Web Design expectations

[epoclaen]

I was reading the http://forums.x10hosting.com/graphic...eelancing.html thread and had some additional questions.

When designing websites for companies, do you (or should you) include the following:

• A modest backend CMS interface with training for the company to update their own content. Or do you insist that all website updating goes through you?
• Recommendations for their webhosting provider - if so, which should I recommend? Should one be flexible about the Apache/Intel server choice?
• What legal contracts do you use as far as website ownership and employment terms? Are there fairly standardized contracts like there are for apartment rentals? Where should I start with these?

I'm sure at first that some of this might be a bit too involved for a $10 to $20 website building job but I wanted to hear about your approaches to these questions.

Jeff

[leafypiggy]

I know this may sound bad, but $10-$20 dollars for a whole website is extremely cheap.

Most webdesigners are getting ~$18/hour, I'm sure you could lower that to like $10 (as I probably am) but the amount of time and work it takes to design and code a site is worth much more than $20. I know for me, it takes about 15 hours total to design (photoshop mockup) and code (pure html/css) a site. If you go onto making it into a CMS, wordpress, joomla, etc; I would charge more because of the extra work.

Now for your questions:

1. It all depends on your customer. If the person buying the site from you is a complete novice at design and coding, I would suggest giving them a CMS to go with it (but charge a little more for the extra coding, as previously stated). If your customer knows how to put in updates and news and content, I'd just give them the site. However, maintaining someone else's site is a lot of commitment, and you would charge extra to keep their site updated.

2. It's all up to you. If this is your client's first site, I'd recommend suggesting a web host for them. I know many sites (such as x10) offer an affiliates program, where when people buy hosting through your referral link, you get a cut of the profit. If you don't have such a partnership, just recommend who you like best. I have a few friends that offer web hosting, and for my clients, I suggest whichever company fits their needs/budget.

3. Legal contracts.... I don't really use them. The DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) covers most of it. You might want to trademark your company name or something, but other than that, you are free to put whatever copyright you see fit. (Like a "Designed by YourNameHere" in their footer. You are also allowed to say, "Copyright YourNameHere 2009" and the customer can put "Content Copyright TheirNameHere 2009". It's really all up to you.

If you have any more questions, or need clarification on my post, just ask.

[epoclaen]

Neil,
Yeah, $10 to $25 jobs that they spoke of in the referred thread seemed like a pittance to me too so I expect such jobs would be limited to a couple of simplistic html/css web pages.

In regards to "giving the client the website", how do you normally deliver it? Are you given access to their chosen web hosting service and upload it for them or do you just deliver the pages and folders and leave it to them to handle the upload (thus protecting their website security by limiting who has access)?

What about recommending or setting up their domain name? My feeling is that they should leave that to the web designer after discussing and approving the name and web hosting service. The problem there is that they should be the ones to directly make the domain name purchase, not the website designer.

Maybe I'm over thinking all of this and should just keep these things in mind when talking to clients but I hate to go into talks with the client unprepared and unprofessionally.

Jeff

[leafypiggy]

When I give the client the website, I'd usually give them either a .zip archive of the files, or give them public access to an ftp server on my site. Either way.

About domain names, I've never really dealt with clients looking for a lot of stuff, only the design. So I cannot really help you much there. Sorry!

[farscapeone]

It all depends on your customer. Complete novice would like you to do everything for him. It's all about service. If you offer a full package, with web design, hosting, domain managing, ... he would be happy to do business with you. In that case you choose the host and you host the site for them. And remember if it's not a static site and you are updating the content for them, you have to charge for every change they want to make and here's why. First, if you don't charge them you'll end up working your ass of cos they will call you every time they don't like the position of exclamation mark at the end of some stupid sentence. Second, if you charge them for every update they will learn to appreciate your time and it looks more professional to let them know that your time costs.

As for the $10 jobs, that's just laughable. I charge $10 per-page for static sites and $15 for home page (I charge static sites per-page and dynamic per-hour). If you get clients attention you won't have problems charging them. Important thing is to get their attention (with your previous work or portfolio site). Price isn't always relevant. Try to remember that ;)

Good luck!