What is a good web development price?

Web development projects can get expensive. There’s a lot of work required to build a web site, and even more to properly design your sight to rank well in search engines. Before you pick a developer for your next project and you’ll want to consider the factors that will contribute to the overall cost of your web development project.

First lets look at web development from a purchaser's perspective.
As a purchaser of web design/development services I can assume that you maybe thinking, "Give me the whole price up front to complete this website."

With a written quote it gives you some security knowing what the final cost is going to set you back. You hope that you can specify your requirements, pay your deposit, provide the required content, images and info and sit back and wait for the developer to put it all together.

When the completed project is presented for you to review, you can request a few alterations, launch the site live and pay the balance of your bill. In a perfect world, it makes perfect sense to do it this way.

Now lets look at the web developers perspective.
The biggest problem with web development is that it is almost impossible to determine the end of a project. Every project I've done at a fixed price, the time frame has ALWAYS been extended due to the number of client requests to make last minute tweaks and modifications.

It's nature to want value for money and to want to get the best possible product we can for as little outlay as possible. But, it is this very nature of humans which makes project based pricing unprofitable unless the fee is large enough to make it worthwhile.

Here is a guide to how I Develop web sites

This is just a guide, your web development project may have needs that are not addressed here. If you're ready to request your free, no-obligation quote, visit our Website Design Quote page.

Project Phases
• Decision / Planning
• Graphic Design
• Website Development / Coding
• Testing
• Website Launch
• Project Completion
Hosting & Addons
• Hosting
• Optional Addons

Here are 6 tips to help you prepare yourself,
1) Find a web developer with experience
Seriously. If all you care about is that it “looks pretty” and is cheap, you’ll get what you pay for.
You do not want to find out after you have laid out $2,000+ that your site needs a lot of fine tuning. So while you thought you were saving money going with the “cheap guy” you’ll end up paying the next guy again to do build it correctly.

2) Use Simple design coding
When looking for a web Developer for your project be sure to ask what type of coding they use. A lot of web designers like to use the latest and news coding to build your web site. The draw backs to this are, if you want to make updates your self it is virtually impossible. If you decide to pay someone else to update your site they have to know or learn the coding that was used originally. And, not all web coding is good for search engine indexing. This means that your site my not receive the proper ranking it deserves even if it does have plenty of back links and good content.

For web sites I use basic html, a little flash and CSS. This makes it easier to make changes and format your site to be easily index by the various search engines. Also it is important to use coding that displays well in various internet browsers. While building my websites, I check to make sure that they display correctly in Yahoo, Firefox, Internet Explorer, AOL. For Mac's I check FireFox, Safari and Opera.

For blogs I use WordPress. I like it, because it’s easy to work with – and it’s open source. Adding a page or post doesn’t take any coding. After coding all day for clients it’s nice to use a system that allows us to focus on content.

3) Do your homework
You don’t need to become a web developer, but learning a thing or two about the ins and outs of quality web development will help you make educated decisions.

Some things you should know about your next developer:
• Do they have a strong command of CSS-driven design? CSS makes your site more lightweight (faster loading times) and far easier to update down the line.
• Will they use comments in their code? This also saves time/money on updates and upgrades down the line.
• How many projects like yours have they handled so far? If you’re their first eCommerce project, for example, you might want to look elsewhere.
At some point you’ve got make your decision, but picking up some of the basics beforehand won’t hurt.

4) Stay involved throughout the process
In my experience the worst thing that can happen to a web development project is the client falling out of contact. For whatever reason the website takes a back seat to other business issues. The web developer can’t get in touch, and after a while they give up and stop calling.
It’s not your developer’s responsibility to send hired goons to your office to force your hand on those design approvals.

In fact, i have recently included in my contracts a clause that stipulate that after X number of months of unresponsiveness on your part the project will be closed and your deposit forfeited.
In other words, letting a development project drag is probably costing you business in the mean time.
Your website is truly at the core of your marketing plan – don’t let it fall by the wayside.

5) Don’t get Flash-happy
Many developers will not agree with me on this one, but so be it.
Flash is expensive. I don’t mean Bentley expensive, but all else being equal it’ll cost you more to build a Flash-driven site than one driven by straight HTML.

Combine the higher development costs with the fact that Flash is not generally SEO-friendly, and you may find yourself in need of a complete site overhaul not long after the first version goes live – at least if you have any interest in getting search engine traffic.
Flash-based websites also almost always take a lot longer to update (read: more expensive).

6) Be prepared
This is usually the most difficult part of the process. Clients often don't have a clear idea of what they want; they need help to clarify and articulate what kind of web site they have in mind. I do this through in-person or telephone meetings. Here are some of the questions that you will be asked.

1. How many pages will you need?
2. What kind of navigation bars or menus do you want?
3. Will you require more than one page design?
4. What number of custom graphics are needed?
5. How many graphics will you provided?
6. How design-intensive a site do you want?
7. What type of text content will you provided and in what form?
8. Will you need any interactive forms? How many fields?
9. Will you need an administration area?
10. Will you need your domain registered or changed?
11. Do you have hosting arrangements?
12. How important is search engine positioning?
13. Will any client training be necessary?

The most important thing is to clearly communicate and document the project as much as possible. As a client, your input is crucial and critical to a successful project. But, clients should trust in their designers ability and the decisions they make as professionals, rather than trying to manipulate every aspect of the design based on personal preference.

To get back to the title of this article... if you would like to discuss a new web project with me you will receive a detailed proposal with an approximate fee based on the estimated amount of time to complete the project.

Virgil Griffin
GBN Web Development, Inc.

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