Keep Web Costs Down
Tips To Keep Website Costs Down
1. As simple as it sounds, don’t pay for a website “up front”. Recently I spoke with a businessman in Adelaide who had paid for a website and had nothing to show for it. He gave up and moved on. Now that’s expensive!
2. “Would you like fries with that?” Up-selling is rife in the industry. Why pay for something you won’t use? If you are starting out and feeling uncertain, it makes perfect sense to start small and build on it.
3. Write your own text. Provide your own photos. But if you can’t write to save yourself, and even your mother says your photography is awful, leave it to a pro.
4. Insist on itemised invoices, especially for ongoing fees and charges.
5. If you want to rank high on Google or MSN searches for certain words and phrases, make sure your web design will assist this. Old-fashioned designs impede this and your ranking suffers. The cost of fixing the problems will negate the cheap price you paid in the first place.
6. Be highly organised. If you can show the prospective web development firm that they will be working with a highly organised client, this should keep your quote down. (Get them to quote on you providing all of the information in one hit.)
7. Spend time finding sites you like and sites you hate – this will guide the designer, save time and save money.
8. If you are going to make a constant changes – such as weekly specials - choose a good Content Management System (CMS). It costs more to start with, but saves money on the longer term. A word of caution: test drive your CMS the way you would a car. Put it through its paces before you say “yes”. Some CMS are dogs; some are fantastic. And if you end up with something that is too hard to handle for you or your staff, you will end up paying the same company to makes your changes.