Clients, Budgets and how to Cost a Website

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Dealing with clients,budgets and how to cost a website has always proven to be interesting in my experience. I have come across a radically mixed bag of perceptions regarding what clients want, what they need and what they expect or are willing to pay for creating an online presence, no matter if its a simple brochure website, an SEO campaign, or a complex multi-user, multi-functional, multi-lingual corporate giant.

One serious issue I always have is establishing a website budget with new clients.  Its usually in the first questions I ask after:

“What is your business”

“What is the present situation”

“What are your aims?”

“What is your budget?”

I have mentioned the importance of budgets in a previous article, although this was in relation to Search Engine Optimisation specifically. As soon as I ask this question the barriers and defences immediately rise up as they enter uncharted territory and I can almost guarantee the response is going to be along the lines of:

“Well you tell me what its going to cost to build a website?”

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I have no real issue with this question, its certainly not out of order as the largest issue confronting people or business who are addressing their online presence is that their is no real or established “price range” for anything related to websites. (I’m using the word websites to cover anything online at the moment, from hosting to SEO, to databases systems, anything you can think of really.)

But I do get annoyed when people who need to take this seriously waste my time with ridiculous notions of spending a s little as possible and then expect it to make them millions overnight because they haven’t taken their budget seriously.  Worse still is the people who agree to a project then question the services and works provided after having them clearly defined.

But EVEN more than that are the people who come with a budget so ridiculous and then haggle over its value by citing the amazing opportunities the project will provide in the long run in an effort to push through an agreement on cost and project spec.  I will not tell you what I say to these people as I might get sued but its along the lines of “Get real” with a few explicative phrases thrown in for good measure..

So much so that this video from NO SPEC! brought a smile to my face as its the perfect example of situations I have come across personally over the years.

The Result of unrealistic budgets

How would you react if someone treated you and your business in the same way as the people in the clip. Making crazy assumptions and expecting work done on a pro bono basis or with the promise of future payment? Not very nice is it? Asking to see the work then decide if they wish to pay for it later depending on someone else’s opinion?

That’s not the way the world works and its not the way web design operates.

The relationship with business and web design companies needs to be solid and both parties have to work together to reach the required goal. This means respect for the individuals involved and the work involved. People need to realise that its not easy simple stuff.  Its a skill that has taken time to master and takes dedication and practice to develop.

Its not some kid whos doing a computer course at college and will do the site for pocket money.

Remember we are talking about YOUR business presence online and its how you will be branded and represented to eah and every visitor.  So lets take it seriously.

So why is budget so important?

Lets clear this up shall we.  Websites can be simple or they can be vast.  Hence to cost a website can be very difficult and the prices will range in comparison. Designers and developers will all offer a range of options and solutions to any particular project depending on requirements, their skills, experience, and the goals of any given brief.  The only consistent factor that can possibly dictate the extent of the project is the allocated budget assigned to it. Its that simple.

I have continually advised clients, upon establishing that they have no set budget, to do so and explained the reasons why. Lets say they need something relatively simple,  a 5 page website with a database to display products and a contact form.

How to Cost a Website

If a client was to approach three different companies for quotes on this project they would get back three different solutions and three different prices.  They might be roughly similar in cost but the differences are proportionate.

Company 1 will cost a website at €1000

Company 2 will cost a website at €1500

Company 3 will cost a website at €2000

That’s a difference of €1000 between companies 1 and 3, or double the price (imagine the difference with one extra zero on the end of those figures).

All three companies will offer different hosting packages, email solutions, design fees, database creation, CMS solutions etc.  This ultimately leaves the client completely confused because of the techno-jargon involved and no real idea which one of these quotes actually gives the best VALUE.

This is the key essentially, its about the BEST VALUE.

Establish the budget and then ask the question.

Now lets consider approaching all three companies with the budget set. Your budget is €1800.

The question is then “What services and solutions can you provide for me at this maximum budget?”

All three companies can evaluate the solutions in a more realistic manner as they have a set amount to adhere to and a limit on what solutions they can offer to achieve the desired result.

This also means that a comparison between services is a lot simpler and more concise to the client as the bids will be evaluated for the best value.

Its not the perfect solution I know, but it helps everyone in the long run and leads to a more constructive working relationship once the decision has been made an expectations and requirements have been addressed against the budget.

40 essential tips for wordpress blogs – Joost De Valk

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Although its been a few weeks I had the pleasure of seeing Joost de Valk present at the a4uexpo in Amsterdam on 40 essential tips for wordpress blogs just this April past.

His session focused on optimising your wordpress blogs and a prominent part was ensuring that it was able to load quickly for visitors but also factors such as SOE, maintenance and analytics.

Slow loading sites can serious reduce your visitors experience as patience is definitely not a virtue online and its about time I addressed the points he raised. The other tips are definitely worth reviewing and applying although all the recommendations might not be applicable to your own blog depending on what your coding ability is or what plugins and features you may already have implemented.

If its easier, here’s the list of recommend pages and plugins included on the slide show to help make sure your wordpress blog is running at full capacity.

Making your WordPress Blog FAST

Slide 19: Install WP Super Cache with Gzip enabled

Slide 20: Move .htaccess directives to your server config (if possible) and disable .htaccess parsing. (what the hell is this? dont ask me how to do it, pay someone who knows.)

Slide 21: Combine CSS files into one big CSS file, same goes for Javascript which should be loaded in the footer.

Slide 22: Use CSS Sprites (see your developer if you dont know what this is).

Slide 23: Add a PHP opcode Cahce – pick one, all are better than having none. (see slide 20 for instructions in how to deal with this)

Slide 24: Kill some plugins…and try and replace them with similar ones, some plugins are god awful.

Slide 25: Still slow?  Switch to better hosting: http://www.westhost.com/blog-yoast.html (that’s an affiliate link for Joost, so if your gonna purchase hosting use it, I’m sure he would appreciate it and he kinda deserves it even though he owes me a beer).

Adding SEO to your WordPress Blog

Slide 27: Set Pretty Permalinks – Why do people still forget this?

Slide 28: Switch Blog name and Post Title – the format should be post title – blog name

Slide 29: Give Robots Directions – Noindex wp-admin, login and register pages etc. Try Joosts Meta Robots Plugin.

Slide 30: Write better Titles – Use HeadSpace2 or even All in one SEO.

Slide 31: Write Good Meta Descriptions – If you don’t, do NOT auto generate them.

Slide 32: Create Proper Pagination using wp-pagenavi by Lester Chan, f/i

Slide 33: Diasbale paged Comments… they suck.

Slide 34: Read and Implement everything in my (Joost’s) WordPress SEO Guide

Maintaining your WordPress Blog

Slide 36: Backup your database every few hours. Use Lester Chans WP-DBManager plugin.

Slide 37: Optimise your database every day using the same plugin.

Slide 38: Backup your files every day. Use WordPress Backup.

Slide 39: Check your queries. Use the debug queries plugin to check for plugins gone mad.

Slide 40: Run Askimet. Kill those spam comments.

Slide 41: Check the referrers for comments.  (Click the WP plugins Tab)

Slide 42: Remove those nonsense widgets. Technocrati rank? Well…OK. Blog Value Widget: = Nonsense.

Slide 43: Track your uptime. Use pingdom, or another tool. But be the first to know when your blog is down. (and address it immediately)

Slide 44: Check 404′s. Use the 404 notifier plugin and fix them using the redirection plugin.

Slide 45: Remove unnecessary META info.

eg:

// Remove Really simple discovery link
remove_action( ‘wp_head’, ‘rsd_link’ );
// Remove Windows Live Writer Link
remove_action( ‘wp_head’, ‘wlwmanifest_link’ );
// Remove  the version number
remove_action( ‘wp_head’, ‘wp-generator’ );

Making your WordPress Blog Social

Slide 47: Allow and encourage people to submit (share) your content. Use socialable, dammit :)

Slide 48: Doing newsletters? Add a refer to a friend button the the Thank You page.

Slide 49: Or use my(Joost’s) Comment Redirect plugin, and add the refer a friend there!  ^^

Slide 50: Use WP Greet Box, even useful on “normal” sites.

Slide 51: Make sure your comments are gravatar enabled.

Slide 52: Do the Twitter thing. Its an absurd traffic driver.

WordPress Blog Analytics

Slide 54: Use Google Analytic’s (and my*Joosts* Google Analytics plugin for it)

Slide 55: Use RSS link tagger

Slide 56: Track Twitter Traffic with Twitter Traffic Plugin

Slide 57: Install Canonical URL’s so your analytics does’nt interfere wiuth your SEO.

Slide 58: Use comment redirect to track first time commenter’s

Slide 59: Track Comments as a goal! Use an onclick Javascript with a minor delay.

Slide 60: Track RSS subscribers the same way.

Slide 61: Start optimising: Which traffic leads to more subscribers? (and yes that means forgetting about Digg).

Slide 62: Use my(Joost’s) blog metrics plugin. Improve yourself each month!

And to round it all of, heres the actual presentation itself.
*Joost, next time, make it 20 tips will you?  This took me bloody ages.
40 essential tips for wordpress blogs Joost De Valk

WordPress Optimisation – A4UExpo

Google Wave – the new tool for communication and collaboration on the web

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Well the net was awash yesterday (no pun intended) with news of the new Google platform, called Google Wave, for collaboration and communication on the web. While details are pretty general at the moment and the release isn’t until “later this year”, some have speculated November, the information in the video from a recent developers conference is still quite exciting.

Its an hour and 20 minutes long but I think its worth checking out. If you would prefer to read about its features then check out this Google Wave: A complete Guide from Ben Parr over at Mashable for a more indepth preview and understanidng of the features.