Affordable Website Design

Yeah so you are building a site on a bugdet, and obviously you don't want to go into debt developing your site. But at the same time, if you are building a site to support your business, or are building an online business that will carry your reputation, credibility and, quite possibly, your livelihood with it, you don't want to completely cut corners and find the cheapest solutions available. Good design doesn't have to cost you your first born child. This article does give you some good ideas of things to be mindful of, but don't be so cost conscious that you waste your money on something that does more harm than good.

by : Neil MacLeod

How do we know if a web design is affordable? Affordable website design is when there will be an obvious return on investment, over a set term. But the costs do not just stop at the website build itself. One has to look at whole expected life cycle of the website. Here are some ways that you can have a more affordable web site design development at the initial purchase stage.

The initial meetings usually get drafted into the cost of the website. Traveling to a client takes time and money so preparation is the key here. Find someone local, and get a minimum of three quotes. It may take more than one meeting to decide who to choose so here is where your preparation pays off. Know what you want, know how it should be achieved and reduce the number of meetings needed.

The actual design of a website can be very costly or very affordable, if you know what you want then it is more affordable. There are plenty of templates out there and even more websites, so if you leave it to a designer to build from scratch it will cost. The current trend is for simplistic design and since you have your own logo it should not be too hard to sketch together a style of your liking, simplistic design should not cost a lot of money. The important part for us is the content of the website so make sure that the design does not crowd this content.

Yeah there are a lot of website templates out there, but a lot of them suck and if you are serious about having a successful online business or a powerful online presence, you aren't going to want to use them. Just because you are building a site on a budget, doesn't mean cheapest and fastest is best. There are plenty of quality web designers who have quality "template" products that incorporate best practices in design, usability and seo friendly structure. Be mindful of your budget, but don't take the bait from the biggest fish you find. Look for the designers with low overhead and an interest in what your business actually does. In the long run, you will be much better off with them than with the cheapest out of the box solutions you find.

The website has to be hosted somewhere and web hosting comes in various forms. Make sure that it suits what you need. If you have a ten page website which you aim to grow to a hundred page website, and one page averages at 110KB, then you should be looking at a web space of around 11MB. Take into account additional or larger images so triple it to be safe to start with at around 35MB. ? Do not pay for a 500MB website hosting when you only need 35MB.

Are they building the site from scratch or are they using open source software. If they build it from scratch, it is highly likely that the costs will be very high due to testing and development. Also, the support costs will be high as it is bespoke. Open source software is developed by the community and supported by the community. More than one web Design Company can take over a website built from open source software and support it without problem. If you use open source then there will probably also be pre built training packages on how to use it. Again reducing the cost and making the website more affordable.

Open source software is free software which web design companies can use and manipulate to suit their needs. The web designers still put in a lot of effort to make it look and behave as you like it but the engine of the website is normally already been and can be adapted to various situations.

So, as a starting point to a more affordable website design, have a good idea of the design you want. Try and opt for open source software. Have a guess at your web hosting needs and question if you think it is too much.

Open source software is definitely a good idea for keeping the cost of a new site from becoming prohibitive. Open source solutions are created by website designers and users to create solutions for specific problems that they have run into in the past. They work great because they were created by people who do this whether for a living or for a hobby and they understand that solutions don't have to be expensive or complicated to work. For the majority of people out there who need a website, custom programming is completely unnecessary. Custom programming is very expensive, and the cost goes up exponentially as the complexity of your vision increases. Don't short yourself on your site's design and planning, but also don't make building a site cost prohibitive by trying to add more to your site than you need.

About The Author
Neil MacLeod runs http://www.web-studio.co.uk/ providing web site and web marketing services in Buckinghamshire. Neil has been building websites since 1999 and is a founding member of http://www.itwebnetwork.co.uk.

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