So you’ve decided you need a website!

Before calling us
The first thing to do is spend some time planning your website.
The more you know about what you want, the better the site will be and the quicker it will take us to design and build it.

One client may want to build an extremely complicated site, see a number of draft visuals or require a search engine marketing campaign, while another may just want a small site, a single design and no search engine promotion. One client may need to have a number of meetings to discuss the site whilst another may do everything by email and telephone. These all affect the end cost.

Web design is more of a service, than a product. Because of this, the cost is based on the amount of time spent working on the project, not a set figure based simply on the number of pages.

Rough costs
To give you a rough idea, here are some guideline figures:

• A simple introductory website £2,000 - £3,000
• A simple e-commerce or database driven site £3,500 - £5,000
• A dynamic, multi-tiered, multi-functional site £5,000 +

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Plan, plan, plan!!!
To make your life easier, here are some questions you should ask yourself about your website.

• Who will be using the site and why?
• What are your aims of your website?
• Who are your competitors - do they have websites?
• Which sites do you like and dislike - and why?
• What kind of budget do you have?
• How soon do you need the website?
• Will your website need to address accessibility requirements
  (for disabled, visually impaired users who may use special software)
• Do you want to interact with the site user, i.e. enable them to email
  you or enquire about a service or product via a web based enquiry form
• Do you wish to sell a product or service securely online

Structure and content
Draw up a rough plan or flow diagram of your website. This needn’t be complicated but ensure it’s detailed enough to give us a good idea of the overall scope of the site and what the individual pages are likely to be.

It could be as simple as a sketch on the back of an envelope!

A typical structure for a small website might be:

A more detailed site might have the following structure:

1. Home Page/Welcome

2. About us - Background - Staff

3. Our Services - Service A - Service B - Service C

4. Our clients - Case Studies

5. Contact Us

...or a bit more complex

The options are endless, which is why you need a plan!

If you can draw up a simple diagram like this before talking to us, it will make it much easier for us to give you an accurate cost. If you can email it to us before calling - that would be even better!

If you would like to discuss your website needs with us, please use the form on the contact us page, you may find it useful to read our help document before contacting us, please click here.