Designing for the Web
Whenever you have a web project in mind, I will meet / chat / Zoom to go over what your needs are – is it a new site? are you fed up with what you have? is it not generating any contacts for you?
The questions you need to think about are … why do I want this? what do I expect this web thing to do for me? who am I aiming it at? should I just try to do it myself or is it really worth the hassle plus I have no idea what I’m doing?
Once we decide we are going ahead with your project we can discuss terms based on how much work will be required, how quickly you need it by and so on. Typically you can expect to pay 50% up front and settle the rest when you’re happy and the web thing is live on the internet.
That’s great but what I really wanted was some IT support?
There will be web hosting and admin charges to bear in mind, probably 12% of the site cost annually, subject to etc etc.
There is an option to build your site for a very low up front cost and pay a set monthly fee by standing order for everything – the design work, the maintenance work, the domain name registration, the web hosting costs, the whole lot.
This makes it easier for you to budget and know how much your site is costing you on a monthly basis. No periodic big bills! Don’t worry, my price scale is very competitive. You won’t have to sell the house / dog / first born.
WordPress
Most websites being produced today are done using WordPress. They look great (they can look awesome!) and they’re relatively easy to keep updated with new content once the design is live. Most likely you don’t really care what software is used but it might be good to know.
The basic software is totally free, the addition of optional ‘plugin’ modules can add cost to varying degrees (usually £20 to £200 per module depending on what they do!).
The cost comes in the amount of work building them into your complete web thing. Clearly the more things that get added the more work there is in integrating them, testing them and supporting them on an ongoing basis.
If you can live with a very simple WordPress site (perfectly possible!) your site won’t cost very much.
Your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter page feeds can be included, mailing lists, appointment booking, online shopping carts, photo galleries, slideshows . . . whatever it takes.
To get the best of this sort of thing could well point to paid plugins. Everything is a balancing act. If you run a salon or other bookable agency you might anticipate paying about twice what you would pay for a marketing site. That’s what the initial project meeting is all about.
Access to all but the most basic sites is by login and password, so you can edit the content yourself once it’s up there. Should you be fortunate enough to have staff you can farm out your content updating!
A note about Joomla!
Again, just in case you want to know, Joomla! is similar to WordPress but not best for the amateur web creator—in the right hands it can be used to create impressive small to medium scale websites with lots of users and lots of data.
Broadly speaking it’s harder to break than WordPress, harder to learn but capable of holding a massive amount of information.
If your project is suitable for using Joomla! it will be fairly obvious and we can certainly point things that way as required. Great for bookable events listings, e-commerce sites, clubs with league results and so on.
Socks
There’s no web development thing called Socks. Your cat might be.
