What are the
elements of a website?
Websites rarely come in neat boxes with a yellow label
showing the price and feature list. Website costs can
be deceptive. If you are trying to decide how much to
budget, or looking over a set of proposals, you’ll
want to know what the bottom line really means. One
estimate may seem low, but you might end up paying
much more in the long run. Another estimate may
include elements that you can more easily accomplish
in-house.
If you are looking at completed websites, you may be
able to judge the cost of the website from the quality
and the functional elements, but some things might
also be misleading. Good graphic layout and design
isn’t necessarily measured in bulk. A lot of images
and fancy animation can be found on cheap sites, while
a very simple clean graphic look is often the result
substantial planning and work by disciplined graphic
designers. Often, the more natural a site feels, the
greater the care and hard work that went into its
construction.
In many cases an existing website will have something
you really like, but the owner may have spent a lot
on features that are less relevant to your needs. If
you understand why you want a website, and have done
a good job of prioritizing your needs, you should be
able to confine the costs to those areas that are most
important to you. The key is to spend the most in the
areas that will bring you the best return.
We have broken out some typical website cost categories
and thrown in a range of costs for each. In some areas,
you will be able to get more value for each additional
dollar spent. In other areas, there are certain value
levels and spending much more will not bring any return.
Strategic Planning & Development
Good planning done prior to the commencement of actual
design will greatly reduce the overall cost of the website.
Redesign is costly, scope creep and loss of focus can
derail a project entirely. Taking the time to get all
the potential decision makers, in advance, to agree
on the goals and process that will be used in development
will give you the best chance of getting you what you
want for the budget you have laid out. This preplanning
is not free, of course. You should account for the time
spent internally, including that by the top-level decision
makers. And, you will want your design firm involved
in the preplanning process to a great extent.
Creating a website involves strategic thinking, analysis
of needs and audiences, awareness of where you want
it to develop over time. Having the right information
architecture and good design notes on how it should
look before starting will save a lot of time and money
later. How much you should be paying for planning varies
widely depending on the size of the project, the type
of firm you're dealing with, the management style of
your own organization, and whether you intend to be
more of a leader or an imitator in the market. Even
a small site will require about 10 hours of pre-planning,
though much of this may be accomplished in a well-thought
out Request for Proposal.
Another element that will increase the cost in this
area is the complexity of your organization. It is much
more difficult to develop a site for multiple decision-makers
than for one. If you have several departments, and each
has a different set of expectations, then the strategy
development is more complex.
This element will normally use at least ten hours. For
every design and programming hour allot anywhere from
a quarter hour up to an hour for management. Rates run
from $30 an hour up to $200 an hour.
Project Management
A complex website involves many elements which must
fit together properly. Timing is also important, certain
steps need to be completed before others can begin.
Some elements may have to be redone if not coordinated
properly. Even if you have a single designer doing a
basic site, the communication between designer and client
are a form of Project Management. One party has to ensure
that all communications are tracked and nothing falls
through the cracks. Not all designers are inclined to
spend time managing their own projects, transferring
that burden entirely to the client.
Assume that for every hour spent on design or program,
at least a quarter hour to an hour will be necessary
to manage the project. Project management hours will
probably be billed at about the same rate as the design
hours. Factors such as institutional complexity and
functionality will increase costs of project management
in ways similar to their affect on strategy costs.
Web Design and Graphic Design
This should be one of the most important elements in
the creation of your Website, yet is often taken for
granted. A poorly designed site will drive people away.
A site that is difficult to navigate will only frustrate
visitors. It is true that unless you're trying to compete
in a very tight market, you don't need to spend as much
as the major corporations. However, first impressions
are sometimes the most important, and this is no less
true of how a first time visitor to your Website. Of
course, you want to convey a look that is a reflection
of your organization's personality, mission, and goals.
Remember that many times "less is more". To
achieve the crisp, professional look, it might be wise
to request a proposal from 2-3 vendors. More than likely,
you will receive a range of prices, since each vendor
may offer distinct features that will help you build
your online identity. (Caveat emptor: Request and call
references. There are a lot of fly-by-night Web developers
who post information on the Web that is simply not true,
or reflective of their organization's capabilities.)
At the most basic level, graphic design can be free.
If you are the kind of business that prints up everything
at home, you can probably do the same on-line. With
a bit of time, training, and free tools, you can design
a site that looks as if someone designed it at home.
At a very low cost, around $100 to $300 dollars/year,
you can produce a site that looks adequate for many
basic purposes. You can use on-line site building services
to produce your site, many will host it as well.
Custom design web development firms typically start
at $3,000 (just for the design elements) and can cost
more than $500,000. The advantage of custom design is
that you communicate a look and feel that is particular
to your firm or company. As prices escalate for design,
hopefully, you gain the additional benefits of advertising,
creating a marked impression in the viewer that will
result in some great benefit to the company.
Database Development
More and more Websites are incorporating database functionality
to provide added value to the visitor's experience on
the site, and to increase the efficiency of in-house
operations.
If your firm uses a database(s) that can easily be updated,
maintained, or accessed over the web, your operational
costs will almost certainly decrease as a result of
adding database functionality to your site. Examples
of database development that can help improve your site
include:clearinghouse of all electronic media (newsletters,
press releases, job listings, etc.);contact information
for clients and vendors; product listings; photo galleries;
etc.
The use of a database in combination with necessary
programming that will allows your site to become "data-driven"
will only further enhance the functionality of your
Website by providing a means to maintain your site without
prior knowledge of HTML programming or HTML editors.
Below are some average costs incorporating database
elements/data-driven functionality into a Website:
Jobs listings - $1,500 to $2,500
Press Releases - $1,500 to $4,500
Corporate Rolodex - $1,000 and up
Corporate Calendar - $1,000 and up
Advocacy/Action Center (Congressional Lobbying) - $2,500
to $10,000
Shopping Cart/email processing - $3,000
Real-time Credit Card Processing - $3,000
Enterprise systems that coordinate activities of wide-spread
offices may run more in the $50,000 to $100,000 range.
Website Interactive Features
A Website that just sits there and displays itself may
be fine for some people, but chances are you want to
know more about what your audience thinks. You may want
to know who they are and where they've come from. Some
information can be gathered from statistical programs
on your site's server, but you might want to et specific
personal information from them as well. You might want
to ask them what they think about certain topics. Perhaps
you want a record of visitors in certain categories
so you can e-mail them when news occurs in their area.
Information collection can be done with respect to privacy,
with plenty of notice, if necessary.
A basic form that would collect an e-mail address, a
request or a comment, and a brief profile might cost
as little as $100 to develop, while a more extensive
set of forms with questions and differentiation that
ties into a corporate database might run into the thousands.
Interactivity can be enhanced with the addition of many
fairly simple tools. Some, such as visitor hit counters
have become hallmarks of amateurism, but others are
often used and bookmarked by visitors, if useful. Mortgage
calculators, phrase translators, on-line calendars,
protein parameters translators, etc. are just a few
of the thousands of tools that can make life easier.
If your site has an audience that will be well served
by some such tool, you might consider adding it so that
people will come and come back.
Adding an on-line tool should be targeted. Generating
fortunes might be interesting for a Chinese restaurant,
but useless on a home finance page.
Some tools are available free. If you are building your
own site, you might consider adding in a generic tool,
downloadable from various shareware sites. The disadvantage
is that these tools are often not customizable. Also,
other similar pages may have the same tools.
Semi-custom tools are often available through your design
firm. The tools may have been prepared for one client
and are now in a library, easily customized for others.
Prices for such tools start in the $500 to $2,000 range,
and may include installation costs.
On-line tools may be custom designed for prices that
vary, depending on the complexity of the tool. Say you
want to add a function to your site whereby constituents
can log on and write a letter to their Senator. Such
tools can be programmed, complete with customized and
customizable text options.
Multimedia Design: Selection and Usage
Modern Websites don't just sit there. Flash and Shockwave
animation, streaming video, javascripts and applets,
and any number of action graphics enhancements, make
your Website come alive. That doesn't mean you should
do it. Done badly, animation can annoy and distract
the viewer, extend download time, require the viewer
to download plug-ins, and give the Website a cheap feel.
But done well, animation can give the viewer a stronger
sense of the sophistication and cutting-edge nature
of your company. In all cases, repeat viewers need to
be able to skip Flash programming. The following prices
are just a sampling of the rich multimedia enhancements
available.
Basic Flash animation, which can be done for anywhere
from $250 a page up to $10,000 for a medium site. Some
Fortune 500 companies have paid up to $250,000 for a
30 second flash intro.
Streaming video clips can be added to your site for
anywhere from $500 a clip on up, depending on the nature
and the video production costs. It seems obvious, but
many fail to realize that a long-loading clip of your
executive director talking is not going to keep your
visitors on the Website for very long. Animated gifs
can be downloaded for free, or built for the project
at prices ranging from $100 to several thousand, depending
on the need and the type of integration. These can be
a nice touch, but should be used very sparingly. Remember
the phone message rule, if it's only funny once, don't
make people listen to it every time they call.
Website Maintenance: Keeping Content and Graphics
Up-to-Date
A Website, once up, will not stay current all by itself.
The more up-to-date your content is, the more quickly
it will go out-of-date. Design elements will change
if your organization changes its image. And Website
technology will continually raise the expectations of
your target market, demanding that you stay current
as well. Whether you include the costs of maintaining
your site upfront are up to you, but be aware that they
do exist and you will be facing them. If your organization
goes through changes, the information on the Website
will need to change to reflect that. Even if your organization
doesn't generates much news, you will probably want
to rotate the information available in order to keep
it interesting to repeat visitors.
Onsite/In-House Maintenance. Obviously, the easiest
way to make sure your site is kept up-to-date and running
efficiently is to have a talented Webmaster in-house.
This, however, is easier said than done, and can be
expensive. A typical Webmaster can easily cost $50,000
in annual salary, plus benefits. Most small companies,
associations, and non-profits cannot afford this option.
Some organizations prefer to have an IT professional
of some type assume Website updating as part of his
or her responsibilities. If the person already has significant
duties and can easily add Website maintenance this might
be a cost-effective solution. However, often the skills
are too diverse, or the IT person's duties are already
filling most of the day. If overtime is involved, or
an additional employee must be added, then the cost
to the organization of this solution may be considerable,
even it does not show in the Website budget.
A large Website with frequent updating may require a
webmaster or web division internal to the company. Obviously
the cost of this solution starts with the salaries,
plus associated personnel costs, search costs, equipment,
etc.
The most scalable solution may be to use your web design
firm as a web department. Some offer maintenance contracts,
either with a monthly rate, an hourly rate, or a discounted
package of hours. The advantage is that you can scale
costs to your needs while retaining a high level of
expertise. A good design and development firm will offer
maintenance services. Such services usually come in
two forms - either on an hourly basis, with fees ranging
anywhere from $50 to $125; or on a monthly basis, with
rates running from $50 a month up to thousands, depending
on the firm and your usage.
Another option is to have an authoring tool built into
the site design, so that the site can be updated easily
with little risk of damaging the site. While this will
increases the front-end development cost, it may save
money in the long run, depending on your needs. Such
a package could cost $1,500 - $3,000 to purchase and
configure, plus $50 a month to license. The advantage
is that you can use an employee with no special training
to maintain the page. However, don't forget to include
the hours spent by the employee into your cost figures.
For every five hours spent generating the new content,
assume an additional hour for putting the content onto
the web page.
Website Hosting
All Websites have to have a "home", the place
where the files are stored that allow others around
the world to access them. To the site visitor, it's
probably not of concern where files are stored. Although
many assume that when viewing an organization's Website
that they are accessing the information from within
the organization's physical structure, this is many
times not the case. In reality, your Website will probably
exist on a server somewhere in cyberspace on a server,
maybe more than one, unless you are able to afford an
in-house Web server, a broadband connection, other equipment,
and staff to support it.
If your Website company can provide hosting, they can
also provide you with a number of customizable e-mail
addresses. Typically these will use the domain name
of the site, with a front end that describes the purpose
of the contact, such as yourname@yoursite.com. One of
the great benefits of these Internet-based e-mail addresses
is that they can be forwarded to other addresses, and
can be accessed from multiple locations using Point-of-Presence
(POP) server protocols.
There are a broad range of cost-effective hosting opportunities
that will free you of the burden and cost associated
with maintaining a server in-house:
Free - Free server space is offered by a variety of
companys, but this is not a wise solution for many businesses,
since the trade-off is having limited functionality,
prominent banner ads of the provider littered throughout
Web pages, pop-up adverstisements, etc. "You get
what you pay for..."
Shared Server space - Sharing server space with others
is a common, and inexpensive solution for many small-to-medium
sized businesses.
Co-located servers - Some company's choose to buy their
own equipment and to store it on the premises of their
Internet Service Provider (ISP) or hosting provider.
Administration of the server is often provided by the
ISP or hosting service provider, as well.
Dedicated servers - For larger Websites, ecommerce Websites,
and others that store confidential information such
as credit card information, sensitive personal information,
or proprietary data, a dedicated server is probably
the best and safest option.
Internal hosting may seem free, especially if a company
already has the infrastructure in-house, but often is
not. While it may be a good solution for a large institution
with a full IT department, a smaller organization, may
not have the budget required hire an network administrator,
and other support required to successfully maintain
an internal Web server. be able to there are many hidden
costs you must account for in considering this option.
Hosting a Website on a server at your office means that
you must have the following:
A reliable server that is up all the time. While any
computer with Windows 95 or higher can act as a server,
you will have to set aside at least three and possibly
five to six hours a month to maintain and configure
the computer.
Reliable access, with enough bandwidth to serve your
expected traffic. Most DSL lines are asynchronous. This
means that though they may download at a fairly fast
rate, the speed of uploading information to the net
is about one-fourth as fast. If you are hosting a Website,
it's the upload speed that counts, and your $60 a month
DSL line won't handle the load. Synchronous DSL lines
are more expensive, starting at about $150 and going
up into the hundreds per month.
A hosting service normally provides things like e-mail
and password configuration. Hosting the site in-house
means you will have to set aside a certain amount of
someone's time, probably at least 3 hours a month.
There are literally hundreds of small hosting companies
that will host your site for a monthly fee. Basic sites
may be hosted for rates ranging from $10 - $50 a month.
Questions you may have to consider are:
How stable is the company you are dealing with? Internet
related companies come and go, and you don't want to
have to find a new hosting company all of a sudden.
Even Chevy Chase Bank recently had to shut down its
on-line banking service for several days when their
ISP went bankrupt.
How reliable are the servers? Some hosting companies
have racks of servers with constant monitoring, technicians
standing by, redundancy, etc. Others may consist of
a few computers in a garage. You want to know what is
being done to ensure that your site stays up.
What type of server is it? What software is available?
Is it Linux or NT? Is there trend analysis software
installed? Can you install your own server software?
Is there a collection of CGI bin routines?
Major companies, such as Yahoo and MSN offer hosting
services ranging from $20 to $50 per month. These services
are basic, but have the advantage of being linked to
a major company. You may prefer working with a company
that will give you more personal service, however.
Some web development companies offer complete packages
that include hosting. Prices range from $20-50 and up.
The advantage to doing this is that your web development
company is doing the research and taking the risks in
finding the best option for you. They will best understand
your software and options requirements, and provide
all the configuration and maintenance activities in
conformance with the rest of the site maintenance. If
your prefer having a single company that is responsive
to all your Internet needs this may be the best option.
Domain Registration
A small, but sometimes overlooked expense in Website
development is domain name registration; cheap self-registration
sites may be as low as $15 dollars a year, per name.
Depending on the type of site, you may also need to
register domain names for .com, .net, .org, and possibly
domain names that are variant spellings. Political organizations
and large companies frequently register domain names
that could be used by parody sites, i.e. www.I-hate-Joe-Senator.com.
Online Marketing & Search Engine Optimizaton (SEO)
Marketing online is a very fluid endeavor. Marketing
should begin in the design phase and go from there.
For instance, design elements such as text on the front
page, meta-tags, page titles, and keywords provide for
maximum placement with search engines. Once a site is
up, it should be registered with all the major search
engines, any specialized search engines, industry specific
lists, and cross-linked to related sites whenever possible.
More specific on-line marketing might involve banner
ads on relevant sites, placement of logos and URLs in
html newsletters, and identification of media sources
that could reference the site.
This activity can be conducted in-house, once again
the hours should be computed to determine the cost.
If you have to hire someone, or train someone, it may
not be cost effective.
Automated registration services are prolific, but probably
do you little good. Being submitted to 1,500 engines
once a month may sound like a great deal, but only the
top twenty or so are relevant, along with industry-specific
directories. Hand submission, either in-house or by
your web development firm, is far more effective.
E-Commerce
It's no secret that E-commerce has gone through a tremendous
boom and bust. Many business models drew an enormous
amount of investment, yet failed in the implementation.
Still, there are successes. More importantly, Websites
for companies and organizations that aren't purely devoted
to e-commerce add an important revenue stream by adding
e-commerce, as well as satisfying the expectations of
many of your site visitors. While a full-blown e-commerce
site that exists entirely to sell on-line is looking
at costs around $800,000 per year, adding e-commerce
to your site doesn't have to be expensive at all.
Some on-line template-based site builders offer e-commerce
capability for less than $100 per month. If you are
satisfied with an off-the-shelf one-size-fits-all solution,
this could be for you.
If your product is entirely electronic, or you are soliciting
contributions or membership fees, there are solutions
that can be put in place for less than $100 per month.
These solutions are flexible and can be easily customized
to fit into a professional, custom-built site.
If you are offering a catalog on-line, you will need
a merchant account, shopping cart, and catalog. These
are typically custom-built into a site, using database-programming
languages, such as Cold Fusion. The costs for custom
database programming begin in the $1,000 to $3,000 range,
but for larger sites, you can expect to pay anywhere
from $25-$75,000, depending on the complexity of the
programming. You will also have to consider the costs
of a merchant account.
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I
want to rank highly in the search engines. How does
that work?
Anish Infoways’s proven SEO strategy is
designed to increase the overall traffic to your
website. Our process involves the following crucial
steps to help ensure that your website won’t be hidden
in the cyber jungle:
Keyword and key phrase research to identify terms that
have the most relevant traffic patterns based on the
content of your web pages and your target audiences.
Creation of title, header tags, description and other
meta data using selected keywords and phrases. Title
tags, h1 tags, and content are what the search engine
spiders use to evaluate the relevancy of pages.
Content creation and/or recommendations.
Anish Infoways may recommend changes or additions to
existing or proposed content. We may also suggest additional
content be developed to make the site more attractive
to search engine spiders and human searchers.
Link solicitation from relevant websites, directories,
and resource sections. Page rank algorithms often analyze
inbound links to decide on the importance of a particular
web page
Web Maintenance & Monitoring
This service is recommended either in conjunction with
web design and development services or to enhance the
visibility of your existing online marketing efforts.
Prior to designing a customized strategy for your website,
Anish Infoways will perform an initial assessment. This
assessment will look at how competitive the field is,
what techniques are commonly used by the top competing
sites, and what the traffic levels are for the targeted
audiences. We will look at current programming choices
and those being made in any redevelopment of the website.
The outcome of this initial assessment will determine
how much time we will propose for each area of the SEO
campaign.
The deployment of the SEO strategy consists of two phases.
Phase I consists of market research that is designed
to ensure that your website is properly optimized and
submitted to appropriate search engines and directories.
The second phase involves additional research and focuses
on a link-building campaign to achieve higher rankings
and provide more direct traffic.
Anish Infoways’s proven SEO strategy includes the
following basic services:
Identification Of Keywords & Key Phrases. Identifying
the key phrases used by target audiences is critical
to any SEO campaign. We use a combination of traffic
analysis and user interviews.
Creation of Metadata Titles, Tags and Content. The primary
mechanism for obtaining high rankings is developing
relevant content. Such content must be presented to
search engines using the proper page titles, tags, and
opening phrases. We will provide tags and titles and
suggest phrases to use in opening content.
Submission to Search Engines & Directories. Once
the new site has been completed, we propose submission
of the site to several major directories and search
engines. In some cases, this submission process will
involve a fee to be paid by the client. A list of potential
fee-based submissions will be given to the client for
approval.
Link Solicitation. One of the primary ranking factors
used by search engines is an analysis of sites that
are linked to the page in question. Similar to a citation
analysis, this method measures certain links as authoritative
and gives a relevancy score to a page based on that.
Anish Infoways will investigate websites that link to
related sites, or because of a strong content match,
should link to this type of material. We will solicit
links from such sites, providing back-links where appropriate.
Rank Reporting. Anish Infoways will conduct an initial
ranking report eight weeks after the site is completed.
Additional reports can be generated at the unit pricing
indicated in the table below:
SEO Maintenance
A significant improvement in rankings will be obtained
if the following steps are implemented in addition to
the basic strategy. Link building will also increase
the perceived authority status of the website, as well
as provide independent traffic.
Keyword Research. Additional ongoing keyword research,
in order to uncover new opportunities.
New Content Generation. Development of additional content
targeted at potential traffic phrases. Anish Infoways
will suggest content themes. Anish Infoways can provide
excellent copywriting services at an additional cost.
Link Solicitation. One of the primary ranking factors
used by search engines is an analysis of sites that
are linked to the page in question. Similar to a citation
analysis, this method weights certain links as authoritative
and gives a relevancy score to a page based on that.
Anish Infoways will investigate websites that link to
related sites, or because of a strong content match,
should link to this type of material. We will solicit
links from such sites, providing back-links where appropriate.
Monitoring & Updates
Once initial design has been completed, Anish Infoways
will monitor the rankings of the website with all major
search engines, as well as the identified key-phrases
for traffic variations. When there is either a drop
in rankings or an opportunity to raise traffic because
of shifts in key-phrases used by searchers, Anish Infoways
will include suggested strategies along with the ongoing
report.
Because of the lag time in search engine response to
changes, Anish Infoways recommends the creation of the
following reports quarterly:
Rank Reporting. Anish Infoways will
run a report on the ranking of the website with the
major search engines and directories for up to 20 key
phrases that represent the targeted audiences.
Traffic Analysis. Anish Infoways will
analyze the number of searches being conducted by users
for the selected key phrases and for similar key phrases,
with a view to identifying any shift in search behavior.
Strategy Development. Using the results
of the rank and traffic reports, Anish Infoways will
evaluate the progress of the current optimization strategy
and suggest any changes in content, titles, and submission
as necessary.
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