Website design quote
"- How much does a website cost?"
"- Well, it depends!"
Each website is a one-off, customised to the customers' precise requirements, so please contact me and I will be able to give you a precise quote.
However, to help you get an idea of what is possible, on this page I will give you an example of a website, list the features of the website, and tell you how much a similar site would cost.
Example site
Let's take as an example Gilda Belly Dancer.
This website is what I call the "brochure website". Its purpose is to promote a product (often, yourself), to grab the interest of potential customers and to get them to contact you.
It includes the following features:
Content editor
Often known as a "Content Management System" (CMS), this is an interface that allows you to edit the text of your website, or create new pages. This feature will dramatically reduce the running costs of your website by putting you in charge of updating your website.
It is similar to a word processor, and allows you to:
- Create new pages , or edit existing pages.
- Enter text.
- Format the text: make it bold, change the font or the size of the text, justify, etc, ...
- Create links to other pages/other websites.
- Insert images from the Photo Gallery (see below) and resize them.
- Insert clips from YouTube.
- Upload a file (such as a PowerPoint presentation) to your site, then include a link so that visitors can download it.
- More advanced users can also enter raw HTML markup.
Remember that without this feature, every time that you want to change a single word in your website, you will have to pay the website designers to make the change. If you update your website every week, your costs could quickly run into the thousands.
Photo gallery
You will be able to upload new photos, organise them into galleries, delete them, etc...
Additionally, the photos are integrated with the Content Editor described above - so you can upload an image, then insert it in to one of the pages that you have created.
Contact page
Visitors type in a message that then gets emailed to you.
Hosting
The website is hosted and managed by me - that means that it runs on a server that's monitored to ensure that there's plenty of spare capacity (so that your site never slows down) and that it's always protected against the latest viruses.
You only have to worry about managing the content.
Template
By "template" I mean the look&feel of the website.
- the background and foreground colors.
- the graphics.
- the choice of fonts.
- the type and style of menus.
You may already have a very precise idea about these, in which case I can prepare a quote based on your requirements.
Alternatively, you may a few preliminary ideas, but nothing definite - in which case we can look at the booming market in ready-made templates. It is possible to buy an off-the-shelf template, and slot it into the website at no extra cost to you.
Good sources of ready-made templates are:
The above two are of particular interest as the templates are FREE - these sites are used by aspiring graphic designers to showcase their talent.
Web analytics
"How many visitors do I get per week? Where do they come from? What pages do they look at?". To help you answer these questions and more, the popular Google Analytics software package is included.
Note: training in the use of web analytics tools is not included.
So what's the cost?
For a site with the exact above features:
- Site design and installation: £300.
- Hosting: £120 per year.
- Domain name registration: £20 per year (as long as domain name is available).
The above is just 1 example of what I can do so contact me and I will provide a more detailed quote based on your individual requirements.