First professional website design

[reicherb]

I've been asked to build a website for a small local auto body repair shop. I've done a few personal pages but nothing professional. Here is what I'm planning to propose.
I'll charge for actually cost and actual labor time. I've already got a host I'm happy with. How do I go about getting listed on search engines? Is there anything else I'm leaving out?

Web Design (hourly fee = $40) $40.00 10 $400.00
web hosting setup fee (one time fee) $10.00 1 $10.00
Web hosting monthly fee $7.00 12 $84.00
Domain registration (yearly fee) $8.70 1 $8.70
search engine registration - How does this work? What is the cost?

Thanks for the help.

 

[ksheets]

http://www.dmoz.org/

go here for starters...otherwise i think search engines like yahoo and google are on a fee based schedule...but Dmoz feeds ALOT of the major search engines...just takes a while

 

[fs5]

or you can just use google's add a url page:
http://www.google.com/addurl.html

 

[Abhoth]

Do a little googling regarding meta tags ... and robots.txt files ... weed through the BS and learn a few things in those regards.
But optimizing for search engines has become a rather nasty little business. Many things not to do ...!

 

[rh71]

you might be able to get away with it, but $40/hour is crazy for straight HTML. I'd say more like $25/hr is accurate. Dynamic web languages call for $40-$50 and flash work calls for upwards of $75/hr if you're good. People with good portfolios can charge even more.

You can alternatively suggest $500 for a 5-10 page HTML/graphics website. If you can crank them out quick, you're hourly won't matter.

 

[Abhoth]

I didn't address that side of it in my post, but would have to agree with rh71 on the pricing structure...

I generally attack a site quote on a "per site" basis myself... once you've met with the client and have a decent idea of the site parameters you can say X $$$ for the site you want.
Some go by a general rule of thumb of $100 per page...
Others define it a bit more with $100 - $200 for the site design and an additional $50 per page thereafter...

... pricing is a fluid thing though. Do some more googling on "website design" + <insert your city here> see if you can get a few ideas of what some are charging in your area.

 

[wjgollatz]

I don't even think a few personal pages as your portfolio are worth $25/hr - unless they are very very very very good. People get college degrees in graphic arts and web design, and I bet they would still be hard pressed to charge $25 without a portfolio (unles they developed a good web portofolio from work in school). Frontpage 2003 is $180 and that would probably suite a small business that does not sell anything over the net - the rest is graphics work unless you are really getting into online purchases. The owner could do a web search and find alot of web templates for $10 and that might be what all he wants. I run a business, with the same sort of "how much do I charge." You should just give him a low amount - deal with it - see how it works and use that as a basis for your next client - because alot of what you charge will be based on your efficiency and knowledge. Someone mentioned that professionals can charge $50/hr - but how much are they getting done compared to you? Don't be afraid to ask him what his budget is, and what he is looking for - and make sure you have your own sketched out suggestions. He might be thinking "I want just one page where people can find my phone number." and $400 is way too much - but you might be able to sway him to somethign else.

Personally, I would only charge him your actual cost to host - and barter the rest for man-hour work on your car when you need it. He is probably charging $40+/hr and you could probably ask for 12-16 of his man hours on your car if you ever need it - get a receipt for that too. If he does body work, he probably knows more than just paint and can work on repairs, change brakes, oils, inspection, spark plugs, axels.... I did a site for a movie theatre that way and got two free tickets each week.

 

[rh71]

... or you can do it for a low price + leave your business cards at his place. I'm sure he gets a lot of traffic with random customers...

 

[reicherb]

I probably should change the cost to $30. While I'm no expert I'm not exactly looking to become one either. I've already got a full time job as a Technology Director/Network Admin and figure that if I'm going to do any side jobs they better be worth my timne.

 

[Cheetah8799]

Looks like you got some decent hosting rates for your client. Your hourly rate looks fine, maybe a tad high though. They can expect to pay a LOT more if they go with a professional web designer. If you are doing this as a cash-only deal, maybe charge a little less. Depends on how much time you expect to put into the project.

wjgollatz has a good suggestion. You might consider a barter system to get work done on your car in trade. That way you don't have to worry about taxes or anything.

Be sure to spend more time planning than coding. Maybe sketch out some examples and go over ideas before doing anything. Find out if there are any other web sites on the net that your client likes that you can get ideas from. Just don't get too far into it only to find out your client doesn't like the work you are doing and maybe decides to stop the project and not pay you...

Search engine registration falls under the category of "advertising" as far as I'm concerned. Talk it over with your client. If they don't want to pay for it, then just do the free registration with Yahoo and Google. I don't think you really get your money's worth by paying for some other company to register you with all the small search engines out there. Maybe your client would do better to pay for advertising in the back of auto magazines and such to get a better audience. They may also consider the Google AdWords.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Late site I built was a dynamic site and I charged $400 for the whole thing. This is chumps work now and soccer moms are using Yahoo and Frontpage to develop web stores.