How Much Does a Professional Web Site Cost?
Web designers and developers the world over cringe when this question is asked. Why? Because most often the person asking the question doesn't understand the importance of the "professional" part. We live in a world where people are advertising full web site packages on Craigslist for $199.00; yet potential clients don't understand the difference between those low-end cookie-cutter templates with a little flair and a professionally built web site that actually enhances and compliments their business. We've lost quite a few contracts here at Overmortal because buyers didn't understand why our web design ran 5-6 times more than what Johnny (Sally from Human Resources' nephew) is willing to charge them. You see, Johnny has a really cool design for his MySpace page. He knows Photoshop, and Mr. CFO from the company has chatted with him a few times when he was at the local coffee house (Johnny's full time job) buying his morning coffee. (Johnny only moonlights as a web designer). Usually, if this scenario doesn't end with a horribly designed web site (a lot of times it does), it ends with a nice looking design that doesn't compliment the business needs of the company and eventually needs to be redesigned six months down the road.
In the case of small businesses who go with Johnny in order to save costs, it ends up being a poor investment that doesn't give the small business a proper ROI and often sounds the death knell for their online presence.
Web design is so much more than a pretty web site. A pretty web site accomplishes nothing if it doesn't speak to your client base, enhance your business and produce a satisfactory ROI.
When we sit down with clients, they often say: we want a web site. My next question is always: why? There has to be a reason beyond just having one. Are you looking to create online sales? Are you looking to drive local search to an online hub for a brick-and-mortar business? What are the goals of this web site? What are the concrete measurable factors that determine a successful web presence?
Every web site consultation begins with a business evaluation. What is the business? What does the business do? What are the goals of the online presence? Are there other benefits that the client hasn't thought about? What determines the success of the web site?
After the business evaluation, it's time to evaluate the client base. Who are the people the company deals with? What would be their primary reason for going to the web site? Considering their purpose, what would be the ideal user experience for them to have? Evaluating the client base is just as important as understanding the business goals. Proper knowledge of the client base will lead to the success of those business goals. It is also this knowledge that will determine a lot about the design. Should it be graphical? Should it be product focused? Should it be clean? The web site experience is owned by the user of the web site. It doesn't matter how much the company wants something a certain way. If it's counterintuitive to their client base, then it needs to be addressed and resolved in favor of the right user experience.
Evaluating the client base is essentially a user experience evaluation. User experience design is different than user interface design and mostly overlooked by the Johnny's of the world. In fact, it's often overlooked by many full time web designers, especially those from a marketing design background or those that push out quick web sites as their business model. The bottom line is that user experience is essential. Failure of the experience will collapse the whole project. It doesn't matter how pretty the web site looks.
Once this research phase is over, it's time for wireframes. If your web designer doesn't supply you with wireframes prior to high fidelity mockups, fire them immediately. Wireframes are extremely important for implementing the proper user experience that was just researched. It allows you to visualize the general layout, page components and overall flow of the web site. Agreement on wireframes makes the design phase vastly smoother and simpler without any surprises. Wireframes should be provided for all major areas of the web site.
With success in researching the business and client base, and success in wireframing a proper user experience, a successful web design is all but guaranteed. And we haven't even gotten to the design portion of the process yet! This shows you how important these first several steps are - steps that are often left out by most Johnny's and cookie-cutter designers.
With the wireframes complete, the next step is to open up Fireworks or Photoshop and start designing high-fidelity mockups based on the wireframes. The layout has already been completed, as has page component determination. All that's left is to determine the colors, styles and what graphical elements should be used. Since the business has already agreed on the wireframes, once they receive these mockups there is already a familiarity with the design. This makes iterations, suggestions and approvals all the easier to come by.
After the mockups of the design have been approved, development begins. At Overmortal, we use the latest web standards for everything we do. HTML, CSS and even JavaScript for certain "effects" that might have been suggested by the client. I'm pretty sure Johnny can't say the same thing. The difference with the code won't be visible in the end product, but when it comes to maintenance and future changes, it makes a huge difference. With our designs, other web designers can easily jump in to make graphical or stylistic changes with ease. Johnny's design, on the other hand, will often require an entire rewrite.
Now we're not trying to pick on poor Johnny. He does the best with what he can. But he's not a professional web designer, and he's not going to give you a profession web site that hits your business goals. Many times, neither are these web site mills that pop up churning out web site after web site in a predetermined format for a couple hundred bucks. A truly professional design is done by professionals that understand web design is more than just a couple of pretty pages. It's an extension of your business. The investment will be more, but the ROI will be exponential.
