February 24, 200818 yr Hi, I recently finished a website for a client that has taken me a long and frustrating 6 months to complete. I wasn't paid for the website as I wanted to learn css and thought it wasn't fair for him. However the client kindly gave me a little something after it was completed. The client said that he wanted to maintain it himself, so I created extensive guides for the client on how to update the website, using html (e.g adding photos, links, text etc). I was so glad to finally finish this and get it out of my life, so I went to show the client on how to update it and he got really angry and said he just couldn't do it, didn't have the time and patience and that it was far too difficult to do!!! I was very annoyed at this, but kept cool (surprisingly!) plus he didn't even seem to have read the guide I spent ages producing! Anyway, I have now been lumbered with maintaining the website and it's going to need updated on a almost weekly basis. He has just also asked me to add 2 new pages again, which means I need to create the buttons for the navigation bar and update every page there is. I will be charging a maintenance fee now, as there is no way I am doing this for free. What are reasonable prices to charge? do people charge an annual fee or just a 'pay as you go fee'? Updates would consist of :- changing text on the 'news' page, almost weekly. Adding new pages and changing navigation bar Uploading new images Bear in mind, I do all this using css and html on notepad - so a very lengthy process! At the start of this, i was all for making websites for people as an extra hobby - this has completely put me off! Sorry for the rant, and thanks for any advice!
February 24, 200818 yr Have you considered using PHP includes to lighten your load? http://www.tutorialtastic.co.uk/tutorial/php_includes If the site's server supports PHP, this will make things much easier for you. Alternatively, you might want to look into using a CMS.
February 24, 200818 yr You can charge for maintenance any way that suits you and your client. There's no hard and fast rule how you should do it, that's really up to you. If the work involved is roughly the same each week/month then you could agree a fixed rate, but make sure the client knows how much work they get for that fee and charge for anything extra. The other method is to just bill then for your time, based on your hourly rate. Don't let this put you off. Things like this do happen and you learn by it.
February 25, 200818 yr As a ballpark, we usually quote 2 hours per-client for mainenance on non-CMS, static sites. Breaking it down for them allows them to see what/why it's important... 1. Backup of site, database and user settings This is done automatically, as a cron job on our servers. We do a 3 day rotational backup for every client. 2. Checking for dead links, out of date items This is done once a month, by hand, and involves trawling the site for known pages containing links or chronologically dependent data 3. Minor amends If the client has nips and tucks, such as word changes etc. which fall into a 'five minute job' category, these are inclusive What ISN'T included, and is charged extra... 1. Updates and new pages 2. Adding features or facilities We also make a separate charge for optimisation and SEO, and ANOTHER separate charge for 'human friendly' stats reports. We write the stats reports by hand, and they are based on not only the server stats, but a comparison on the previous month's performance and general trend. The report also includes search engine performance vs. the previous months for the given keywords a client wants to target. This alone can take 2-3 hours, and is therefore a separate charge entirely. Once a client sees the benefits of reports, backups etc. they get used to the monthly charge, and find great pleasure in seeing how well their site is performing. But make sure it's charged for!
February 29, 200818 yr Author Thanks for all your replies - does anyone have any actual figures that I can charge? I just have no idea what is a good rate or not..I don't want to be rude and over charge, but I also want it to be worth my while updating the site as it wasn't what I originally agreed. Regarding the PHP - If I change every page to a php extension, will that not interfere with search engine / link entries? The website has had over 1000 visits since I Put the site up 2 weeks ago, so i'm thinking it's a very popular site and I really don't want to have to ruin any links to it! Is there a test I can do, to see if the host support php? My client uses their own hosts and I can't find much info about what their package includes. It is Thorin they use. Many Thanks,
February 29, 200818 yr Thanks for all your replies - does anyone have any actual figures that I can charge? I just have no idea what is a good rate or not..I don't want to be rude and over charge, but I also want it to be worth my while updating the site as it wasn't what I originally agreed. How much do you want/need to earn per hour to live? You can earn £5.50/hour serving burgers, but you are providing specialist skills so your time is more valuable and therefore more expensive. We can't really say exactly what you should charge, don't undervalue your skills but at the same time don't charge a ridiculous fee. If you're in business these are the sort of decisions you will be making a lot so now's the time to make a decision! Regarding the PHP - If I change every page to a php extension, will that not interfere with search engine / link entries? The website has had over 1000 visits since I Put the site up 2 weeks ago, so i'm thinking it's a very popular site and I really don't want to have to ruin any links to it! If you chnage the extensions to php you'll have to update all your internal links as well. Srearch engines alreay have your pages listed by the sound of it so you'd need to set up a 301 redirection for every page (using .htaccess) - this will forward the visitor to the php page instead of the old one, and also inform the SE's of the new address. Is there a test I can do, to see if the host support php? My client uses their own hosts and I can't find much info about what their package includes. It is Thorin they use. Many Thanks, Open up notepad and paste in this code... <?php phpinfo(); ?> Save the file as phpinfo.php, upload to your server and load it up in a web browser. If you see a lot of info you'll know PHP is available. Remove the file when you've finished!!! Alternatively just ask your host
February 29, 200818 yr That type of work 'maintenance' is billed under our customer development fee of £25 per hour - unless the price has been set before hand. Obviously if its only a quick job such as updating a link we do it for nothing - many of our customers use our CMS which they find much easier then editing their site from their PC or cPanel.
March 1, 200818 yr Hi there BlueDreamer, if you want to switch to PHP without buggering about with changing links, you can use a .htaccess to automatically redirect people from html to php. Save this into a file called ".htaccess" and upload to the root - it will redirect all html extensions to PHP. RewriteEngine on RewriteRule ^(.*).html$ $1.php [L] The other option is to automatically parse HTML as PHP, using this htaccess file: AddType application/x-httpd-php .html .php .htm addhandler application/x-httpd-php .html .php
March 2, 200818 yr From what I gather hourly rates range from £25-£35. Giving the customer a guide on how to write HTML to adjust their website seems odd to me, I understand you took the job as unpaid to develop your 'folio / experience etc. but be careful that offer is not exploited. Can anyone advise; is it normal for freelancers to hand code customers sites in Notepad? I thought that software like DW existed to make managing customers sites...well, managable? Not criticising those who do this just trying to understand a little better!
March 4, 200818 yr Coding sites in notepad? Don't mean to offend those who do this, but most who use notepad do it to brag when it means nothing. Code editors and such are a professional standard, we use dreamweaver in code view as you have all your HTML formatting and it just makes productivity better, which in the real world is key. Productivity is far more important than ego and bragging rights. If your at work and one guy is using dreamweaver and getting stuff out twice as fast as you... you then turn to your manager and say "I use notepad as I am better than a dreamweaver guy" your probably getting fired for being a twonk. Design view WYSIWYG is another matter as it spews out crap, but code editors and dreamweavers code editor, fine. Anyhow; you should charge what you feel is reasonable for the work, if your not bound by contract to do updates for him you don't need to. Ideally what you should have done is implement a CMS for him to update content.... He doesnt want to format his HTML, www.editize.com - a java wysiwyg editor that overlaps the textarea AND produces good, XHTML compliant code.
March 4, 200818 yr Can anyone advise; is it normal for freelancers to hand code customers sites in Notepad? I thought that software like DW existed to make managing customers sites...well, managable? Not criticising those who do this just trying to understand a little better! Notepad is probably a little extreme except for doing quick edits. In reality you'll probably find mosts designers using a text editor that's built for the purpose like Notepad++, Ultraedit, WeBuilder etc. Dreamweaver is popular but easily abused. Being able to hand code is essential if you want to succeed as a web designer, not least because you learn how code works - something you'll never learn if you keep using a WYSIWYG. Years ago I used to use a WYSIWYG editor but when I switched to hand coding along with full CSS layouts I was amazed at all the things I was missing out on.
March 4, 200818 yr I coded my most recent personal site (not launched yet) entirely in Notepad. That's not bragging. I don't own DW and there was very little to do on the HTML side - a few divs, php includes, adding content at the end, but the rest was controlled by my stylesheet. The whole process of creating what turned out to be a 10(?) page site took under an hour in Notepad; the grunt work was writing content and working with the stylesheet. I don't think that's such a bad thing AND it keeps me from taking shortcuts (adding presentation elements to HTML, etc.) that will hurt the site in the long run.
March 4, 200818 yr Don't mean to offend those who do this, but most who use notepad do it to brag when it means nothing. Code editors and such are a professional standard, we use dreamweaver in code view as you have all your HTML formatting and it just makes productivity better, which in the real world is key. Productivity is far more important than ego and bragging rights. I don't use notepad so I can brag about it. I use notepad because I don't need to splash out on fancy software to write my markup. Notepad may not have any swish buttons or options, or syntax highlighting or a template system, but if you know your HTML well, it's just as quick (if not faster) than dreamweaver.
March 4, 200818 yr I don't use notepad so I can brag about it. I use notepad because I don't need to splash out on fancy software to write my markup. Notepad may not have any swish buttons or options, or syntax highlighting or a template system, but if you know your HTML well, it's just as quick (if not faster) than dreamweaver. Hehe, I was referring to those people who brag about coding in notepad and act a bit godly about it.
March 4, 200818 yr Ahh... that's okay then. I agree. People who become snobs because of which software they use are fairly annoying. Paying for dreamweaver does not make you better than some tightwad (like me) who uses notepad. And sticking to notepad doesn't make you better than someone who write their markup by hand in dreamweaver.
March 20, 200818 yr Charge whatever you see fit. Show the customer the value and benefits of having you do their maintainence and most companies will pay more to have better service and quality. Lee.
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