The PWAL Approach to Web Design

The PWAL Approach to Web Design and Hosting
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When you select someone to handle the design and hosting of your Web site, it's not the same as selecting someone to unplug your drains. The plumber comes in, does his work, and leaves. The Web site designer becomes almost an extension of your company. The site designer must know how you are positioning the company and what target audiences you are selling to. The Web designer must have a solid understanding of the tangible and intangible features of your organization and its products or services. The Web designer must know where your company has been and where it is going. The Web designer must know all this because of the nature of the way the Web sells for you, which is not at all like the way your office staff routinely sells for you.

When a prospect calls your office on the telephone, the tone of the switchboard operator helps sell your company. The knowledge level of each person talking to a prospect as well as the general tone and attitude of the person talking to the prospect are all very important pieces of the sales puzzle. The size and appeal of supporting ads, the length of a caller's wait on the phone, background noise in the office, can all contribute to the success of a sale when an unknown prospect calls your office. On the Web, there is no pleasant telephone voice, there are no knowledgeable sales advisors, there is not even any background office noise and there may be no additional supporting advertising to help the prospect become a customer. The only thing involved in the sale is what's on the pages the prospect visits. Therefore your Web site must be able to stand alone and present your company in the most favorable way possible.

To give you a better idea of the way I approach projects, here are some of my thoughts on the World Wide Web along with some cost ranges for what would be required to build and host a Web site for your company or professional practice.

Quick Summary

I can build a professional Web site for as little as $700 to around $2000 or so, including first year hosting costs. I placed a sample of a $700 site at www.pwal.com/sample for your review.
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A few comments on the Web

Some people think that the Internet is for entertainment, but I sincerely believe that the finest purpose of this technology is to disseminate information. Some Web designers advise that Web sites should be powerful multi-media extravaganzas while I advocate simple, professional, informative sites that load quickly and are easy to navigate. You will also hear advice that Web sites must be updated and kept "fresh" so that people will return again and again. This is just so much nonsense for the vast majority of small business and professional sites. People simply don't return to the typical business or professional office site to see what might be new there. Sure, if you have a multi-million dollar advertising campaign driving people to your site it should be kept fresh. If the site is an advertising presence that visitors will find when they need someone providing the products or services you sell, then you need to update the site only when relevant information changes. Only news sites really need continual updating so the amount of effort you spend on keeping the site "fresh" is entirely up to you.

People will find your site from hundreds of miles away as they search for information on whatever you sell or service. The timely information from a variety of Web sites, such as yours, provides individual empowerment unlike anything in history. For example, after my wife had eye surgery, I had a question on how the bandage should be positioned. It was nothing urgent but I wanted to make sure I was doing everything as correctly as possible. Because it was after normal office hours, I went to the Internet.

The Johnson & Johnson Web site, in addition to providing absolutely no useful information about the use of their product, proved to be a tedious site to navigate. I turned to AltaVista, my favorite search engine and within a few minutes I had identified several potential information sources. Some were sites from ophthalmology practices and others were hospital sites. While I was not able to obtain the specific information I had originally sought, I did learn enough to know that we were doing the eye bandages properly.

When I examine this particular Internet session I believe that it is a highly typical session. I wanted specific information and used a search engine to locate potential sources. I then reviewed the information, comparing and evaluating as I went, to glean the particular details that were useful to me at that time. Would I return to any of those sites in the future? No, probably not. I almost always begin with a search when I need information. Would I return to any of the sites just to see what was new? Not a chance.

Therefore, if my session was indeed typical, and I believe it was, then new sites should be packed with information, registered with major search engines, easy to read and easy to navigate, and need to be updated only as relevant new information becomes available.

A few comments on Web sites and their costs

If we keep a strong focus on information content, I believe that we could build a popular and helpful Web site that would benefit your current customers or clients, potential customers or clients, and the general public. I believe that such a site can usually be built for around $2000, or so, including the first year's hosting cost. I always tell prospective clients that what I call a "Web brochure" can be built for around $700, including the first year's hosting, but I usually suggest that as an interim step while we develop a more informative site. We could certainly do a professional looking brochure site with hours, office locations, and basic information about the company or professional practice for around $700. If you start with a simple brochure site to keep costs down, the site could be expanded later, as time and budget constraints permit.

My hourly rate for standard Web site work is $75. If you decide that you need Web features such as databases, elaborate forms, visitor tracking, or other tools for your site, hourly rates can range for $75 to over $100, depending on the complexities of the specific request. Any such custom work would always be the subject of separate proposals.

In addition to the cost of building the site initially, there are costs to update the site and costs to host the site on a Web server. Update costs would depend on who does the updates and the extent and frequency of updates. After the site is built, I could train someone in your office to do the updates, if you prefer. Hosting and domain name costs, after the first year, can be expected to run about $35-$50 per month on an on-going basis. If your staff does the updates, you will also need an Internet access account that can be used from your office. You might also need a modem and some telephone rewiring to hook a computer to an outside line. Figure about $20 per month for an access account if you don't already have one that could be used for the updates. The internet access account could also be used for e-mail in and out of the office. To do site updates, you would also need the NetObjects Fusion software package. There are other Web site design programs but my preference is Fusion, which is the application I would use to build your site.

Item

Minimum First Year $

Likely First Year $

Design and hosting

$700

$2000

Domain name

$0

$75

Other Potential Costs; Timing is flexible; Costs are approximate

Item

Cost

Fusion or other Web page software

$300

Internet connection

$20/mo.

Your Domain Name

Another item that should have immediate action is the selection and registration of your domain name. Even if you decide not to pursue having your own Web site at this time, you should select and register your domain name preference to keep someone else from taking it. Other than trademarked names, Domain Names are first-come, first-serve so it is very possible that your first preference could be taken by some other user with the same or similar company name in another state. Domain name registrations cost $35 and are valid for one year. If you proceed to register a domain name on your own or through any of the domain name services, be sure to have yourself or someone in your company listed as the Administrative Contact. As the Administrative Contact, you can change any of the other contacts at any time.

When you select your domain name, keep in mind that the most common dot designation is dot com and therefore, most of the really good names are probably already taken. Even if you have an unusual name to register, it may already be taken. When you make your selection, be sure to check for similar spellings. You may find some surprises. For example, a major search engine's domain name spelled with a hyphen would, at one time, take a visitor to a porn site rather than to the search engine site. You also need to find a domain name that "works" in various contexts. It should be readable, understandable, unlikely to be misunderstood, and reasonably easy to remember. One name I would never let any of my clients take would be something that has two meanings, depending on where the implied spacing is placed. One major investment firm has a domain name which can mean a hospital room for old folks if you change the implied spacing. Just be careful! Remember, if you select PWAL, you get our assistance with this and more.

CGI-BIN and other Scripting

As you proceed with your investigation into your Web site, remember that there are a variety of factors that impact the cost of the design and the hosting. Design costs can be increased by elaborate forms or other CGI programs. A CGI program picks up where routine Web page coding, called HTML, leaves off. A CGI program (also called a script) is definitely a program. It takes experience to be able to write one or to modify and customize any of the thousands of so-called free scripts that can be found on the Web. Very few of them can be easily installed by a novice. At PWAL, some scripts can be handled at our usual rates while more complex scripts will require a senior level person with a concomitant increase in hourly rates. A custom attendee registration script, which started with a free script found on the Web, cost one client about $1500 by the time the form was developed and customized and the in-house Web site person was trained in further customization of the form. This is a very flexible form script with either e-mail or file output or both, if desired. It can handle several different uses at the same time with no further modification so it was really a good value for the money.

You will also hear Active Server Pages, or ASP, mentioned depending on which web server you are hosted on. Active Server Pages are another form of scripted pages which can greatly extend the capability of normal HTML pages.

Commerce on the Web

Another factor in the cost of developing your site is using the site for "e-commerce" where you plan to sell products and take credit card orders. Even with the "stock" merchant services that are available, each site is different and requires extensive development and testing time before the site can go live. Plan for a minimum of $2,000-$3,000 first year costs for an e-commerce site in addition to whatever you would spend for a regular site.

If you plan to put a database on the site plan on extra costs both in development and in hosting. The precise additional cost will depend on how sophisticated the database manipulation will be. One recent database project added nearly $2,000 to the cost of the site before e-commerce could even be contemplated.

Please note that this is not a specific proposal. This was prepared to give you some general information on the way PWAL approaches Web design and pricing.