5 Keys to Reducing Your Website Development Costs

Once you’ve made the decision to take your business online with a website, you will be faced with many possibly daunting decisions. The phone book or Google will offer many different graphic design and web development options for you to choose from – all of which might seem pricey. We have all heard that website design can be expensive and that projects will often over run, but this doesn’t need to be the case. With a little advance planning from your end, the whole website building process can run quickly and at a greatly reduced cost. Here are 5 keys to help you reduce your website development costs.

1) Work up your own design before you meet with a developer. If you can walk into your first meeting and know exactly how many pages you want, the content of each and can provide some imagery for color schemes and design styles then your website designer will be ready to get to work immediately. Be as specific as you can. The less meetings and reworks you need to arrange regarding the website’s look and feel, the more money you save.

2) Choose a simple, effective design. It really is not necessary to create an overly flashy website. In fact a more complicated website will load slowly and might even turn customers away. Just look at the world’s leading websites like Google, eBay or Facebook. All of them are very simple in design and layout. If it works for them it will work for you. Choosing a simple HTML website over an interactive 3D experience can save you weeks in development and a small fortune.

3) Shop around. Don’t be afraid to ask several different web developers to quote on your website. It can be a good idea to prepare a set list of questions to ask each designer about what they understand of your own business and their previous corporate experience. This will give you an easy way to compare between them.

4) Choose the right website for you. Make sure that you have considered your options fully before you go ahead and commission a 20-page website. Strip down your website, keep it to a size that can hold the information that your customers will actually want and save yourself some more money.

5) Use other web marketing possibilities like Facebook and Twitter to enhance your website and generate additional traffic for a low cost. You may be able to do this completely by yourself, or your website design company might be able to offer some guidance and effective social media integration strategies for the website.

Be prepared, know what you want, and your website development costs will be much more manageable.