Miscellaneous

It’s not uncommon to have potential clients ask “What does it cost to build a website?” and as you’re probably aware, this is not an easy question to answer. There are many factors that need to be taken into consideration when quoting the development of a website project or any design project for that matter.

Each project can have various components and elements that will determine the time and materials necessary to create the final product. Below are a list of things to consider when calculating the cost of a website.

Content

• Are you able to supply content in a format suitable for the web or do you need help with copy writing?
• Do you have an existing content management system we need to work with?
• Do you have your copy and has it been checked by your legal and compliance teams?
• Do you need to integrate third-party services/APIs such as Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Google Maps etc?
• Do you need to integrate video and if so, does that video need to be encoded for multiple devices?
• How many different types of content does the site need to have?
• Who will enter the site’s content?
• Does your site need to have content fed from an external database?
• Will you provide pictures or should the budget cover purchase of stock photography?
• Do you want FB, Twitter, other Social Media Plugins interacting with visitors on site – do they have special requirements?
• Would you like to incorporate user-submitted content, and how do you see it being utilized on the site?

Design

• Do you have suitable images or do you need us to source images or provide photography for you?
• Does your brand need creating as part of the website build?
• How many page templates require bespoke design?
• How much scope is there for pre-design planning (i.e. creating an information architecture) and how often is this likely to be reviewed?
• Do you have a company logo or will it have to be created within budget?
• Is it going to be Flash, CSS or Hybrid?
• Do you wish to have the design adapted for touch-screen devices?
• Is this site part of a larger brand campaign or will it stand alone? What are the design considerations?

Development

• Are you planning on including User Testing throughout the development of your site?
• Does it have to be written in a certain language in order to be compatible with your production environment or internal systems?
• Does the website need to scale to handle large numbers of visitors?
• Does your intended audience include small screen users such as those on mobile phones and should they still be able to perform all the functions of your website on any device?
• What level of browser support do you need for your website? Will this include older browsers such as IE6?
• Any of your pages need extra security for secure online transaction(s)?
• Is there any development you wish done for FaceBook: a page, app, ad, and/or a game?
• Do you have a requirement to run multiple sites on multiple domains from 1 CMS?
• Do you want your visitors to pay and enter card details directly on your website, or are you using a 3rd party, offsite service such as PayPal?
• Is this project going to be completed in one phase, or broken down into multiple phases, each with a separate budget?

Functionality

• Do you need any e-commerce functionality such as carts/basket, customer accounts, payment processing?
• Do you need search facilities within your website?
• Do you need to collect information from your visitors to store in a database?
• Do you need us to integrate with other external systems or applications?
• Do you require a content management system to power your site?
• Do you require any membership features such as members-only content with registration and login facilities?
• Have you already got a specification of features you would like to include or do you need advice and guidance from scratch?
• Do you plan to sell products or services and require an ecommerce solution?
• Will you need a search engine for your site?
• Do you want a blog, RSS feed, links to social media, comments, etc.?
• Do you want people to be able to personalise the site?
• Do you need to integrate product reviews into the site? If so, will they be moderated? Will the reviews be displayed with a star rating?
• Do you want the ability to add new sections, pages, subpages etc to your website through your content management system or will the architecture be fixed?
• Do you want users to be able to signup for newsletters?
• How many different types of access-privileges are required, for users logging in, if there is a web-engine powering it?
• Do you need any form of reports on site usage?
• Will you be adding downloads to the site? If so how would you like to upload and manage these – through the CMS or via FTP?

Hosting

• Do you have your own hosting already or do you need advice on the level of hosting and redundancy to provide?
• Will you need to us to transfer the website from your previous host?

Miscellaneous

• Do you have any rush timescales that may require additional resource at short notice?
• Do you need to copy data from a previous site?
• Will you require post launch support and management?
• If you have a site already have you tested areas where you want to improve it?
• Have you considered the potential for re-occuring maintenance / upgrade costs?
• What time frame would you like the site to be completed?
• Has there already been a significant amount of research (to support user and business goals) to prop up an information architecture, or will this research have to be done from scratch?
• Do you have specific software or hardware requirements or limitations we must work within?
• If this is an update to an existing site, how significant are the changes to the existing design, content, and underlying technology are you anticipating?
• Do you have written specifications and approval guidelines?
• Are on-site meetings required? How often?
• Will you need further training on using your website once the project is finished?
• What is your budget?

Marketing

• Do you actually have a marketing budget for your site?
• Do you have a plan to market/promote the website once it’s launched?
• Do you have a set measurable goals for your website, such as turnover, conversions or sales?
• Will you require any on page SEO (keyword density checking) or further online marketing to assist the website further to its launch?
• Do you need automated eMarketing, such as cross selling emails or emails triggered on certain stages (e.g. an automatic email after order dispatch to request a facebook ‘like’)?
• Do you want an SEO analysis and a your copywriting reviewed with the keyword obtained?
• If there are advertisements on the site who is managing & designing them?