The Art of Web Designing

Web designers have different ways of modeling their pricing. Some prefer to charge on an hourly basis while some will charge per template that they build for you. Such templates charges include Number of Pages, Design Input, Layout Design, Stock Photos, External Links, Search Submission, Updatable Pages, Training & Support, FREE Virtual Server, Add –Ons, SearchEngine Consultation, Ecommerce. This approach has sometimes been criticized as unrealistic. Another approach is to charge a fee to get the site started and then charge per hour for maintenance and a newsletter. It is always good to have this written down in a contract with all the details, and payments and delivery dates and times. A good model is to get 50% payment upfront, 25% on approval of the model and the final 25% on delivery of the job. The designer would need to keep records of hours spent on maintenance and newsletter.

It is not always the case that the more expensive sites are the best. It may cost more if it is an accessible web design or if it is being done by a freelance web designer. Location also matters. Large cities will have rates for web design that are far higher than those for smaller towns. Also start-ups are likely to charge less as they try to build up a reputation and gain referrals.

Rather than the focus of the web design being on what the designer can do with his skills, it should focus more on what he should do, even if simple, to gain himself customers. Making fancy flash designs and charging customers for this should be discouraged especially where they do not contribute much to the effectiveness of the website. Some basic web design rules are: align the elements of the page so that they do not pull apart at higher resolutions, make use of no more than two different font types on a page otherwise it makes the page look untidy.

Finally, as a web designer you can afford to have a discriminatory pricing regime. The charges for a large company making so much off the website you design for it can afford to be many time higher than what you would charge someone running a simple business.