Without a doubt, my blog is the site I update the most and so I?ve decided that it should be my main site for everything I do and have as such redirected the main ademweb.co.uk domian to point to the /blog extension.
A while back I had set up a separate site for web design but my heart was really into that one and it was neglected and there?s no point in that is there? If anyone had stumbled across it they?d be annoyed tht it hadn?t been updated.
It got me thinking about why I should have a separate site when I can just have it as another page on here, and so you will now see a ?web design? tab on the above menu. I prefer to deal with sites who are a little more personal and are not hiding behind some facade, and so why shouldn?t my blog be my main page?
Another reason is that I only do a little bit of web design from time to time so I shouldn?t really need to have a separate site when I can easily convey what I do by using a page here. The page is a little boring at the moment but I?ll work on sprucing it up soon.
Making the site multi-functional may have a few downsides and could mean the end of the ?Big Blog? moniker as the site will be abaout a lot more that just blogging, although it is technically still a blog. hmmm. After all I only picked that title because it was all I could think of when setting it up. Little did I know I?d still be using it over three years later.
Decisions, decisions, but ultimately the main thing is that I can now use the ademweb.co.uk domain as a link for everything that I do, and so that is the domain I?ve included on my Moo MiniCards, meaning that whatever I?m talking to people about, be it my blog, or web design, or my flickr, they can all find info from here.
Hmmm, there?s much more to you than I ever knew!
Good luck with the web design ? if anyone asks me where to go for a website I?ll be sure to mention your moniker.
Cheers. Got to figure out how much I should really be charging?hmmmm? anyone ?in the know??
You will have seen my personal website, which is kind of like my website for web design. But it is a good idea to have everything on your blog, I had actually toyed with the idea of doing that and redirecting my personal site to my blog, but eventually got over it?
I don?t know if I am supposed to discuss this, but I am just offering advice
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From what I have seen from local companies, it usually seems around £100-£300. Take this company for example. They charge £300 for a paged websites .co.uk domain, 20mb web space, 1000mb bandwidth, yet others will charge £100 for a basic 5 pages website, i.e. no flash or asp, possibly not php, you get the idea.
Personally seeing as I only design basic websites I charge £40-£50, depending on the work involved, however I may charge a bit more. But seeing as I am just starting out doing paid work I will try to stick to £40 to begin with. I don?t know anything other than HTML and CSS see lol
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You may want to charge for updates if you need to update the site. It would be better that you do otherwise you may constantly be asked to update and not get paid for it. Obviously this would occur once you have finished designing the website. I don?t know how much you should charge for that as I do not know myself!
I know that I am still a rookie in terms of web design, but I hope that this has given you an idea. Don?t take what I said about the £40-50 to be what I think you should charge because it all depends on the individual. I could probably charge more if I wanted to? It would be a good idea to get some information off some people in the know like you say. I could direct you over to the PCAdvisor magazine forums. They have a web design forum which I have found extremely useful. I would imagine that they will give you help about prices and anything else that you would like to find out about. The Forum Editor helped me out immensely with regards to contracts as I believe that he does web design himself.
Sorry that this is a rather lengthy reply?
Cheers for that Aidan. I used to charge £50 for simple websites but would often find that I?d be spending quite a lot of time on them and it would work out as a really poor hourly wage.
Obviously I don?t want to price myself out and may have to set some boundaries to what is included and maybe come up with some ?packages? describing what the client actually gets for their money.
I?m really hoping to try and write a manual that I can train clients with so that they can update their own sites using CMS and I could just be there for help if really needed.
I?ll have a look at those links you sent and see what I can glean from them.
Cheers
Crikey ? with prices that low I?ll be knocking on your door! Although I?m used to paying through the nose in London, so maybe I?m not the best person to judge local pricing for this sort of thing.
A word on updates ? I?m usually charged per hour, with a one hour minimum charge (which typically amounts to about 10% of the initial set-up, although in your case this would come to a fiver which is less than the minimum wage!).
Hope that helps.
It?s a very fickle world with people not really wanting to spend their money, but who can blame them.
I think it?s worth looking around at the local competition and then modelling something on that scale.
The thing is that I?m too kind and usually end up doing these things as ?favours? and not getign much in return! Last job I did I got paid with burger and chips!!
Hmmm?. looks like I might have to set up a separate site for my web design. It looks like I?m going to be getting some free advertising for some work I?ve done and I?m not too sure about people immedietly coming to my blog.
It?s cool if they find out about the webdesign via my blog but not the other way around.
This does mean I get to have more fun with templates though!!