Creating your website...
1. Getting Started
When you get in touch, I’ll run through a set of questions about your needs and ideas. This will pin down the goals and requirements for your project in a way that will allow me to provide a quote, and ultimately create the website you are looking for. Clients often find that taking the time to answer the questions helps them to communicate their vision for the project, and highlights issues they haven’t considered.
This will invariably be followed by a number of conversations where I can get to know you, clarify details and get extra information.
2. Designing Your Site
If you’re happy with the quote, I’ll get started on your unique web design, using the information you’ve given me about your ideas, needs, likes and dislikes. Meanwhile, you’ll need to get together the content for your site – text, photos and anything else you want to show (I can provide help with writing and photography if you want).
It’s important that we get the look of the website decided at this point, because making changes later on will be far more difficult.
3. Building Your Site
Once you’ve approved the design, I’ll arrange hosting (space on the internet), register your domain name (the web address) and build the site using the latest techniques and standards. If possible, I’ll give you access to the site so you can check in whenever you want and see what progress has been made.
Once I’m all done, you can have a good look through the site and ask for any changes that are needed – correcting typos and swapping photos, that sort of thing (I you wish, I can provide a full proofread at this stage).
Then your new website will be ready to go live and start receiving visitors!
Prices
Everyone’s requirements are different, so I produce a detailed individual quotation for each project.
A simple, one-page site might cost from £200. However, adding further pages with the same look is much quicker, so don’t imagine that is the price per page! A five or six page site might still only cost from around £400.
Things such as bespoke artwork, interactive forms or whizzy graphics take longer for me to produce and so increase the price. Setting up a full content management system (so you can make changes to the site yourself) is a large job in itself and costs more, while creating an online shop is many hours of work and will likely put the price in the £800 to £2000 range.
Lastly, there will be an annual fee, starting from £6.75 a month, that covers the price of your website address (domain name), your hosting package, a set number of changes and updates per year once your site is complete, plus an annual 'health check' (including software updates and generally making sure everything is working properly).
Note that I’ll ask for payment in three chunks, at key stages of the project – before starting the design, before starting the build and on completion.