration controls, customizing your sites template is going to take time. Either you have to spend your time learning it - and dealing with it, or else pay someone else to.

No talented professional will work on customizing a template cheaply, because the time servicing the client outweighs the cost of the customization work - this means that only non-professionals or students will agree to work with you and now you're back to square one.

The worst part of using a Giant Template Company, is that in the end no matter how you do it, or who you pay, once you finish customizing your template, you're left with just that... a customized template. People recognize template driven sites, and unless you do an outstanding job working on your template, it will reflect poorly on your businesses image and hinder you from reaching your internet goals.

Finally, the market is flooded with Shadey Out of Country Firms. Of course the U.S.A. doesn't hold the patent on great web developers, but many companies (in my personal experience, particularly from India and Asia) seem to offer the same services as American companies, but in fact often offer many more difficulties.

While the internet truly opens the globe, and physical location becomes less of an issue, it is important to integrate with your web provider as seamlessly as possible.

You need someone who is familiar with standard U.S. business practices. Someone familiar enough to deal with issues and create solutions quickly. Someone who is available during normal U.S. business hours and reachable - especially during an emergency.

And, while you may take it for granted, someone who carries themselves with at least a most basic level of professionalisim. If you need to spend extra time on basic communication issues, and find yourself having to deabte what or why you certain things done, your project is doomed before it begins...

It is also critical that your web developer be professional and responsible with all of your sensitive material they work with.

Finally, while the U.S. has means of holding companies and individuals responsible, do you have any idea of such processes for the Out of Country Firm. If so, what would be the costs of implementing them? If you're budget is a few hundred dollars and an Out of Country Firm says "screw you" and disappears, any action you take against them would more than likely cost you more then the budget of your project.

Of course if a project falls apart, noone wants to resort to litigation, but at least with an American based professional or company someone can more easily be held accountable.

To many small businesses looking for a web presence, think these cheap "solutions" are the answer. IN FACT THEY ARE A TRAP... a total crapshoot at best... and will cost you more money, take up more of your time, and cause you aggrivated stress in the end, trust me on this - I've been dealing with clients for years that have taken these routes with disastrous results.

THE SOLUTION TO CREATING A WEB PRESENCE UNDER A TIGHT BUDGET IS NOT TRYING TO REDUCE THE COST OF QUALITY OF WORK, BUT RATHER MAXIMIZING YOUR WEB PRESENCE STRATEGY...
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MY DEVELOPMENT COSTS
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As posted on the service page of the site - My business websites start at $1600.

I am always open to discussing any project, with anyone who is serious about establishing a successful web presence.

Design is my passion, and I enjoy helping people.

I've been in business for myself for many years, and I know first hand how much of a difference a little extra effort can make to a project. I also know that if I help someone build a successful web presence, their prosperity will come right back to me. I pride myself on building lasting business relationships, not just delivering a product, collecting a check, and disappearing.

I also believe there are many ways to Skin A Cat. Especially if you a working on a project, selling a product, or offering a service I really believe in. There are so many wonderful products, services, and talented people on the web, on occasion I am more then happy to support them and work out a special deal.





PITFALLS OF AMATEUR WORK updated

A PRIMER ON LOGO DESIGN

ROARR!™ SEO for small business


A PRIMER ON WEB DEVELOPMENT

SPEND A FEW MINUTES READING THIS PAGE, AND YOU'LL SAVE TIME, AND MONEY on your web project regardless of the developer you choose.


9 out of 10 clients I work with are in a rush.
They are usually busy building their business, and want to spend as little time as possible creating their website.

Understandable.

They want to discuss their site with me, and have all their thoughts, visions, ideas, AND CONTENT magically flow from their mind into mine - so I can develop a fantastic site for them.

That certainly would be efficient.

The truth is that website development does take some effort, time and work on the CLIENTS PART.

Web development is custom work.

You wouldn't call up a taylor and tell him to make you a suit without giving him your measurements before hand... well the same logic applies in web development, but instead of measurements, you need to give your developer a bit more information.
THE BETTER ORGANIZED AND MORE INFORMATION YOU PROVIDE - THE MORE SMOOTHLY AND QUICKLY YOUR PROJECT WILL GO, THE MORE ACCURATELY YOU'll BE REPRESENTED, AND OVERALL THE MORE IMPRESSIVE YOUR WEB PRESENCE WILL BE.

The good news is... Hey - I've done this before!, and I can show you how to get organized and help you through the process. It's not as bad as it may sound, and spending however much time you spend now in this early stage will absolutely come back later on to reduce your overall cost and shorten your development time... and these are GOOD THINGS!

Alright Me Hardies, Follow Me!
 quick outline for web development

1- Organize Content
2- Set Goals
3- Calculate Working Budget
4- Choose Developer & Finalize Budget
5- Deliver Content
6- Refine Design/Structure and Function
7- Fulfill Internet Goals
8- Prosper and Grow


Ready to move on your site?

Email for a free website creation planner in PDF format.

All material on this site is © 2004-2010 William Kidd Media and Nick Macari and may not be copied or redistributed without written consent.