Website Design - How It Works
Your website should reflect you and your business and most importantly it should work for you.
The actual website design and build process is pretty fluid and will vary to suit your needs; the first step will be to have a chat and discuss what you are looking for, your first site perhap or maybe you have built one on a free site and want it replicated or you want to move forward with the development of your existing site.
We will discuss what you want your site to look like, how its laid out, colours & images and what content you want and if you will be using the domain name based email facilities (e.g.
Careful consideration will be given to the various elements that make up a website and its content; a stunning looking site does not necessarily mean that it is a site that will work for you.
One of the most important aspects will be the SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). If you have not already researched your Keywords I will guide you.
We will then discuss the processes and charges and potential time-scale for a going live date, and to identify an overall ball park cost. A report and quotation based on this report will be emailed to you so that you can consider it and make an informed decision.
When you are happy to proceed, further brief discussions will take place to finalise the plan with firm time-scales and to identify who will be providing what with regard to images and content. I do not normally require an up front payment with payment becoming due when the site goes live. A flexible payment plan can be arranged but this will need to be agreed before starting the build. It is also likely that you will want changes made during the building process so if there are any cost changes, they will be highlighted at the time, so you are not surprised with a massive bill.
Website Design Cost
The important bit is how much this is all going to cost. This is the hardest bit as the price will depend entirely on the size and complexity of the site. To give you some idea of costs is only fair and sensible, so a One Page Site taking around 10 hours to complete will be £350. similarly a 5 to 10 page site is likely to take around 20 hours so £750. The design and build of the website 'framework' is the longest task, adding content and images is usually quick and simple.
Website Technical Stuff
I don't use Wordpress. Despite being widely used there is a lot of negativity about the product with regard to the security of the website against hacking in both Wordpress itself but especially with the multitude of add ons that are needed to complete a site successfully. Wordpress was a Blogging package that has been modified to compete with other website building software.
I use Joomla which is has a reputation for being secure both with Joomla itself and with the add ons. Joomla was created as a CMS (Content Management System) package and is highly regarded by many professional developers and regularly has Wordpress developers swap to Joomla. Joomla is an Open Source Product (as is Wordpress) so is free. It is continuously updated and developed to stay withing the developing world of software and website operation generally. It doesn't need anywhere near the amount of time to keep it secure from hackers as Wordpress does.