Static sites with 2 to 3 images and up to 200 words per
page:
Single web page
£130
Three page site with textual navigation
£280
Six page site with reply form and simple animation
£480
As above but with 10 to 20 pages, plus copywriting & graphics
£900
Marketing & e-commerce sites:
Product marketing site with on-line eMerge-based product catalogue
£450
As above with entry of details & images for 50 products
£800
As above with secure purchasing, shopping basket and checkout
facilities
£950
Notes
1. For Microsoft Access or SQL Server implementations
of the marketing & e-commerce sites, add typically £200.
2. For additional product photography (typically 50
to 200 items), add approx. £150 to £200.
3. Arranging domain names and hosting; publishing
your web, and search-engine optimisation are all free of charge when
carried out as part of your web design contract. All samples listed above
include these services.
4. The prices shown exclude third-party hosting fees.
For the tabulated samples, these fees will be typically £30 to £90 per
year.
5. The sample prices are for guidance only and should
not be regarded as a quotation or an offer of services. Please
contact me for
an estimate and/or quotation tailored specifically to your requirements.
The Guide Price Calculator
In accordance with this web site's
privacy policy, the price calculator does NOT record or submit any
details to me.
Only the most commonly requested features and
services are listed. I endeavour to provide a much more flexible and
individually-tailored service in person, so please
contact me if
you have more specialised requirements.
Indeed, because customer requirements are so widely
varied (in terms of site content, functionality and performance criteria)
the price calculator can provide no more than a very rough indication of
the likely price bracket.
A more representative estimate is available free of
charge directly from me. Depending upon the complexity of your
requirements, I may be able to provide an initial budgetary estimate by
telephone, fax or E-mail. Subject to more extensive discussions with you,
I can also supply a firm quotation and a detailed specification for the
web design work. Again, these are usually provided free of charge.
Domain Name Selection and Registration
A variety of domain types can be obtained. By
convention or regulation, these are limited to certain classes of web
site. For example:
.co.uk
UK companies / businesses
.com
US companies / businesses
.org
Non-business (clubs, institutions,
charities)
.org.uk
UK-based non-business sites
.me.uk
Personal UK-based web sites
Other types of domain are also available.
In addition to choosing an appropriate type of
domain, it is important to select a suitable domain name. Ideally
this should be something short and memorable that reflects the nature of
your web site. It is often the case, however, that the obvious choices
will already have been registered to someone else, and a degree of
perseverance (and creative wordplay) may be needed to find a suitable
alternative.
If you would like me to register a domain on your
behalf, please contact me specifying any preferred name(s) and variants,
as well as the nature of your proposed site. Unless included in a
web-design package, I make a one-off charge of £25 for this service. This
is in addition to third-party registration costs, which are usually
between £5 and £25 per two-year period.
Web Hosting
Many types of web server and shared hosting packages
are available from third-party suppliers. Prices vary considerably
depending upon the allotted web space, traffic allowance and other
facilities offered.
The nature of your web site will clearly have a
bearing upon your web-hosting needs. In many (though by no means all)
cases, Microsoft server based packages are preferable. Server extensions
and support for ASP.Net, C# and Access / SQL can greatly simplify web
development. The inherent cost savings more than outweigh the slightly
higher hosting fees.
Please contact me before purchasing a hosting package
to ensure that it will be suitable for the type of site you require.
Alternatively, I can arrange web hosting on your
behalf. If carried out as part of a web-design contract, this service
incurs no additional charge, otherwise a one-off fee of £25 is payable.
This is in addition to any third-party hosting costs, which are usually in
the range of £35 to £150 per year.
The cheaper hosting contracts are adequate for many
small businesses. Some hosting companies allow users to upgrade to more
comprehensive packages as their on-line needs develop.
Bespoke Graphics and Photography
Whether bold or subtle, well-designed and stylish
graphics can transform a web page.
I offer a comprehensive service for creating both
decorative and illustrative images for your web site. Background textures,
borders, iconic images and buttons can all be created precisely to your
requirements. I can also visit your location to photograph your products
or premises etc. Please see the
Support services page for more information.
Bespoke images can be included "as is" in your site,
or they can be processed and combined into montages or animated sequences.
A particularly flexible and cost-effective technique is to amalgamate them
with material adapted from clip-art libraries. Several of the images on
this page were created in this way.
If you require bespoke graphics or photography for
your site, please indicate the quantity and complexity of each. It is
important, however, to avoid excessive or inappropriate use of graphics. A
small number of well-chosen and judiciously placed images can be the most
effective. If too numerous, they can detract from the focus of your site,
and large images in particular will make your web pages slow to download.
Image Digitization and Processing
If required, I can digitally scan portions of your
exiting company literature (e.g. brochures, catalogues, letterheads,
techncal documentation) to obtain suitable images.
These can then be edited and processed as necessary
before being added to your web site. Photographs can be enhanced (colour
balanced, sharpened, defects removed etc.) and a vast range special
effects can be applied.
Wherever practicable, I will endeavour to use
existing images on your web site. This is usually a much more
cost-effective approach than producing a suite of completely new bespoke
images. Adapting existing material has the obvious additional advantage
that it maintains a high degree of consistency with your company documents
and advertising literature.
Page Design and Layout
Web pages can range in style from a simple adaptation
of a static printed document to designs resembling the buttons and dials
of an aircraft cockpit. Generally, the ideal falls somewhere between the
two (and usually closest to the former), but the precise optimum depends
very much on the nature of your web site, its content and, of course, upon
your target audience.
I am able to provide a wide range of page designs and
can employ colour schemes, typography, background textures and page
formats to complement your existing corporate style.
If you are in any doubt about the type or complexity
of page layout that you might require, please select a simple text-based
layout from the drop-down list on the right. If designed correctly, even
the simplest and cheapest textual page layout can be both visually
exciting and user-friendly. More complex styles, based on a mixture of
text and graphical elements, convey a degree of extra refinement, but
highly intricate designs are normally best reserved only for more
specialised pages.
Original Text and Copywriting
With some obvious exceptions, web text should be as
compact as possible. It should be composed so that the visitor can easily
scan your web page to locate the required information. Generally, text is
best broken down into a few short, well-focussed blocks per page and
organised using tables, bulleted lists and hyperlinks.
As an experienced
technical writer and published author,
I adopt these and other techniques as a matter of course. Whether
producing advertising copy, instructional notes or detailed technical
prose, I employ a creative, precise and appropriate style of writing to
enhance the effectiveness of your web site.
If you already have suitable text, I will adapt this
for use on your web site wherever possible. Please specify the quantity
and format of any original text that you plan to supply. Text supplied on
CD or via E-mail is readily assimilated, whereas handwritten text may
require more costly transcription. If you would like me to produce
completely new bespoke text, please select the average number of words
that you envisage per page.
Specialist & Technical Writing
I would be pleased to quote for any technical-writing
requirements that you might have. Regrettably, however, I am unable to
produce certain types of highly-specialised scientific material, or
material that relates to safety-critical systems or procedures. Also, I do
not provide a bespoke copywriting service for legal text, although I am
happy to reproduce existing legal documents (e.g. your Terms of Business)
on your web site.
Site Navigation
The facilities provided for navigating through your
web site have a profound effect on usability. Well-chosen link titles and
button labels can significantly improve readability, and they may also
enhance your site's search-engine ranking.
Using my extensive script library, I am able to
construct a wide variety of navigation-menu systems. Simple textual links
are perhaps the most common. If these are required, I usually furnish them
with rollover effects (i.e. a change in colour or appearance when the
mouse pointer passes over them). This style of link can also be combined
with graphical buttons for enhanced clarity and visual appeal.
More complex drop-down, slide out or draggable menus
can be added at minimal cost. If you need to construct a large multi-level
or multi-page site, hierarchical expanding menus (reminiscent of the
folder tree used in Windows Explorer) may be the best choice.
Please select a suitable style of navigation menu
from the drop-down box. I can also accommodate dedicated or specialised
navigation techniques - although I would caution against anything
that deviates markedly from established web conventions. Please contact me
if you have any specific requirements.
Dynamic HTML and Animation
The benefits of an eye-catching animation are
obvious. The disadvantages can be less so! Visitors to your web site can
find them, at best, distracting or, at worst, annoying.
There is, however, an important role for animated web
elements - the difficulty lies in finding a balance which attracts the
visitor's attention without compromising the site's usability. Animations
should be employed primarily to emphasize the principal message of the
site, to provide an extra instructional dimension, or to enhance
user feedback.
One of the simplest techniques uses animated GIF
images. These are discrete images that change their appearance over time.
They can be utilized to implement subtle image transitions or to give the
effect of localised movement.
Other images or text (DHTML) elements can be designed
to move around the page. This motion can be a continuous or transient
effect, or it may be controlled by the visitor (e.g. a scrolling text
panel). An almost limitless variety of compound movements and visibility
changes are available to suit virtually any web page.
Enquiry, Message and Customer-Feedback Forms
If you would like visitors to have the ability to
post messages or comments, to send enquiries, or to submit orders, your
site should be equipped with a suitable form. This allows visitors to
enter whatever data or messages you specify and then to submit this
information to your web server. (You can view a very basic example of a
web-contact form via the Contact / Web buttons of this web site).
Inclusion of this type of form can be facilitated if
your site is hosted on a Microsoft server which supports ASP and VBScript.
Data that your visitors submit via these forms can be
stored on your web server and processed using simple server-side scripts.
This approach makes an ideal ordering mechanism for businesses selling a
narrow or low-volume product range. Larger businesses may require a degree
of integration with a product database, automated order-processing and/or
secure purchasing capabilities, in which case the solutions described in
the Electronic Shopping / Online Ordering section may be more appropriate.
Visitor Registration and Guest Books
These facilities combine a
form-based entry page with a server-side script and visitor database. Your
guest book can simply collect visitor feedback or comments, or the system
can be used to implement password-protected access to subscription-based
web pages and services.
The quantity and type of
information collected for each visitor can be varied to suit your
application, and if required, the collected data can be filed and collated
on your server. The guide price is highly dependent upon the quantity of
server-side scripting required to process your data.
Electronic Purchasing & Online Catalogue
There are several cost-effective solutions for small
and medium sized businesses. The most flexible (and usually the cheapest),
employs a bespoke product database such as
e-Merge. This resides on your local
PC and automatically generates catalogue pages that can be uploaded to
your web site. As such it can often be accommodated by relatively
inexpensive hosting packages (less than £50 pa).
If you have a larger number of products (more than a
few hundred), it may be more appropriate to base your system on a bespoke
server-based database (e.g. Microsoft Access or SQL Server). This offers optimum
flexibility for most applications, but often requires more expensive
web hosting (typically £100 to £200 pa). In some cases a cheaper ASP.Net-based solution is possible.
A simpler, but sometimes less satisfactory,
server-based approach is to integrate a third-party electronic-purchasing
package into your web site. These are often available as part of your
web-hosting package. Facilities vary, but these services generally provide
product catalogues, search features, virtual shopping baskets, order
placement, secure purchasing and customer registration / log-in.
Third-party costs may be up to £500 per year, but this normally covers
your web-hosting fees as well. The more comprehensive on-line purchasing
packages also include templates and wizards which help to minimize the
cost of customizing and administering the system.
If your product database is extensive (for example
containing a large quantity of photographs or textual information) you
should also specify this material in whichever of the following sections
is appropriate:
Bespoke Graphics and Photography (the "Simple"
category)
Image Digitization and Processing
Original Text and Copywriting
Please note that costs can be reduced substantially
if you intend to enter your product details yourself.
Web-Site Publishing
As part of a design contract I will publish your web
site to an agreed server at no additional cost. This normally includes
uploading of all HTML, script and image files as well as full on-line
testing of the site.
I will also supply a copy of your web site on CD.
If you wish to publish the site yourself, I will
provide all of the technical details you need. Please note, however, that
I do not supply the software tools necessary for publishing or modifying
your web site (unless specified otherwise in your contract). You may
already have suitable software, but if not, it is readily available from
numerous sources at minimal cost.
Search Engine Promotion
There are currently several (US) billion web sites
vying for visitors' attention. In order for your site to be found easily,
it should be included in the databases of as many search engines and web
directories as possible. These allow visitors to search for sites of
relevance to them. If your site is correctly designed, it should regularly
appear near the top of each visitor's search list.
All of my web sites are designed from the very start
with their potential search-engine ranking in mind. This strategy involves
judicious placement of key text within specific page elements, as well as
appropriate provision for page titles, meta-keywords and meta-descriptions
within the HTML documents.
If you decide that search-engine submission would be
beneficial to your business, I will work with you to optimize your web
site and to develop suitable search keys. These are then submitted as
integral components of your web pages to numerous search engines and
directories.
I take great care to avoid questionable "promotion"
techniques, such as repetitive text, false doorway pages and too-frequent
resubmission - all of which can be regarded as "spamming" and may result
in a web site being blacklisted by some search engines.
If periodic review and resubmission is required, this
can be implemented at quite reasonable cost by means of an annual
maintenance contract.
Web-Site Maintenance (Optional)
A web-maintenance contract is an economical way to
ensure that your site is kept up to date. It is ideal if you need to
regularly modify the content of your web site - perhaps to include new
products, services or company information. Indeed, site maintenance can be
arranged to cover virtually any periodic alteration or addition to site
content. Please indicate the update interval and quantity of new or
modified material that you envisage.
If you have Search Engine Promotion included in your
web-design contract, I can also regularly review your search keys and
resubmit your site to the search engines as part of the maintenance
procedure. It tends to be uneconomical to resubmit web sites more often
than about once every two months (in fact, it can be counter-productive
with some search engines) so the price calculator imposes an upper limit
of 6 resubmissions per year.
Site maintenance is implemented as an annual contract
and the fee is usually payable in two six-monthly instalments.
Site maintenance contracts are not intended for:
Very infrequent site updates
Structural changes (new page style, navigation
system etc.)
Addition of new facilities
In these cases, a one-off redesign agreement is
normally more cost effective.
Regrettably, I am able to offer a maintenance service
only for web sites that I have originally supplied or redesigned.
