Web Tips

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How to Lower Web Site Design Costs

Here are some steps you can take to lower your costs for web site design. In general the best way to do it is to do as much of the work as possible.

 

Visit Web Sites that Sell or Provide Services Similar to Yours

If you sell rose bushes, go to your favorite search engine and look for other web sites that sell rose bushes. Note what you like and don't like about these sites. These sites may trigger ideas about what to put on your site that you had not considered. View these sites with the intent of learning how best to design your site.

 

Put Your Ideas on Paper

When you have some ideas of how you want your site to look, put them down on paper. I had one customer who took regular notebook paper and hand drew how he wanted each page to look. He pasted the pictures on each page and placed them exactly where he wanted them. The more time you spend determining the layout , the less time the person you hire to design you site has to do it--thus lowering your costs.

 

Digitize Your Images

When you know what images you want to use for your site, do your own scanning and save each image as either gif or jpg format. If the image is a photo, it's better to save as jpg; otherwise save it as gif. If you have the time and ability to do so, re-size and crop the image to the exact size you want. Keep in mind the file size; if the file size is too large it will take longer to download on your site.

 

Digitize Your Content

When you know what the text of your content is going to be, put it into a text file. It is best to not format it except to separate the paragraphs. The format will be applied on the page itself. Examples of content may be the text contents of your company's brochure, descriptions of products, driving directions to your business, etc. The more of the typing you do, the less the designer will have to do; thus lowering your costs.

 

Shop Around for ISP

Some internet providers give you free web site space if you sign up for internet access; others will charge you extra. If you want to use a domain name (www.xxxxx.com), it will usually cost you more because you need to be set up on a different server and you have to pay, on average, $35 a year for the name. You need to determine what is more important to you: saving money and having a URL such as http://www.angelfire.com/ak5/angelwebdesign or paying more money to have your own domain name. Keep in mind that you can always buy a domain name later.

 

The Cost of Frills

The more frills you want on your site, the more it will cost. Shopping carts, mouseover image changes, forms, guest books, calendars, and the like require special programming and set up which takes more time to do. If money is an issue, you may want to start with something simple (simple is always good) and as money becomes available add new features.

 

Do It Yourself

Obviously you will save the most money designing your web site yourself. However, if you believe time is money, then you need to consider how valuable is your time. You also need to be honest with yourself about whether you have an eye for good design. Probably the best way to go would be to do as much "homework" as possible (as described in previous steps), hire a designer to implement your ideas, and then have the designer show you how to maintain your site along with providing a template for you to create new pages. I am a strong believer in teaching people how to "fish" so that they can take care of themselves. If this sounds like something you would be interested in doing, please contact me because this is exactly what I do.

Quick Note: After a period of time submitting your main url, some sub urls spider if meta tags are present, this is also known as indexing.