How to minimize website design and maintenance costs

For start-up small businesses, developing an online presence can be a major investment. Expenses include domain name registration, website hosting, design, and maintenance.

The first two items are relatively easy and inexpensive. Affordable online resources exist for registration and hosting. The price of web design and maintenance can vary quite a lot for a number of reasons as mentioned in the previous post.

Keep website design and maintenance costs low by including only essential content and graphics. Stay away from adding ‘fluff’ or ‘decoration’ to the site. Examples include an overabundance of pictures, textured page backgrounds, and ornamental page borders. From a design perspective, these things are unnecessary and detract from the usefulness of the site. If the content doesn’t reinforce the product or message, it doesn’t belong on the website.

Be aware that various types of website development may incur additional expense such as flash design, programming, proofreading, copywriting, and photo editing. Flash design includes animation and insertion of music or video. Web programming is needed to create e-mail and feedback forms, advanced flash animation, and login protected areas of a site. Proofreading typically means checking for spelling errors but may also include a check for correct grammar usage. Photo editing entails anything that alters the original picture such as cropping, changing colors or background, and adding or removing objects.

Once you and your designer have finalized website layout and content, changes in these areas will result in extra design work and hourly charges. Spend a lot of time thinking about what you want your website to do, then stick by that decision. If you need to make changes, try to make small ones. A major layout overhaul will cost you.

Keep website maintenance costs in check with regular monthly updates. Usually it’s easier and more efficient to make all updates at once than to make small changes over a period of days or weeks. Your designer can schedule your job in a timely manner and you won’t be hit with charges for a ‘rush job’.

Here’s a summary of the tips to reduce the price of web design and maintenance:

• include only essential content
• minimize or omit the use of flash
• write and proofread your own web page text
• use photos ‘as is’
• reduce, preferably eliminate, changes to layout or content
• implement all updates at one time
  

Your web designer will thank you and you’ll have an affordable website.

As a business website owner, what roadblocks do you encounter, financial or otherwise, when developing your website? Let me know.

Coming up in my next post  . . . What makes a good domain name?