The big question. First, let’s understand the basic areas that add to the cost of a website.

• Overall design
• Typesetting and content treatment
• Back-end requirements
• Overall code

Overall Design

This is the look and feel of the site, the interface, the navigation schemes. They can be basic to a ground breaking award winning design. It should be homogenous to your Corporate Standards and Marketing and Advertising. If you do not have these items firmly in place, we may need to spend more time to develop one. Many bigger companies are opting for simpler interfaces, putting more time and energy on the content. Content is King.

But, if your site does not have a lot of great content and tools, you may want to opt for a fancier interface. This is especially true if you are a new company and want to create a more memorable look and start to establish Corporate identity and branding.

Typesetting and content treatment

Again, content is King. Good writing, graphs and tables, photos, interactive items may add to the viewers experience and to build confidence. Remember, they are here for the content so put you effort into this. We can do everything form what we call a basic copy and paste, bold this and that to, really spending time reading the content, using font styles to highlight certain things, building graphs, better looking tables, etc. Generally, for most pages, the difference is about a half hour per page on the basic end to about 2 hours per page on the high end.

Backend requirements

This often is what makes a website smart. For you and the viewer. Smart forms, searches, password protected areas, interactive display of information all make a website a better visit. Yet, they are usually not cheap, running from hundreds of dollars per item to thousands of dollars per item.

Overall code

Does the site work? Any bad links or images not found. Is the site set up logically and utilize current accepted coding practices? Has the website been optimized for speed and ease of maintenance? Is it scalable. A lot of website designers may be good artists, but do they have what it takes to build a good working web site? We often cringe when we view other web designer’s work. Sloppy, shortcuts and bad practices often lead to problems down the road. We’re here to help you if you are one of these website owners. We do it all the time.

With the above factors in mind, you should then look at your competition. How good are their sites? You will want yours to be as good or better. That’s simple enough. You should also consider the potential rewards. Increase sales, less cost on printed materials be produced and mailed, and also valuable info on customers wants and habits.