How much does a website cost

A friend of mine designed the biggest website in Europe (the fantasy-football in the newspapers, this was a few years ago), and he said that he would usually have to spend more time getting agreement with the client as to what was actually wanted, than doing the job itself, and that specification time will always be part of the hidden cost. So you might get a better deal by figuring out exactly what you need beforehand, as much as you can. On the other hand, you don't want to be too rigid, as a professional should be able to improve on your plans as well as just implement them.

I'd recommend going to a designer who's done something somewhat similar to what you want to achieve. And be very careful to specify "achievement" in terms of income . . . there are lot of web-designers who will charge you lots of money to make a very impressive graphical site, with animated introductions and lots of impressive graphics everywhere. BUT, in many cases, the better a site looks the LESS money you will actually make. Ugly sites tend to sell more stuff . . . anything that detracts from the headline and ad copy, will almost certainly DECREASE your sales, except in special circumstances.

Another example of the wrong way to think about web-design, is an "expert" I met who could guarantee to get my site to the top of search engine listings. But thats worth exactly ZERO unless you've already got effective marketing and sales implemented! So be careful to find one of the very few web-site creators who can tell you how to actually MAKE MONEY from a website, rather than how to make a pretty website. That might not even be called a web-designer, it might be called something else (not sure exactly what!). The actual "design" of a website should be determined by what will SELL STUFF, so I'd advise approaching it from that perspective. Anything that isn't specifically aimed at getting money out of customers, should not be there! You should be able to ask your web-design team things like "how does that colour help me make money" or "how does having that graphic there, help my customers buy from me" etc, and if they can't immediately give you real answers, then your site could be better. Sometimes the best you can do is test a lot of different options, which is easy enough on a website . . . so you can find out in practice what works, rather than just guess.

Hope that helps!

Chris
PS. there'll be lots more aplicable tips on my Newsletter . . . (since others are plugging their on biz here, I thought I'd join in :) )
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