So you're thinking about a website and you don't know where to start, who to contact or how much to budget. Most business owners are a little confused when it comes to getting a website developed. This section is to help you understand how your company is billed for web development.
Emphasize Design takes pride in the fact that we design and build high quality web sites that are professionally-coded, well designed, functional, and reliable. Most importantly, we are affordable! There are countless web development companies that will capitalize on peoples lack of understanding of the web and will significantly overcharge. Emphasize Design is your trustworthy source for all your online desires. Instead of claiming that we believe in a high level of customer service, Emphasize Design's goal is to guide you through a whole new style of customer service and teach you about the product you are receiving throughout the process. We want to be around for many years to come, and we understand that the only way to do that is to show people something they haven't seen before, and blow their socks off while doing it!
Ensuring our clients understand what it takes and costs to build a top quality website is important to us. The most significant cost involved in web development is in fact the developers' coding and database work. Though invisible to a person visiting the site, it is this important framework that creates functionality. Another considerable cost that is SO important to creative an inviting website is graphic design, animation, motion, and video - really, the elements that you want to differentiate your website and keep people coming back. Finding the perfect balance between functionality and eye-grabbing design is the key to a dominant online presence. So, the extensibility of the coding and graphic work will determine the majority of the final cost of your site.
On Average:
- A professionally-coded, custom commercial web site with unique capabilities could run in the range of $10,000 to $75,000, although there is no upper limit. Some sites on the web today cost in the millions.
- Smaller sites focusing on small business with few complex capabilities are frequently in the range of $5000 to $10,000.
- Basic product-presentation sites with some additional functions often fall in the range of $2500 to $5000. Though basic static sites can be developed for as little as $1200.
- Of course there is always the "do it yourself' web programs that allow a user to build there own website using templates and/or wysiwyg editors. Unless you have some sort of graphic and/or coding experience, we do NOT recommend this route. Remember this is your store front. First impressions are everything and developing a non professional site may cause your business more of a headache than you bargained for.
Hourly Rates: For those who prefer hourly rates, below is a detailed rate sheet based on the task and level of personnel required. Average rates for some common tasks are:
$75/hr. Rate
- Page layout and design (standard web pages)
- Ordinary HTML page-coding
- Code validation
- Graphics optimization
- Browser compatibility testing/assurance
- Ordinary site maintenance/management
- Virtual hosting account setup
- Domain name searches/applications
- Meta tags and search engine placement
- Installation and setup of third-party CGI
- Mail aliases/remailers/auto-responders
- Internet resources searches (for scripts, images, clip-art, etc.)
- Image scanning and document OCR, digital photography
$150/hr. Rate
- Consulting/training
- E-commerce planning
- Site-promotion strategic planning
- Site planning/design
- On-line credit card transaction setup
- Newsletter and mailing-list setups, online subscription facilities
- Advanced page design (elaborate and special custom designs, framesets)
- Custom graphics work
- Multimedia (music, sound-clips, MPEG/AVI, streaming audio or video)
- Custom script coding (CGI, Perl, JavaScript, Java Applets)
- On-line chat room installation
- On-line site administration facilities, multi-user interactive pages
- On-line operations management
- User-modifiable page content coding, dynamic content
- On-line databases and database management tools
- Secure sites (HTTPS)
- Advanced page coding (php, DHTML, rollovers, image-maps, special effects)
Domain Name Registration & Website Hosting:
When one decides to have a website developed, most don't take into consideration these 2 very important costs. Think of your website as a house, your domain name would be your address and the hosting would be your lot. All websites need an address for viewers to go to and all websites need a lot to be built on. These costs are NOT billed as work done on the website but mandatory costs that are charged by registration and hosting companies that a business needs to be present on the world wide web.
--- We hope this small informational section gives you a better understanding of what is involved when thinking about building a website. ---
