Creating a website for a business.......do I always update their site?

[JspecImports]

Hello everyone!

I just had a local business come to me by a friend to design their website. I looked at:

http://www.antharia.com

and got an idea as to what to charge...but here is my BIG QUESTION:

"Once I charge them the rate to design their site....what do I do with them afterwards? Should I charge them a monthly fee to keep their site updated? if so..what is a good rate for that service? I wasn't sure what to tell the business as far as "future work and maintenance"

I hope someone can steer me in the right direction

-Christopher


-Christopher

 

[mwolf00]

I've put an hourly rate in my orginal contract. For instance...

I will design your 6 page site for $2500. This price includes free revisions for the first week. After that, I will charge you $50 per hour for any changes/alterations.

Some people will also put a minimum number of hours per revision so they don't get hit every other day with a 15 minute revision.

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build better and bigger idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning. - Rick Cook (No, I'm not Rick)

 

[pixl8r]

I give my customers a choice. They can either pay hourly for revisions ($40) or they can pay a use it or lose it retainer monthly for revisions.

A retainer could be for 3 or more hours and in my case is usually bundled with hosting.

Definitely good to have limits on revisions, fees for them, and not give them away. The important thing is to spell it out up front.

Wow JT that almost looked like you knew what you were doing!

 

[TheConeHead]

you could always build them an admin section by where they can update the site themselves.... that way you can charge for that upfront then be done with that job....

 

[JspecImports]

<TheConeHead>

I've never done a &quot;Login&quot; for a website....where would be a good place to read up on how to put an &quot;Admin&quot; interface on a site for the user to update it themselves? Is it very difficult?

 

[wiredwoman]

You should charge the same rate as your regular hourly rate for development. This is just good business for a number of reasons. While you are doing maintenance, your hours at that are taking away from your dev hours. Your time is worth what your time is worth. If you discount your services, clients will discount you.

You asked about what to charge. We have 50 maintenance clients and none of them have the same amount of maintenance.

Don't ever discount unless you are negotiating a long term (annual) contract where you get guaranteed hours. That way you can discount for guaranteed cash flow.
I've been doing this for nearly 9 years and more than half of our revenue is just maintenance. We'd be in a big pickle if we did not bill for it .


WW

 

[TheConeHead]

How I prefer to do it is have the site done in a server-side language (ASP, CF, MIVA) and have the content stored in a database. Then you simply have a section that is password protected (as you said) that allows the admin to edit, delete or add new content... As to how to do this per say, that really depends on the content you wish to use... There are alternatives to storing data in a database (text files, XML, ....)

 

[cian]

I can imagine setting up the maintenance section is a tad tricky and will take a little investigation and development work on your part. The good news is te once you create this system you can reuse it for each client that needs it and with each you can bill them for the time it needs to tailor the admin section to their site (with some extra mark-up to cover other costs etc)

If you go the maintenance route, as was mentioned by all, make sure you charge enough and set limits.

Before you start give you client the 2 choices and make sure you have a clear CONTRACT or DESIGN AGREEMENT before you put pen to paper, so to speak.

It would be a good idea to have an admin section system template built before you offer it to any client.

IMO





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http://www.ssi-developer.net/

 

[onpnt]

It would be a good idea to have an admin section system template built before you offer it to any client.

cian hit the button on that statement. Building a admin section for a client is really a plus for that given client and then for future accounts. It can really give you a edge over some of the smaller time designers that may not have the resources or knowledge to build that type of functionality for the clients. However, back to that statement. If you want to offer this DO NOT DO IT until you are comfortable with doing it. Have &quot;many&quot; variations written and &quot;functional&quot; before even mentioning this to your client. If you sepdn 100 hours trying to get a admin panel working when the site only took ten hours to write is a ethical issue on payments you are sending out. A admin panel is not a hard thing to write but is far more analytical and more advanced in the technology you chose to write it in. you have to consider the user far more then in a normal site and how they can break it.


_____________________________________________________________________

http://www.onpntwebdesigns.com

 

[TheConeHead]

you have to consider the user far more then in a normal site and how they can break it.

Good point... This is why I do not have &quot;templates&quot; for Admin sections of sites. Just my opinion that admin sections should be developed to the skill of the admin. Make an easy gui for those less experienced or make it more text based for more skilled users, just as an example. Admin sections, just like a site itself, should be built to a clients requirements and desires. I, lately, seem to be building more &quot;portal&quot; type (as far as layout goes) admin sections, and that seems to go over well...

 

[cian]

you could consider downloading some CMS (content management system) and see how the whole thingh fits together, off the top of my head I can think of phpWebsite, phpNuke, PostNuke, XAV Genesis and I am sure there are many many more.
Play around with one of those and I am sure in no time you can form ideas on how to create your own.

http://www.google.ie/search?q=free+content+management+system&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=ga&meta=

http://www.google.ie/search?hl=ga&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=free+web+portals&meta=

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