Internet - The World Wide Web
Hire a Professional

Hire a Professional

There are plenty of creative people designing Web pages, and their “creativity” can sometimes get in the way of the impact of the Web site. A designer may want to introduce music or a certain type of animation where it is absolutely not doing the site any good. Some like to “over design” with the hottest new look and technique.

Designing a Web site is a complex process and often involves more than one specialist. Often, a team is involved. One member of the team may be the graphic designer, another a software and interface specialist, another a writer or marketing professional, and another a business strategist.

Web site design has become such a booming business that the designers have formed themselves into a professional organization, Web site Designers Guild (wdguild@usa.net), to help each other keep informed on new developments and establish sound professional standards. This is a good place to look for advice about hiring a Web site designer.

The WDG was established in late 1997 and is based in Richmond, Virginia. It is the first professional association of Web site designers and is dedicated to educating, promoting, and unifying the global Web site designer community. It provides an active forum for professionals to share information. The guild offers members the latest news via a newsletter and has organized committees of specialists just the way the Authors Guild or the Graphic Artists Guild have done in the real world. The guild is open to professional Webmasters, Web site developers, graphic designers, programmers, multimedia specialists, systems administrators, educators, Intranet/Extranet specialists, novices, or those interested in learning about the profession.

Web site designers and design firms need to stay connected to the latest developments on the Internet and the World Wide Web. This is so new and developing so fast that just staying current can be a full time job. There are lots of articles and statistics they need to read, and now they can get these through the guild (at a fee for the full text). Through the guild they can also take online courses through the ZDNet University.

Designers need to be aware of the ever-changing technology involved in the Internet industry. They need to understand how the tools work.

Web site designers, or teams of designers may offer your business a simple one-time work for hire to design the Web site. They may offer Intranet solutions to connect a client’s business divisions around the world with other companies and divisions. A client might need site hosting, which is a full integration of a database to other sites on the information super-highway. They may also act as consultants and trainers to help a business maintain and service their Web site.

Web site designers charge by the complexity of the job. For example, a client can have a single-page Web site designed for a couple of hundred dollars. The more pages in a site, the higher the fee, going up to thousands and, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Custom graphics can also start with a nominal fee and progress with the number of graphics and the number of pages. Most designers don’t charge for common graphics such as bullets, arrows, and other marks that make the page easier to read. Text is usually supplied up to a certain number of words for each page of the site. Some Web site designs of online storefronts require shopping cart technologies. Links to search engines, related Web sites, and other links can be set up based (usually) on a small fee for each link. The same is true of e-mail feedback links.

Some designers will provide follow-up support and spend about an hour a page for the first six months to be sure everything is functioning properly on their site. After that they may charge an hourly fee for service. Some charge standard flat rate packages as well as custom design rates. The national average for designing a small company Web site is $13,000. Prices range from $1,000 for a six-page Web site to $2,500 for a twenty-page site, though the largest sites span hundreds of pages and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. For example, a Web site like Amazon.com with an online catalog for more than a million books—and information about those books—could cost millions.

Prices include a consultation, a custom-designed masthead graphic and other site graphics, placing the text and images on Web pages, a sophisticated navigation system, a CGI-powered response form, and advertising a site to the basic twenty Web search engines and directories. For larger corporations, Web site designers offer a range of sophisticated graphic treatments, which include Shockwave, Java, photo collages, and a variety of animations.

A survey by Internet Marketing Association of fifty Internet consultants and firms asked how much they thought it would cost for a small or medium-sized business to create an online presence (including development, graphics, storage, etc.). The results were extremely varied because quotes were requested for a hypothetical average site. Of the survey respondents, 38 percent said that the cost would be over $100,000, 32 percent said it would cost under $10,000, and 30 percent estimated that building a Web presence would cost between $11,000 and $99,000. Also, the highest hourly rate for consultants was $200 and the lowest $12. The average rate charged by those who answered the survey was $70.

The most important part of a designer’s contractual agreement surrounding a Web site design is the issue of who owns the intellectual property rights to the developed work. Intellectual property, which includes Web site design, belongs to the creator unless it is a work for hire. That is, the work is created by consultants or freelancers and they have agreed, in writing, to assign all rights to the customer upon completion. Web designs are works of art and most are signed by their creators who hold the copyrights.

Contracts also deal with how the original idea will be developed, tools to be used, hourly or flat rate fee, estimated date of completion and delivery of final product, and evaluating the finished product against the original development idea.

However you decide to go with your Web site, keep in mind that a Web site is a living, breathing entity in space. The beauty of that is that it is much easier to renovate your Web site—and cheaper—than it would be to renovate a suite of offices or hire a new staff. If your first impression is less than ideal, make a better impression the next time.

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