Whether looking for a website design to launch your new business venture or considering a redesign to re-establish your web presence, how do you choose who to go with and how much should you be paying?
With so many companies to choose from and such a range of prices, we are including a few of the considerations that should be taken into account.
Establish exactly what you are trying to achieve and your available budget.
When establishing your requirements imagine you are designing and building a house, it is a lot less costly to make changes to the design before the build has started, it is same with web development. So the more detail you can establish now, the better. A good web design company will give you an indication as to which of your requirements are straight forward and which will put the quoted price up. Taking the time to describe how you would like parts of the website to appear (design), and what you would like them to do (functionality) are very important, otherwise you are relying on other people interpretations. Professional web companies will let you discuss this with a developer. Taking the time to communicate during web projects is both the responsibility of the client and the design company and can have a big impact on a successful completion.
Your budget will give you something to work from later when you seek quotations.
Establish what is important to you in your relationship with the chosen web design company.
Your choice of web design company can have big connotations to the cost of the project, however is cost really the most important aspect to you? In any case it is worth considering how your typical web design company will decide on what price to quote you. The biggest cost will be the time used of human resources (designers, developers, admin, project management). This is a big reason why you will find a lot of the cheapest web quotes are from overseas developers. Other companies (either openly disclosed or not), choose to outsource parts of their web projects overseas, in a bid to compete with the lower costs provided by overseas developers. In the short term both of these options sound more appealing then maybe paying a bit more for an entirely UK based operation to build your website and if you have a new website every few months, maybe this option is for you. However please consider a month or two down the line when: a new requirement to have a new section added to the site or you need a hand with the web admin section that you have just tried for the first time, or a bug is discovered in the site, or maybe the designer didn’t use royalty free images and now you are being sued. If your cheap and cheerful overseas developer has now moved on, it will be costly to repair the damage. Hence “you get what you pay for” and “if you don’t pay now, you’ll end up paying later” are relevant.
Other cost cutting methods that some web companies use are templates. They have a library of semi built sites and you are given the choice of designs from this library, they then change the title and a picture or two. Sounds cheaper, so what are the draw backs? The main draw back is that your website will look exactly the same as countless others on the Internet. If establishing an Internet identity is not so important and your site is purely for personal use, then this is an option that might be worth considering. For any business that is serious about properly representing their brand, ensure that the web company you approach, not only does not use templates, but makes each design from scratch.
Webcouk is a UK based design company. Currently using our own UK Web Development team only for all projects. Every design is unique and templates are not used. Webcouk have a strong portfolio of quality built websites and are happy to discuss your website design queries. As a UK based web design company, Webcouk believe in providing the best service for our customers. Please call free on 0800 5426 555 or email info@webcouk.co.uk if you have any enquiries.
Further friendly advice to follow.
Best Regards,
The Team at Webcouk.
