building process – Tech Warrior

How much does it cost to build a website, part 1?

Tristan Green — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 00:30:00 +0000

When I started this article I had no idea it would evolve into the complex end product it became. Given the variety of factors that contribute to the cost of a website I decided to split the article into two parts. The first part deals with the elements directly affecting the cost of a website. Things like choice of platform, content and scope creep. In part two I’ll explore the indirect elements like hosting, domain registration and logo design. Yes, you do need a logo before you build a website.

So buckle up and enjoy the ride, we’re going to look in depth at what drives the price of a website up and or down.

All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.
—Walt Disney

Amount of content and website platform

The development of a website usually follows the same process from start to finish. If it’s a WordPress or similar CMS website, content will be generated and then published onto the website along with images, videos and links to other websites and blogs. The amount of content to be published on a site is a factor in the overall website price.

If the website developer has to create a one page website versus a 10 page site, chances are they’re going to charge you more. The primary reason will be a time factor, designing and building a single page website can take a few hours opposed to a 10 page site which can sometimes take a few weeks to finish.

Another factor affecting price is how the website is built. Is the site going to be hardcoded? Is it going to be designed and built using a website platform like Squarespace, Weebly or Wix. Or perhaps it will be developed using a self-hosted platform like WordPress or Joomla. Using a platform or self-hosted option can be the cheaper option because it takes less time to do.

What makes a website more expensive?

Similarly to the forces driving a website’s price down, the same applies to the price being driven up. In addition, the complexity of a website, the amount of content, whether or not original photos need to be shot, and who has the final sign off decision are all examples of variables that could affect the price.

On a tongue-in-cheek note, the agency or web development company may have to reach certain targets or have overheads which need to be fulfilled - those fancy offices need to be paid for even if no one is actually in them at the moment! Fancy offices may mean more expensive web development costs for you.

Purchasing domain names carefully is a very important aspect of owning a website. Having a website is an important part of running a business. Make sure you are the rightful registered owner of your domain name.

Scope creep

At Tech Warrior we try to keep the cost of our websites down. This does mean that we ask our clients to follow our processes. We do our best to educate and explain what goes into building a website via our learning hub. This ensures the web development process is transparent and the customer can rest easy in the knowledge that they are making the correct choice.

It is our hope that an informed customer will work with our workflow and not against it. In the rare case where this doesn’t happen and scope creep tries to rear it’s frustrating head, we may have to charge for updates and alterations to client websites outside of the original site building process.

Adding extra pages

As a general rule of thumb at Tech Warrior we don’t build bespoke, custom websites. Instead we utilise a tried and tested consumer-focused approach that we are all familiar with, off the rack or shelf. Using our purpose built website theme we offer a great value for money product that comes with minimal structural changes but a healthy amount of personalisation. This keeps time and costs down. We offer websites for a range of needs:

1 page website
5 page website
10 page website
Ecommerce website
20 page website

If extra pages are needed, turning a 5 page website into a 7 page one for example, these are charged for on a per page basis. These extra pages range in price from R650 to R1275 depending on the amount of content and the complexity of layout.

Adding more pages can also increase what it costs to host the website. We explore this in more detail in Part 2 of How much does it cost to build a website?

The website take over process

At Tech Warrior, we will manage the process of transferring domains and website takeovers. We charge for this service because it takes time and often there are jargon filled administrative tasks which need to be resolved. We don’t expect you to understand the jargon of the domain transferal and website hosting so it is easier for us to handle this, quickly and efficiently on your behalf.

The final word

This article explored the direct costs of building a website. Some of the costs are specific to the way Tech Warrior does things. Remember we’ve been doing this for a long time - some 25 years. We like to think that the experience gained during this time translates into a streamlined process that offers our customers a great value website within a relatively quick amount of time.

How many months would it take to build a website?

Tristan Green — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 10:48:39 +0000

After months of brainstorming, dreaming, planning and developing you are ready to launch your business to the world. You have the company name registered, the bank account opened, the funding available and the services and products ready to be sold. But wait, you need a logo.

You know that your logo is going to be the face of your business and the launch pad of your brand identity. Maybe one day people will instantly recognise your company by its font, colours and symbol/s. This is big, this is important. You need to brief a designer. But where the hell do you start?

Know what you want from the word 'go'

If you wished to write a story and chose the short story format, this would equate to roughly 5,000 to 10,000 words whereas if you went the novel route this would be roughly 50,000 to 70,000 words. Same story but the difference between the two is apparent. One is much lengthier, while the other may be brief and to the point. One has a more fleshed-out plot while the other doesn’t beat about the bush.

The same goes for websites. If you have a website that only needs one page to tell your story, this can take a developer just a few hours to complete. If, on the other hand, a website needs to have more pages to display a range of products or tell a more detailed story, this will take a developer longer to complete. Each of these pages could need to be designed differently. This could take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks to complete.

How detailed the website needs to be

When I mention detail, I’m talking about the ‘fancy pants’ effects you can add to your site. I’m talking about using realistic drop shadows so that the images lift or pop off the page. Or the illuminated hover effect when the visitor moves over a button with their cursor. All of the tiny, ‘flashy’ elements can take time to implement.

If your budget caters for it, why not? Expect to have the website up a little bit later, but it’s going to be a visually amazing end product.

If you choose to have your logo designed by Tech Warrior we provide a Logo briefing document shared online for our clients to complete. It guides you through the process and makes it that much easier to think through the elements required. As with anything, however, you get out what you put in. Make sure what you put in is clear and focused.

Hard coded vs themes and templates

I’ve spoken about the difference between hard coding a site and using WordPress’ themes and templates in a previous article. It really is a fundamental part of the building process.

Using templates and themes may mean certain aspects of your site bear similarities to others’ but you can get your site up faster than someone sitting writing out lines of code. There is also far less margin for error when you use themes and templates. These are prebuilt for you, so you know it works.

Events beyond the control of the developer

This hits a little too close to home for me. Recently I had a really bad run-in with technology. My computer failed on me which resulted in my hard drive and memory needing to be replaced and with that I lost a whole bunch of data. Thankfully we store backups so getting everything back again wasn’t that big of a sweat, it just took a long time. The malfunctions I experienced set me back nearly two weeks.

Unfortunately, hardware malfunctions are something we might all experience at some point, and in the context of the article it can add to the time it takes to build a website.

If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.
—Zig Ziglar

Receiving content from the client

This is possibly the single biggest thing impacting the length of time it takes to build a website. A website structure is relatively easy to create. Populating it with the appropriate branding, colours, content and products is what takes time. It especially takes a long time if the client delays the supply of any parts of the content or wants to make too many revisions to the content.

Certain measures can be put in place to help structure the content delivery process from a client to the developer. Additionally a developer needs to stick to the agreed deadlines. The key thing is commitment from the client when it comes to delivering all the content needed on time and in a format that can be worked with. Retyping handwritten documents is nobody’s idea of a good time. Neither is resizing images when the right dimensions were previously agreed to. Things like this can really add to the time it takes to build a website. Not to mention the possible added expense.

Number of changes or edits

If a client wants images to be changed and text to be edited, it needs to be done. However, people sometimes don’t know when to stop making these changes and clients sometimes try and change everything. This can be a challenge to manage and comes down to clear guidelines and boundaries around the scope of the website project. Some developers don’t charge for these edits, which can come back to bite them in the long run. Those clients who don’t know what they want tend to push the boundaries by not adhering to conventional office hours or making mass edits and changes.

One definitive way to prevent this from happening is to clear up any ambiguity around how many changes and edits form part of the initial website build. Thereafter clear communication on how much changes and edits will cost and how long they will take is also important. This way clients are left in the dark about how the process works.

How many months does it take to build a website? As I mentioned at the start of the article, it’s really an open ended question.

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