News of another poor soul who has paid ‘someone’ and extortionate amount of money to build them a website and yet again ended up with an unusable, poorly designed site that uses an ‘off the shelf’ CMS system has made the headlines in Sheffield again.
The real issue is that many agencies don’t publicise their fees, or costs for building sites, to allow them to charge the client ‘what they can afford’ rather than what it should cost. This means that the less savvy, technically bereft of clients, can be hoodwinked and convinced that the site they want is going to cost a not unsubstantial fortune.
We think this is wrong and it makes us angry that there are agencies out there taking advantage of clients and over charging them for functionality that they don’t want or need.
A professional web design agency (like design101) will…
1) Be able to guide, support, advise and direct you and will be open to discuss the development time and costs for each element of the site.
2) Demonstrate sites that they have built before and show you how your site will function and perform.
3) Show you a list of satisfied customers who have benefited from their sites and statistics to back up improvements in traffic and sales.
4) Quote a fixed price for project rather than an estimate of time to be taken and a cost per hour. Beware of hourly rates unless the total is capped or a monthly payment is agreed, as it is possible for the number of hours to be pumped to inflate the overall final cost above the initial quote.
A well designed, carefully built website should offer an investment return of between 100 – 400% in its first year depending on the size of the initial investment.
If you want your business to have a web presence which delivers effective results, have a look around our site: www.design101.co.uk, say hello by email or give us a call on 01709 300265.
We can help your business grow.
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