Not a web designer, but been asked to make site....how much to charge?

[ethical]

Basically, I'm working at an accounting firm during the holiday while I'm back from uni. My boss asked me to make him a website. Nothing fancy, just a couple of pages with some info about the firm, services, contact etc etc. Took about a day overall put together in iWeb (I said it was nothing fancy ).

Anyway, one of our clients said he really needed to get a website set up, and since my boss is pretty impressed with the job I did he said I might be able to do it. I spoke to the guy just now, he took a look at the site I made and said he'd like me to do it, and that I should contact him to sort everything out.

Now....I have no idea what price to give him. I'll need to purchase a domain name and set up hosting (which I've not done before, my boss already had the domain name etc, I just had to create the site and FTP it onto the host server). I image it'll take me about a solid day of work to get this guys site done, he said he'll give me all the wording and images etc.

Since it's just a simple info site and I'm not a professional developer, what sort of price do you think would be reasonable? I really have no idea.

Thanks.

 

[hdsalinas]

Could you post a link to your boss' website? That could help us give you a price.

 

[snberk103]

I don't mean to rain on your parade.... but if your client wanted to have an audit done, would you recommend that they go to a web designer?

I don't think you are doing the client any favours by designing a website for them. If you miss a step they could find their email accounts hacked, their domain name sounds like something rude in whatever 2nd language is popular in their community, the renewal reminders sent to the wrong person in a few years, and when they do figure out it's time to renew the person with the password has just graduated Uni and is travelling the far-east. When you go back to Uni you will be requested to make all updates, including the ones that have to be done "yesterday" - despite the fact you are writing an exam tomorrow.

Find someone who actually designs sites and pass the job on to them... everyone will be happier.

 

[ethical]

I don't mean to rain on your parade.... but if your client wanted to have an audit done, would you recommend that they go to a web designer?

I don't think you are doing the client any favours by designing a website for them. If you miss a step they could find their email accounts hacked, their domain name sounds like something rude in whatever 2nd language is popular in their community, the renewal reminders sent to the wrong person in a few years, and when they do figure out it's time to renew the person with the password has just graduated Uni and is travelling the far-east. When you go back to Uni you will be requested to make all updates, including the ones that have to be done "yesterday" - despite the fact you are writing an exam tomorrow.

Find someone who actually designs sites and pass the job on to them... everyone will be happier.

Not raining on my parade at all, don't worry. It's comments like yours that are useful!

The client is a spray decorator. He spray paints buildings, fire-proofing, artistic, whatever. He needs the website just as a place with a little info about himself that isn't going to change regularly, and as a place to put pictures up of work he has done. Mainly pictures of a job he is doing at the moment, on a very large mansion. So in that respect, updates will be minimal, non-urgent, and not at all often. When there are updates it will just consist of text changes, image changes or contact detail changes. No site expansion or anything major.

What do you mean about a rude domain name? And I was under the impression the host can provide email addresses (at least that is the case in my boss' situation), so they will be secure providing the client chooses a good password surely?

I can always pass the account details onto the client once I'm done, and they can handle the renewals etc. In fact that's what I would do.

I appreciate your comments, and they are very valid. I just think the client is looking for a cheap, bog standard website, that doesn't need to do anything fancy...and since that's what I created for my boss, he seems to think I could deliver that.

The site I created is here. Like I said....first website I've ever made, and certainly nothing fancy, but it was fine for my boss' needs (in fact he loves it )

p.s. I won't be leaving uni for another 4 years

 

[snberk103]

Hello Ethical

A couple of observations about the site you did build. And it is a nice site, so these comments are just to help make it better.

I assume the "© Registered Office: ..." is the UK way of copyrighting a page? We would normally also add a year - but perhaps this is fine in the UK.

The postal code at the bottom of the page wraps onto a 2nd line on my browser (Safari 5) and sits all by itself.... i.e. I see a ' 1NH ' all by itself on the last line.

"What do you mean about a rude domain name? And I was under the impression the host can provide email addresses (at least that is the case in my boss' situation), so they will be secure providing the client chooses a good password surely?"

Some people will abbreviate, or combine the words that make up, their company names into a domain name that reads differently than intended. If your client has a large greek client base then you have to watch for that in both languages. A very very simple example is an art gallery called If Art Gallery - which then becomes www.ifartgallery.co.uk.

In Canada the person who creates the domain name in the first place gets tagged as the "owner" - and it can be difficult to change the owner in the future. The domain name register needs to send info to confirm the ownership to an email address before a domain name is created. If its your personal email, then you may find it difficult to remove yourself. So get your spray painting client to create a new GMail (or the like) for themselves - but give you the sign-in info so you can create the domain, and the email addresses.

Once the domain is created, yes the hosting company hosts the email as well. Pick a hosting company with good security. Does your client need POP or IMAP email service? Let them set up the emails themselves, else you will be getting requests to "reset" the password everytime someone forgets theirs.

Make sure any images you use on the website are licensed for commercial use. Both the designer and the client would be liable for damages if a photographer sued for non-licensed use of an their image.

etc etc

 

[ethical]

snberk103 that's some great advice, thank you!

I didn't realise the postcode ran onto a second line - that'll teach me to test in more browsers eh!

I'll also change the copyright part to add a date, it probably should be in there, I don't think it's different here in the UK.

I'll certainly make sure to double and triple check the domain name before I register it

Also thank you for the info on registering the site. Since I've never done that before it's especially helpful, and I'll make sure to get the client to give me all their details so I can set them up as the owner.

Thank you again, your help is much appreciated!

 

[SDub90]

I would just charge whatever you would have been paid to do it at your job. If you're being paid $10/hr and it took you 8 hours - $80 would probably be fair. Since you're putting it together in iWeb - you should probably lower it a little bit. If a potential customer visits the site and sees all the iWeb markup, he'll go from a potential customer to a lost customer. I know I've done it a few times.

 

[ethical]

I would just charge whatever you would have been paid to do it at your job. If you're being paid $10/hr and it took you 8 hours - $80 would probably be fair. Since you're putting it together in iWeb - you should probably lower it a little bit. If a potential customer visits the site and sees all the iWeb markup, he'll go from a potential customer to a lost customer. I know I've done it a few times.

Hmm yeh I suppose that sounds fair.

What, you've created a site in iWeb and lost customers, or you've seen the iWeb stuff in someone else's site and gone elsewhere?

He basically wants a glorified blog, so I think iWeb will be fine.

 

[SDub90]

Hmm yeh I suppose that sounds fair.

What, you've created a site in iWeb and lost customers, or you've seen the iWeb stuff in someone else's site and gone elsewhere?

He basically wants a glorified blog, so I think iWeb will be fine.

Both actually. Had a ****** homemade website for my brother-in-law's fishing charter site that brought in more customers than the much better looking iWeb version that I threw together for him, someone even sent him an email about it being made in iWeb. I've also steered away from companies that used iWeb & dreamweaver to make their pages (can't think of a specific example - all I remember was that I was visiting a site for a professional service, the kind of place that should have an IT department with web developers).

It's something to consider, but if it's a blog style site, then iWeb would be fine.

 

[ethical]

Both actually. Had a ****** homemade website for my brother-in-law's fishing charter site that brought in more customers than the much better looking iWeb version that I threw together for him, someone even sent him an email about it being made in iWeb. I've also steered away from companies that used iWeb & dreamweaver to make their pages (can't think of a specific example - all I remember was that I was visiting a site for a professional service, the kind of place that should have an IT department with web developers).

It's something to consider, but if it's a blog style site, then iWeb would be fine.

Ohh I see. Well thanks for the info! To be honest I haven't known many people to take a look at what the site was made using when browsing, but maybe that's just me.

I'll knock something together for this guy and ask him if he likes it. If not then no charge and no problem, if he like it and wants it to go live then great!

 

[Alphakline]

Charge what you think would be a fair price for your time. Keep in mind that you are not a high end web developer so you shouldn't ask a high price.

iWeb can make amazing websites however, you may need to think outside the box and use the vast amount of resources on the web to achieve everything you want. Also with iWeb you need to check 110% with all browsers. Image effects may look different with Firefox than they will with Safari or IE (shadow effects). In the end, make sure you use a free utility by Rage called, iWeb SEO Tools. It adds meta tags, site description and keywords, page titles and google analytics.

Check out this post where I listed some additional info.

Lastly, be patient with the job. Double and triple check your work with the different browsers using OSX and windows. Always make it your best work. Who knows, this is job #2... there might be a job #3 in the future.

Hope this helps

 

[Dunmail]

I assume the "© Registered Office: ..." is the UK way of copyrighting a page? We would normally also add a year - but perhaps this is fine in the UK.

I believe that the UK does this too - certainly all our work has it. Usually in the form "start year - current year". I.e. "2008 - 2010".

In the case of work which is continually updated, (for example a web site), the year of publication may be shown as a period from first publication until the most recent update, (i.e. 2000-2004)

You can't leave the end year off, so "2008 - " isn't valid. If your host uses PHP then you can set this up so that the current year gets added automatically.

Registered Office is the contact address required by UK company law and isn't part of the copyright notice per se. The usual notice is "Copyright © 2008 - 2010 company_name"

 

[PeterQVenkman]

I heard some funny advice some time ago: whatever you finally decide on is a fair price, add another 30%.

Because you're going to do that extra 30% anyway.

Good luck with it!

 

[124151155]

If it helps, I charged $1500 AUD ($1300 USD) for this site I made last year and into this year, however it was all hand coded and it uses a content management system, and took quite some time. It's also the first site I've done, and I'm currently at school.

I would suggest pick an hourly rate that you'd be happy to be receiving and apply it to how many hours it took you to make the site.
Then add $100 for good luck, if it doesn't make it sound too expensive.

Oh, and in the future, always establish payment before you begin anything.

 

[ethical]

If it helps, I charged $1500 AUD ($1300 USD) for this site I made last year and into this year, however it was all hand coded and it uses a content management system, and took quite some time. It's also the first site I've done, and I'm currently at school.

I would suggest pick an hourly rate that you'd be happy to be receiving and apply it to how many hours it took you to make the site.
Then add $100 for good luck, if it doesn't make it sound too expensive.

Oh, and in the future, always establish payment before you begin anything.

Yeh there's definitely no need for a CMS in this site, and the hand coding will be minimal - html snippets etc. It won't take too long either.

I haven't agreed to, or started anything yet. He came into the office and asked me to give him a call. When I do, we'll meet up and that is when we'll decide payment, and then I'll begin work. What I'm trying to do at the moment is gather a rough price that I can quote him.

Thank you for your help everyone. It is definitely very useful! And Alphakline, I've checked out your other post and it's also very helpful. Thank you.

 

[DesignerOnMac]

snberk103 that's some great advice, thank you!

I didn't realise the postcode ran onto a second line - that'll teach me to test in more browsers eh!

I'll also change the copyright part to add a date, it probably should be in there, I don't think it's different here in the UK.

I'll certainly make sure to double and triple check the domain name before I register it

Also thank you for the info on registering the site. Since I've never done that before it's especially helpful, and I'll make sure to get the client to give me all their details so I can set them up as the owner.

Thank you again, your help is much appreciated!

On getting a domain name. If you go to a reputable domain registration site and purchase a domain name, it will be listed as you being the owner. If the site is reputable you can go back into your account and reassign the domain name to anyone you want and transfer it.

I use domainsite.com for my clients. Reasonable pricing and they can also host the site. There are many registration sites out there with varying prices you can look at also. If you want a local domain registration site do a google search for one in the UK.

Since your not 'creating' a website from scratch I think the advise of $10 an hour or what you feel comfortable with is okay. You might ask the company what they have for a budget and go from there.