Hello fellow WDF heads.

 

The one niggling question that has always been in the back of my mind is how much does it really cost to build a successful website? We quote daily for projects but we all know there is a huge difference between owning a domian pointing to some code on a server and owning a successful site with a good income be it sales, services, advertising or affiliates.

 

If we look at say concepting, normally we design a funky home, maybe an example of a deeper content page before it's agreed and you get to work coding. But could it have been better? I know for sure the more I play with a design the more ideas pop and so a better layout can be found. I'm lucky that at the moment I have a client who respects this concept progression as their v 1 site I built has more than paid for itself. In this project we I have gone from initial through 4 concepts and now there are concepts for key areas of the site. But this is rare ... so far 3 days total on planning and concepts, something most clients want inside a day.

 

Moving on what about content? We stick their corporate egotistical content into the pages, but what image are they trying to reflect? Generally most clients are not writers, i'm not great but I can string a sentence. We give them CMS systems to update their content but what are they updating it with? I've had clients who we build a shop for and they can't be bothered to write a good descriptions, use bad photos and wonder why it does not sell. Again employing content managers is an option but how much would that cost?

 

SEO, links, blogs, social media, networking ... eveything involved to make a killer site; how much would you say it really cost? These unfortunately are the underestimated cracks of our industry but it's what the client is essentially asking but really don't want to know.

The short answer is a lot more than most people expect, you can spend 20-30k on a high-end ecommerce solution and that will do you ZERO in business without marketing.

 

We hit this problem all the time, we emphasise the need to PPC to SEO, to market offline, to 'socialise' and the rest but still we get clients who expect to turn a profit merely by having a website.

 

The web is a very crowded place, most markets are extremely competitive, you can't rest on your laurels and you certainly shouldn't expect people to just come to you.

 

I would have thought a lot of start-up and smaller 'e-tail' businesses lose money or fail because of the above attitude and lack of marketing [budget].

PS: We have a client who spent £40,000+ on an ecomerce site and it didn't make any money in 18 months because it has zero marketing.

You would think if they had the budget of £40.000 for a site, they would have had a decent marketing budget...

You would think if they had the budget of £40.000 for a site, they would have had a decent marketing budget...

 

Exactly, but they were never advised as such.

 

They were sold an 'all singing, all dancing' ecommerce platform that 'made selling easy'...

really depends what sector its in mate. For example, if they have a spare £30k to make a website they are obviously a very well established business.

 

personally, (as a freelancer) without any other help, a 100 Page website + product entry, onsite content optimization & managed domain, i would charge absolute minimum £12,000.

 

So many stages are behind web design, i would rather over estimate, then under estimate, if i mis calculate, and it goes on longer then expected i end up out of pocket, or the customer ends up with a half nice website because they are stingey

 

EDIT: trust is really, SEO pays the biggest role in ranking a sucessfull website, i know this because i used to own a video games store online, and boy was it competitive! get a decent tatic to out do your opponants and u dont need the flashy site

Edited April 3, 201313 yr by webcanvasdesign

So we have discussed in another thread that the success of a website depends on:

 

Content

Design & design strategy

Functionality

SEO (we can add marketing here)

 

But also depends on how much time the client is willing to spend on it themselves, as BrowserBugs said if they upload bad content, this would spoil all the work, that has been done, and certainly wouldn't help for the success of the site.

So we have discussed in another thread that the success of a website depends on:

 

Content

Design & design strategy

Functionality

SEO (we can add marketing here)

 

But also depends on how much time the client is willing to spend on it themselves, as BrowserBugs said if they upload bad content, this would spoil all the work, that has been done, and certainly wouldn't help for the success of the site.

 

 

i had my first non paying customers last week, and it wasnt down to my failure to deliver quality work.

 

custom approaches me, i need you to bring 1 page to life, he proceeded to link said page, i stayed up through the night had his page completed and ready for public release. He said good job etc, but then started expecting me to fix his home page and everything else for free (i also quoted the job at $75, cheap u know, but i was bored n it was a easy job)

 

He would not end the contract on odesk, and ended up in a pretty heated argument between the pair of us, as the client he expected me to do everything for the low crappy price he was paying me, the funny thing was that he actually said in his message to me 'save me from the indians' but he wanted to pay me indian rates.

 

Instead of ending up with a bad feedback through odesk, i ended the contract and left the ball in his court to pay, he never did, so i deleted my content with the backup user name and password i create on all fixed price odesk jobs..

 

shame really, it was a really nice clean modern design, no gradients, perfect layout, amazing for my portfolio ^^

Sounds bad to me Sorry to hear you have had non paying customer.

That is why I always, always charge a deposit.

 

But don't oDesk have a protection for the freelancers or something? Maybe not?

Edited April 3, 201313 yr by teodora

That is an insane amount of money without any form of a marketing campaign. There's an agency I know of who do large eCommerce sites around the £8k mark (that I know about at least) but inclusive of all that a singing all dancing campaign that you would expect for that price.

 

@webdesigncanvas

 

personally, (as a freelancer) without any other help, a 100 Page website + product entry, onsite content optimization & managed domain, i would charge absolute minimum £12,000.

 

Woah! I think I need to reassess my rates (and the scope of my client base) with that amount!

 

Getting back to the original post, BrowserBugs, are you talking more about the setup of a website up to release or are you talking about a SEO campaign etc following on from that? It's hard to define a cost as it depends on the scale of the business. With the CMS 'era' clients can save themselves a lot of money (on the internet at least) by writing and publishing their own content. I find that setting up a client with social media accounts, blogs, etc... in addition to their website keeps the cost down for everyone and the turnaround. Granted, if this was an all singing company like the ones MMMedia specifies, the work and cost would change significantly.

 

I have quite a large project in the pipeline - nothing on par with the clients that have been discussed but something a little out of my comfort zone. I'll be definitely advising them to push a full on marketing campaign but would no doubt outsource the SEO work, should it come fruition. Ascertaining a cost for this is going to be a challenge (I'll be monitoring this post as it gathers momentum!).

 

In a nutshell, putting a price on everything is tricky. Obviously time is a huge factor and the patience needed depending on the clients' expectations.

Sounds bad to me Sorry to hear you have had non paying customer.

That is why I always, always charge a deposit.

 

50% at least! A couple of friends and new clients have told me they have paid all fees upfront with some companies!

So we have discussed in another thread that the success of a website depends on:

 

Content

Design & design strategy

Functionality

SEO (we can add marketing here)

 

But also depends on how much time the client is willing to spend on it themselves, as BrowserBugs said if they upload bad content, this would spoil all the work, that has been done, and certainly wouldn't help for the success of the site.

 

Content is often hugely overlooked by clients, and hiring a copywriter is normally completely out of the question *sigh*.

Content is often hugely overlooked by clients, and hiring a copywriter is normally completely out of the question *sigh*.

 

Unfortunately a lot of people consider they have a good enough command of the English language than hiring someone with the skills. My argument goes deeper than that but I'll pull on the reigns a bit harder

That is an insane amount of money without any form of a marketing campaign. There's an agency I know of who do large eCommerce sites around the £8k mark (that I know about at least) but inclusive of all that a singing all dancing campaign that you would expect for that price.

 

To be honest that's about our starting price for (Magento) ecommerce and includes absolutely no offsite SEO or PPC.

 

Our PPC and SEO rates can easily overshadow the original website cost, in fact marketing costs are often much greater than the 'design' side of a project.

Unfortunately a lot of people consider they have a good enough command of the English language than hiring someone with the skills. My argument goes deeper than that but I'll pull on the reigns a bit harder

 

Yup, some can see it as a bit of an insult too. They may know how to write good English but have no experience in writing on the web.

 

I still see emails that clients have written in the style of an SMS, it's awful.

 

I can haz wsite?!

 

I still see emails that clients have written in the style of an SMS, it's awful.

 

I can haz wsite?!

 

In the fear of sounding pompous, they're all areas of a craft that are getting looked over: copywriting, logo design, colour theory - the list goes on.

 

I don't understand why clients do that in an email. Would they do the same if they wrote a letter? Probably I like to mix up my writing style but it depends on who the reader is. I get some really formal responses from clients (as expected) but after a while, the guard comes down and you can tune the language accordingly.

 

Right, where's my orange box gone?...

In the fear of sounding pompous, they're all areas of a craft that are getting looked over: copywriting, logo design, colour theory - the list goes on.

 

I don't understand why clients do that in an email. Would they do the same if they wrote a letter? Probably I like to mix up my writing style but it depends on who the reader is. I get some really formal responses from clients (as expected) but after a while, the guard comes down and you can tune the language accordingly.

 

Right, where's my orange box gone?...

 

I do the same, but I would never use text message shorthand, I don't even know how to write it for starters.

'txt speak' is ruining this country.

 

Chapter and verse, or **** off!

 

'txt speak'

 

Oh that's what they call it. I should probably know this, I'm 21.

'txt speak' is ruining this country.

 

I have a lot of trouble sometimes, trying to decypher emails Even native English speakers have problems with some of the emails I have received recently - no punctuation, no capital letters, you can't make where a sentence start and where it ends.

 

And it's important

 

Content is often hugely overlooked by clients, and hiring a copywriter is normally completely out of the question *sigh*.

 

im struggling right now on content, can you hire someone to write it all for you?

To be honest that's about our starting price for (Magento) ecommerce and includes absolutely no offsite SEO or PPC.

 

Our PPC and SEO rates can easily overshadow the original website cost, in fact marketing costs are often much greater than the 'design' side of a project.

 

 

THIS. Magento is a gold mine and not many people willing to get stuck in, its a very complicated eccomerce system but once you got the hang of it u can charge some really stupid prices... I mean take enterprise edition of Magento, £11,000 PER YEAR!

im struggling right now on content, can you hire someone to write it all for you?

 

Absolutely, it could get costly though.

 

We also have good resources here on WDF.

 

http://www.webdesignerforum.co.uk/topic/6851-welcome-to-copy-corner/

cost is not so much of an issue to me, however, although i can create visual stimulation, im not very god with actual words and content, creative writing has never been my strong point, What i really dont wanna do it start learning a whole new sector when i havnt even mastered my own yet

 

all these web design websites at the top of google have SOOOOOO MUCH text on there sites, i want it kept minimal but powerful.. Smart taglines

 

'im a frontend web designer, and one thing i dont belive in is ugly websites'

 

I cant stand seeing these sites with so much text, kinda no relevant, just there to rank.. hate it.

It depends, if a site is designed with content and readability in mind then reading long paragraphs doesn't bother me. It's when a company pastes their whole brochure using size 9px fonts, that annoys me.

 

If you look at the likes of alistapart.com, they do a great job of making people WANT to read.

 

Two sites I think read very well are alldaycreative (expected given his job title) and 3degrees (I wouldn't be surprised if they had input from a copywriter for this). These sites are also effective because of their design, they have a great use of typography, whitespace, imagery and emphasis on important items. First class IMO.

thanks for those links J. given me some inspiration now

THIS. Magento is a gold mine and not many people willing to get stuck in, its a very complicated eccomerce system but once you got the hang of it u can charge some really stupid prices... I mean take enterprise edition of Magento, £11,000 PER YEAR!

 

I know you weren't aiming the 'stupid prices' comment at me but I don't feel 10k + for an ecommerce store is a lot, especially when you factor in many months of work and many people working on it.

 

We lost a tender recently for a magento based store (relatively well known company in their market) because we under quoted. Our quote was £22k.

 

I know this because I asked the client for feedback and they were frank, in their experience quality directly related to cost - so we did slightly undercook it.

The winning proposal was "in excess of £30k".

oh wow, Im pretty new still and dont completly understand pricing, its something im learning with each client i get!.. Idealy im working towards a job in web design, rather then freelancing.

Theres only so far i will be able to get on my own, and having other peoples creative input, really expands my mind as to wat is possible.. all i really need now is a few more sites under my belt and php ^^

I know you weren't aiming the 'stupid prices' comment at me but I don't feel 10k + for an ecommerce store is a lot, especially when you factor in many months of work and many people working on it.

 

We lost a tender recently for a magento based store (relatively well known company in their market) because we under quoted. Our quote was £22k.

 

I know this because I asked the client for feedback and they were frank, in their experience quality directly related to cost - so we did slightly undercook it.

 

Interesting to note that the client thought you had under quoted. Just checked out Mega Mind Media and saw your portfolio - very impressive. Your client missed out.

Getting back to the original post, BrowserBugs, are you talking more about the setup of a website up to release or are you talking about a SEO campaign etc following on from that? It's hard to define a cost as it depends on the scale of the business. With the CMS 'era' clients can save themselves a lot of money (on the internet at least) by writing and publishing their own content. I find that setting up a client with social media accounts, blogs, etc... in addition to their website keeps the cost down for everyone and the turnaround. Granted, if this was an all singing company like the ones MMMedia specifies, the work and cost would change significantly.

 

I'm referring to all in a way. I know ongoing PPC and campaigns are indefinite costs, I think we can all agree that there is no such thing as too many quality links. I think i'm more referring to the setup of the site, content and social media establishment. For example a web design with content added is simple enough, but then there's the open graph info, they'll want that, then microdata, icons, branding across social networks ... but trying to work out a clients current state of play and their commitment to the whole shooting match can more than tripple a quote when on the surface it looks straight forward.

 

Ah well back to pet projects, been working on this v 2 for far too long. This sort of triggered the question; with my own project i'm my own client and the time spent on it to date tweaking etc goes beyond any web budget i've had to play with.

Rather than babble about something I can't really give an answer to, I'm genuinely going to give this some thought. It's a really tricky, yet excellent post. At the moment I don't offer anything further with PPC and will always outsource if I feel the client requires it. A lot of the time, despite thoroughly explaining that once you have a website 'sitting on it and waiting for the responses' doesn't just happen previous clients have always turned down the added campaign work they need to hit their targets. Sometimes you can't win: the early stage designs of "I would highly recommend that we don't use Comics San for all your copy" to later saying "Seriously, you need to implement some form of marketing to make this work" falls on deaf ears. Still, I'm happy as I don;t think I could deal with them saying after a month "My website isn't on page one of Google and I haven't had any enquiries through the contact form". Told you so.

 

Good luck with the pet project. Problem with those is your client always changes their minds and will have you working all hours of the day for no pay .

Still, I'm happy as I don;t think I could deal with them saying after a month "My website isn't on page one of Google and I haven't had any enquiries through the contact form". Told you so.

 

It's always an unwritten request, the expectations of the internet thanks to media and coverage of success stories, how many requests for 'a site like facebook' do we all get a year? As for actual SEO it's such a broad term. Links aside, social media aside etc at the foundation of any site is some form of onsite optimisation for search engines - the url paths, filenames, image names, meta with OG etc ... all of this is optimisation. I've lost bids for work only for the client to come back from a cheaper designer with a pretty looking turd asking why it's not doing well in the search engines and then taking one tiny look at the source I see text just dumped into a styled <span> but yet not a <p> or <h1> in sight; added on this the quirky site structure, duplicate description and titles everywhere, the list goes on.

 

@4li4s: Glad it provoked some thought. I still find quoting the second hardest part, the hardest is when you come up with a cracking idea for a site with bells and whistles but sadly is so far out their price range.

Sometimes I feel I can be so naiive to think people aren't testing their sites. No wonder their these 'pretty turds' with a fast turnaround if they aren't ensuring that there are the relevant headings and appropriate tags in the markup. <sigh> it's like being between a rock and a hard place at times...

Sometimes I feel I can be so naiive to think people aren't testing their sites.

 

The point I think is that they do test them and can't see a problem, which is essentially the problem. Ah well back under a rock for me.

It would take a lot of time, effort and money to make a successful website. You have to do a lot of research, create good contents and spend a lot of time on Internet. One of the proven effective methods that would certainly help you make a successful website is through SEO copywriting.

 

 

 

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