So, what do you think of dreamweaver? The sites I want to design involve a lot of flash animations/interactivity. It seems good, but I was out of the loop for a while. I remember when html was the only way to make a website. Any advice?

The only thing about flash is search engine spiders don't read and index the content. Because I design for small businesses I try to limit the flash, or at least design the site so that whatever content in the flash is either displayed elses where on the site/page or hidden at the bottom below the page by coloring the text the same as the background.


pete

thanks for writing this informative article. one of the problems i usually have is charges as i'm not sure how much to charge, like how much and per hour? or per page? how much more for non-static pages? stuff like that.

also, do you have any suggestions on how to get jobs? like if you have your own business website up with samples and rates etc and no one is biting, how do you search for jobs to do?

Hey dissipate,

I can't really tell you what you can charge as I've got a breakdown in pricing in NZ dollars and I really shouldn't display it for competitior reasons, usually I price each company differently and don't really have a set package price, but I do have a minimum.

But don't do by the hour, as the job could be a few weeks to even months. It's best to sell the site as a package, and give a reasonable amount of time of when it will be completed, make sure you give yourself enough time, very important.

If they accept you, ask for half the money first and the rest when finished. Very important to do it this way.

Site Pages and Design/Layout

Work out a price for site pages and design, the number of pages you'll create (contacts, home, etc) and layout, this should cost around $200 - $600+, depending on a few things, charge as much as you feel it should be. Remember, you're basically trying to give them the best deal at what you think it should cost, you give them numbers and they'll get back to you, whether they choose you to do it or someone else.

Files, Brochures, Booklets, Images, etc

If they require PDF or files for download, scanning of pictures (things you must do to get the items on the web if they don't provide it themselves) etc, you should charge for this too, although not that expensive, it still should be considered in your charges, say roughly around $50 - $300 and not more, however for images you can charge $100 - $300+.

Testing and Debugging

This is something else you may consider charging for, make sure the site is operational and functions how it's suppose to and is error free, very vital that you do this, so why not get paid for this too, although, you may like to suggest that you'll give back a small percentage of this costs if it's not working correctly when you say it's completed. Anywhere from $100 - $300 but not more.

Content Management

If you create for them a means to manage their own site, then this is where you'll benefit. If it eliminates you from updating their sites then it'll save them money in the long run, if you do create such a thing for them then charge roughly 3 times the price of the above costs you've set for yourself. This is reasonable enough.

That's basically how I split the costs up. Usually you would have templates, scripts etc, already designed so that you could have their site up within weeks. It's how a lot of web designers do it nowadays, it's rare that they create sites from scratch, and if they do, it's even costs more than the above.

So hopefully this gives you a generalisation of what to expect, remember if you're trying to get the business, make it reasonable, check out your professional local web designers and see what they charge, and be shocked at how much they do it, but remember, they've got everything ready so it's only a short time when they can get a site up.

Make sure to get yourself a place where you can get web hosting and domain names at a reasonable charge and include that pricing. Make sure it has everything that the business needs.

Cheers,


MC

Do you need a large sum of money to setup a web designing company? I know of a lot of teenagers who have great technical skills in web designing and development but lack the money to start a web design company.

I suppose you need to pay for your domain name and web hosting and maintenance...so that customers around the world can reach you and so that you can put up a portfolio of your work. What other capital costs are involved?

Thanks in advance.

That's great advice..I may be using it in the future.

Also you should implement the use of Css in webpages.. it improves the overalll usability and makes it faster, easier, ect..

This is a great topic , Ive just finished a 2 year web degree and Im starting my own company soon , and the one thing that seems to be the hardest for me is finding the clients , but these posts have given me some pretty solid ideas. Thanks dudes!

Id like to add that if you can , try and learn Flash , as general bandwidth increases we will see more and more of it and I predict that one day (in the next few years) all sites will be pure flash because of its accessability between platforms/browsers and freedom of design.

Wow, I spent some time reading all of this information and I must say that this was very useful to me. I am starting to learn CSS and its pretty easy for the most part. Also if you guys are looking for graohical designer jobs I recommend looking in the Jobs section of the news paper. They usually have 2-3 graphical designer wanted ads, well atleast in my town they do!

Thank you again for clearing everything up on how to get started!

Thanks,
This is very useful for a person like me to know even though I'm only 14 and still only into html, and hoping to go into web design around 16...

I only privatly make sites for my friends those site i offer to them cheap sense its not like a million dollar website...
I also have another question, When it comes to bandwidth limits they may inform you about if they dont have their own servers, what is a good thing to tell them...
Like if they have a cheap web host (whice i dobut they'd be paying you 100+ to make a website) and they have 75GB whice i heard is approx 1 mill. visitors, What kinda limitations should you make with a low bandwidth website...

Also 1 more ? what is the most commonly used server OS...
I know the 2 big ones are Lenux and Microsoft...

Thanks,
Brandon

Awesome article.

As someone asked sort of before, i would like some clarifacation, when you say domain name and web hosting, should you charge them monthly to work with the web hosting and stuff? Also can you "buy" a domain name forever? Like say i was going to make a website for Carpert cleaners R us (just a name i got out of the air) would i beable to get a domain name forever for them that was say,
CCRU.com or carpetcleaners.com or something? Or would i buy a 10 yr domain or whatever and then charge them to renew it or whatever every 10 years (if they were still around at 10 years and if they still wanted me to design for them...) and can would it be better to set up my own server or should i get a web hosting company to host it for me?

Thanks for the info, from reading the rewards from web hosting (it was something i was interested in already) i might be getting into the business perhaps.

Thanks again and thanks in advance!