jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

Just wondering what the going rate is for having a website designed.
I know it will vary depending on content but what would the costs be for a basic text/images site, and one with basic flash?

Cheers
James

dynamix

iTrader: (3)

Avoid flash if you can - there are better ways to do things now using Ajax that provide interactivity but are still Search Engine readable.

I am a full time web developer/designer so could help you out if you want to pm me to chat through what you need.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

cheers dynamix, may just take you up on that. What it is I have been doing basic stuff a while back with the intention of learning it well enough to maybe get some extra money coming in. Now someone has asked me if I can do one for them, so what I intend to do is basically design one for them and get feedback from them.

I take it that Ajax is a scripting language along the lines of javascript?

spectrum48k

try and estimate the number of web pages you require:

eg.

home page
products page
contact us page
services we offer page

etc...

StickyMicky

i have no idea about this, but some random offered to redo mine for 150quid.

this bloke pitched me a PM on another forum by telling me he was redoing my mates import car website, and i could look at the preview if i wanted.

to be honest i preferred my mates original website and the "new" one looked pretty plain and boring to me, so i turned him down

spectrum48k

one person's idea of a good site, isn't another's

I do the odd site for people and I've found a good rule is give the customer what HE wants, not what *you think* he needs

angrynorth

For a start, anyone pricing you on price per page is approaching it completely the wrong way.

Sites are very rarely different in design from page to page, and if they are they are usually terrible. Consistency for your users should be a high priority. As the other pages shouldn't be more than a few tweaks to the main design and some pasting in of your content.

Your pricing should be based on features, such as:

-Do you need a CMS (content management system) that will allow you to update your site without needing any programming knowledge
-Do you want any ecommerce functions on there
-What level of user interaction are you looking for? Forums, polls, feedback forms etc

If you want to do it properly and economically then I can only recommend you find a reputable freelancer, there are plenty of them out there and their standards are pretty high. For a good freelancer you should be expecting to pay about £25-£35 per hour. I guarantee you it will be money well spent as you will get a quality unique site that is properly optimised for search engines and users. I'd expect it to be between 10 and 20 hours for a small site. On the up side, most freelancers would rather charge you on a per job basis so you can usually avoid the whole hourly rate thing.

If you are looking for something a little cheaper then you can usually find students at a lower hourly rate.

If you have a little more to spend, then go for a local smaller design agency. Agencies will probably charge you around £50 - £150 per hour, but you will obviously benefit from a pool of designers and developers.

Overall, if this is a business site, then you shouldn't scrimp as it will make the difference between a successful business and a dead one.

finalzero

I charge £25 per hour and set prices for packages, that includes graphics design, branding etc to a full on website, e.g a 5 page site, fully xhtml/css compliant with feedback/contact form for £300.

All depends on what you would want done and what kind of functionality (obviously database driven, dynamic websites will cost more due to the time involved in developing the site).

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

for the graphic design bit, I think I will be raiding the public domain!

whats the best software to use? I was thinking of dreamweaver 8, also what is good to learn?

javascript?
Ajax? (as mentioned in 2nd post)
flash?
fireworks?

cheers

finalzero

I would learn the core skills first, good XHTML structure and creating CSS style sheets to control the design.

Once you have mastered the above (takes no time at all), I would make sure you full understand DIV tags, how various types of pages are laid out and the tricks people use to get their page to look right on all browsers.

Don't be afraid to rip apart someone elses design, only way you will learn, here are some links I recommend you checkout:

For website designs and to get an idea of how a page was put together:

CSS Remix | A Fresh Blend of the Best-Designed Web 2.0 Sites - some really fantastic looking sites on here
A List Apart: A List Apart - great site to learn the ins and outs of good solid XHTML and CSS coding
W3Schools Online Web Tutorials - good reference site when you need to quicly find out what something is or does

Also a good site to get design ideas from is:

Open Source Web Design - Download free web design templates.

Many examples on here (open source and free) are done entirely using colours and CSS, no images so some really cool stuff can be done with a bit of know how.

Then you want to start looking at making your site a bit more dynamic and cool, learn the basics of JavaScript otherwise you will not get to grips with Ajax.

Flash is okay but in my opnion should be only be used for intro's, logo's and small animated areas, doing a whole site in Flash is nice but a nightmare to work with and also not very accessible as not everyone will be able to view it.

Fireworks is a very good package for working with web graphics, you want a paint/editing program that can deal with web graphics i.e it knows how to scale/compress the image down so that it loads quickly on a page but still maintains the colours (Fireworks is designed for such a task as is Photoshop).

Many pro's will shun people away from Dreamweaver but I think it's a great tool for working with large projects or when you need to be able to preview your work quickly however I would steer clear of using the built-in features - they look cool but you may as well put a big sign on your site saying "I am a noob".

I forced myself to use notepad to create pages until I could write a html/xhtml page from scratch, this made working in Dreamweaver more productive and I don't rely on these power tools to do my work (however as I said for large projects the tools provided by Dreamweaver are a requirement to get the job done).

There are some really cool plug and play scripts out there like Lightbox 2 - try out the demo's, you will be very impressed (I hacked the code and used it as a page viewer for an intranet project a while back).

When your feeling more comfortable with JavaScript try out mootools - home - an Ajax library that is pretty amazing and very useful for making a 'bling' website.

After that lot you will want to consider what server side language to use to start doing the more hardcore websites where you need dynamic content, rss feeds or other clever stuff that you can't do just through the client browser.

My preference is ASP.NET 2.0, 3.5 and C# but that is mainly due to the fact that I work in those technologies for my day job. You could go down the Microsoft route but it can be expensive, a better alternative is PHP. Free to download and the assoicated hardware + software is generally free (Apache web server etc).

Very powerful and capable web programming language and has a large user community on the web (vast majority of sites like Scoobynet forum are powered by php).

You will want to consider which database to use, most go for MySql as it's free however the language is not the most comfortable to use. Microsoft are offering SqlExpress for free (inlcuding Visual Web Developer Epxress and other tools for free.. if you want to go the MS route), a good way to learn T-SQL (Transact SQL) and SQL Server.

T-SQL is very nice to use, simple and easy to learn (very programmer friendly).

After that lot the skys the limit, get into whatever area you enjoy and develop it further as a business/work as a consultant or work for someone.

I was never a fan of Ajax at first but for certain things it's pretty cool and can make the user experience very smooth and similar to using a desktop application.

Enjoy!

finalzero

Forgot to mention, for web development you will want to download Firefox web browser and then get some plugins for firefox like Web Developer Tools, W3C Validator and Firebug (for javascript debugging).

You will soon realise it's a nightmare to get a site working fine in firefox/opera etc but find it falls to pieces in Internet Explorer because it does things differently (wrong).

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

cheers finalzero , lot of stuff for me to look through there at work tomorrow. Didnt realise C# was used much, I had some experience a good 15 yrs back with "Turbo C" bought myself microsodt visual c++ 6 a few years back but never got into it, suppose C# would then have been the next logical step after that

bob269

Are you serious? there's nothing fantastic there, nothing short of template or ordinary looking.

finalzero

Templated? Yeah some are a bit templateish but a good handful are well constructed using proper XHTML and CSS. I never said all of them were good looking sites, imo too many "web 2.0".

The OP should only be interested in the XTHML and CSS code, i.e research how the page was constructed to get an idea of how people layout div's, what tricks they use to get around browser problems etc.

finalzero

My mates website, very clean in design and functionality: Brad Haynes

spectrum48k

gawd, that's a bit pants, isn't it ?

AlexJReid

Think it's clean, fast and does the job. Hand crafted XHTML too by the looks of things.

Don't agree with all comments re Flash and related technologies. Flash/Flex is gaining momentum, as is SilverLight for that matter. Key is to know when to use it.

MySQL (traditionally, at least) supports a smaller subset of the SQL 'standard'. I'd argue in basic use it is no easier or more difficult than T-SQL. T-SQL has many enhancements that can make your life easier, however.

Neanderthal

iTrader: (6)

RichB

Whilst I dont think the site is graphically nice, the code behind it isn't bad. There is more he could be doing SEO wise though but I admit to learning something new by looking at it... Also the copyright hints at a lack of recent updates.

Design is subjective and not everyone will like your work.

My agencies site is very basic, we just never get time to do a proper job so is not a good indication of our work however people still comment on how good it is

Also we are a team of 3 and wouldn't even bother looking at doing any site, 5 page static or anything for less than 2.5k. It's just not worth it.
I don't believe good designers can build good XHTML or doing coding in the same way programmers can not design.
IMHO Anyone doing a 'great' job for <1k is either a bit stupid ( ) or not really doing a great job.
Designing and building good sites takes time, you don't just churn out the first thing that comes into your head therefore more time=more money.

Anyone who can produce very high quality design and do XHTML/CSS/php/mysql please feel free to PM me your hourly rate, some examples as we have stacks of work on at the moment and are comtemplating taking on someone/using freelancers....

Rich

spectrum48k

I think Dreamweaver's (from here) work is impressive. That's what I call a *clean* look.

And I think blowdog's stuff is really good too.
demoMedia - engaged in digital design

Haven't seen anyone else's to be honest.

jaytc2003

iTrader: (1)

W3Schools Online Web Tutorials


very good site can learn lots from that, cheers for the link

finalzero

Aye web design is subjective at best.. what we as designers think is smart/cean/cool/bling is not always how the customer views their site and at the end of the day the customer is always right

I like clean designs myself, hand crafted pages earn points in my book but there is nothing wrong with whatever you go for, just as long as you take the time to learn to do things the right way and not pick up any bad habits along the way.