Understanding the quote!

If you're not a technical person there's a risk at quoting time that you might be blinded by science and feel that you're being ripped off. This is a quick list of some of the items that might go into producing your quote along with what they are and why you'd want them.

Page production

This is pretty straight forward. This is the time taken to take the content you provide to your designer and mark it up with HTML so that it looks good on the web.

Navigation design

Your brochure or product line might make perfect sense to you but what about to someone who doesn't know your industry? If you've got a complex site with a lot of pages then your designer might suggest spending some time on the navigation of the site. This basically means designing the structure of the pages in the site, which page leads to which, and so on. In particular, for good usability reasons your designer should suggest working on the navigation system if your menus are likely to exceed 5 items.

Visual and graphic design

Without question the most contentious aspect of your web site will be the way it looks. Your designer will know this and will allow plenty of time in the plan to show you mock-ups of how the site will look in order to gain your input and approval. Visual design covers, fonts, colours and graphic images.

Feedback forms

Most web sites these days will want to provide the visitor with some way to get in touch with the site owner. As well as the usual phone numbers and email addresses you may also wish to add a feedback or suggestions form. This should not be a big deal for your designer. Beware if they try to charge you a lot of money for this or if they suggest that you need "CGI enabled hosting". There are plenty of cheaper solutions to this as long as all you want to do is mail the contents of a form back to your own email address.

Hosting

Your web site will need to be installed on a server somewhere if you want anyone to be able to see it. Your designer will probably be able to offer you "hosting" as part of your web site solution. If your site is complex and business critical then you might want dedicated hosting (your site all alone on its own server). Otherwise you should use shared hosting (your site on a big server that also hosts lots of other sites). If you're doing anything clever with your site such as using a database then you might need special hosting that allows ASP, Cold Fusion, CGI or Flash Generator access. Expect to pay more for these. Your designer is probably a reseller for one or two hosting companies. Be sure you check the prices of hosting with those companies to make sure your designer is giving you a good deal. If not then don't be afraid to go elsewhere for hosting. It's rare that just because you're using one web designer you'll need to use that same company for hosting. Just make sure if you do go elsewhere that the hosting you buy had all the functionality (such as ASP, CGI access etc.) that your designer requires!

Domain names & email forwarding

No web site can look professional these days without its own domain name (eg www.yourcompany.com). This will be the address visitors to your web site will use to get to you. It should also be used as part of your email address. Your web designer will probably be able to offer to register a domain name for you and have email sent to that domain forwarded to your existing email address. Again, the web designer is probably a reseller so make sure you're getting a good deal. You are not obliged to use the same company if you don't think you're getting a good deal. Be aware, though, that buying domain names can be a complex business. I will cover this topic in more detail in a future article.

JavaScript programming

If your site includes any clever gadgets or form validation then your designer may have to write some JavaScript. JavaScript is a proper programming language that is built into a web page. It has nothing at all to do with the Java programming language. You should be aware that programming can be an expensive exercise and will require comprehensive testing, especially for cross-browser compatibility.

Database work

If your site includes any clever search systems or databases then your designer will probably have to write some programs for that. Common technologies for these things are Active Server Pages (ASP), Cold Fusion and Perl CGI. All of these technologies include proper programming and may add considerably to the cost of your web site. They will also make some testing time necessary in order to find and fix any bugs.

Site promotion

There hardly seems any point in building a web site without promoting it. This is not a trivial matter, however, as simply submitting your site to the search engines will rarely be enough to generate much interest. Expect your designer to want you to provide key words and phrases that your customers will use to find your site. These will be added to your site's META tags along with page descriptions and titles to try and give the search engines a good idea of what your site is about. How much you spend on this is really up to you as it's possible to spend as long as you like working on it. Spend longer for better results but the best results will come if your designer keeps up to date with the latest news on how search engines work. Don't believe anyone that tells you they can guarantee you a top 10 listing in a search engine!

Copyright © 2000 John Arnold (john@otn.co.uk)