The 4 Goals For Every Website Project

1. Produce a quality finished product that meets the project goals
2. Get the project done in an cost-effective way (spend where necessary)
3. Complete the project in a reasonable timeline
4. Maintain a good quality of life for all parties involved

In short, the 4 goals are: do it right, spend wisely, get it done quickly, and avoid reverting back to the fetal position every time you think of how the project is progressing.

Sound simple enough? Guess what, it’s not as easy to do to do in practice.

The 2 Questions Our Design Partners Instinctively Ask

Now that we know each of the 4 goals we are trying to achieve, we’ll see that the questions we instinctively ask are inadequate to meeting our goals. Time and again we see our design partners asking only 2 questions when it comes to developing a website solution.

1. How much does it cost?
2. How long will it take?

These are great questions, but the answers aren’t going to tell us if we are on the right track to achieving all of our goals. In fact, the most common complaint we hear from our design partners is about their previous website developers and the pain and suffering they had to endure to get the project completed. Why then do we focus so much on the cost and the timeline and completely over look the quality of life aspect?

We’re going to submit that it’s an issue of not anticipating the difficulties that may lie ahead and not knowing what questions to ask to address those.

The List of Questions You SHOULD Ask Your Website Development Team

So here it is! This list of questions will help you flesh out your next website project or feature.

1. How much will the initial development cost be?
2. Are there any licensing costs? Are they one-time fees or recurring fees?
3. How long will it take to get the project done?
4. Are there any maintenance needs that you can foresee?
5. Have you handled this type of solution in the past? Is it likely that this solution could “break down” on us? Have you ever had this solution fail on you?
6. Is there another solution that will still yield a quality finished product, but will save us money, time, or peace of mind?

Further tips:

• Your developer may not even realize they need to be thinking about all of these questions up front. Be patient with them as they explore the answers. Every developer has dealt with “nightmare” situations and it often boils down to one of the issues above not being addressed properly. Common developer headaches include: unforeseen maintenance, unreliable solutions breaking while on vacation, etc.
• A good site map helps everyone get on the same page.
• A happy developer generally correlates to a happy client. An unhappy developer generally correlates with an unhappy client. If your developer pushes back on an idea in the planning stages, find out why.

How do you keep your project costs in line, but still allow the client to get the website that he wants? And how do you keep your sanity in the process? Here are some guidelines for keeping your project organized:

1. Set up you client’s expectations properly.
Make sure that your client knows exactly what he will be paying for. Don’t just come up with a number that you think is “high enough”. If you quote $8,000 for a website, what does that include? What happens when the client wants to add 10 more pages, how much will you charge? What happens when the client argues that he mentioned those 10 pages in your first meeting and they should have already been included? What happens if the website is so advanced that you can’t program the website for less than $8,000?At Flip Studios, we price out projects in terms of the design, the number of pages in the site as well as each advanced feature that the website will require. This helps the client realize exactly what he’s paying for and which features are more costly. It gives him control to determine if he wants to add more pages or think about consolidating some sections. It sets the expectation that additional pages and features will cost extra.

2. Use a site map to list out all pages in the site.
This will help to determine the actual page count for the entire website. So when you create the site map thinking “About Us” will be a single page, when you sent it to your client for review, he will mention that he thinks it should have 3 sub-pages in that section. Include the site map in your proposal so that the client agrees to the scope of the project.

Your site map doesn’t have to be super complicated to be effective. It needs to keep track of the site structure and organization and the overall page count of the website. The following is an example of what your site map could look like.

3. Talk about what will be on each page of the site.
If the client says he wants to add a property list section, you might be thinking a single page with static text and images, but your client might be thinking of an interactive zip code search, the difference between these features can end up being thousands of dollars and who will be left footing the bill?

Make sure you spell out each feature in your proposal so that it is clear as to what the customer is paying for. If you don’t know what the client wants on each page, include an assumption in the proposal like the following:

“15 website pages as specified on the site map diagram, all pages will include static text and images.”

Then if your client says he meant something different, your proposal will be clear on what was included and you can create a new proposal for the new features.

4. Check on your costs before you provide your client a price.
Don’t give your client a price for something without determining what it will really cost you. Sure that dynamic mouse-over feature will look great and will “wow” all of the website visitors, but don’t throw it in for free and don’t tell the customer it will cost less than it will. Some whiz-bang features look great and seem easy to develop, but they can actually take a lot of time to implement and cost you a lot. Your client won’t mind if you need to look into the cost of adding certain features and your margins on the project will stay profitable.