Forum Moderators: mack
I am approaching my first client(friend of friend) and have drafted a contract. If you will allow it I hoped I could post it for any hints/tips, omissions or changes that you could add before I fire it off to the client (tomorrow!)
Project Leader:
MAK
Confidentiality:
*Company Name*/MAK
Production Queries:
To be raised as applicable with *Company Name*
Project Title:
*Company Name* Website
Brief Description:
Design and development of Website for *Company Name*. This takes place over two stages. The first includes the design of three initial templates and the development of the chosen design through to site launch. The second includes the marketing of the website and developing hit popularity through a series of promotion techniques.
Type of Contract:
Design, development and promotion
Costs Incurred:
1) Hosting server rental – monthly or annual fee (TBC) paid directly by *Company Name to service provider
2) Registration of Domain name (TLD)
3) Initial payment of £***
4) Payment of £*** on Launch of site
5) £*** Monthly fee for Upkeep
Project overview
Summary of Tasks
a) Find and purchase web space for *Company Name* Website
b) ‘Place mat’ – online business card
c) 3 Initial designs created including Home page and one sub level
d) Development of chosen style
e) Population of templates with content (provided by *Company Name*)
f) Search engine optimisation (SEO)
g) Testing
h) Launch
i) Maintain and continually update site with fresh content
j) Search engine submission
k) Link building
l) Affiliate marketing and Google Adwords/Adsense (optional)
m) Site redesigns to keep up with trends/changes (optional)
Full Project Description
Description of tasks
a) Research and purchase web hosting for *company name* website. Requirements:
-Minimum 10MB server space
-Minimum 1GB bandwidth
-Minimum of 10 POP 3 E-mail addresses
-Site logs
-Supports server side scripting
-UK based with telephone support
b) ‘Place mat’ – online business card
-Contains *Company Name* contact info and launch date.
c) Design 3 initial design styles. Each design to include:
-Home page
-Example of sub page
d) Development of chosen style. Includes:
-All site visuals and layout (buttons, images)
-Menus and Navigation
-Style sheets (page layout and style separate form content)
-Operating System & Browser compatibility
-Accessibility solution
e)Population of templates with content. Provided by *Company Name* in the form of:
-Company brochures
-Press releases
-Client testimonials
-Job descriptions
-Client lists (confidential?)
-Photographs
-Logos
-And anything else that would assist populating the site.
f)Development of contextual links and content so that search engines will read the pages easily and, in time, rank the higher pages in search results. This includes the identification and population of ‘Keywords’ within text.
g)Testing
-Check the pages for errors
-Check the pages for errors!
-Check the pages for errors!
(Must be agreed and signed off prior to launch)
h)Launch - Publicise launch
-Addition to local directories (on line)
-Submission to professional bodies (on line)
-Via e-mail – new and old customers (must be agreed by customer to avoid Spam)
-Word of mouth
-Web groups
i)The site needs to be maintained and continually updated with fresh content. This keeps the site fresh and ensures that visitors and potential clients see up to date information. This is very important!
j)Site need to be submitted to Search Engines so that it can be indexed. These include:
-Yahoo, MSN, Google, Ask Jeeves, AltaVista, Overture
-DMOZ – open source directory
-Local and national directories (any othrs I have missed?)
k)Link building. This is used to increase the perceived value of a site by search engines – so the site will begin to rise through the search engines ranking. Targeting Keywords it seems like a war of attrition but has produces very good results in time.
l)Affiliate Marketing and Google Adwords/Adsense
-Affiliate marketing is the addition to *Company Name* websites to groups of other sites that are competing in the same market. (Optional as results are relative to competition)
-Google Adsense/Adwords are Google advertising campaigns where-by a site can generate income buy adding pay per click adverts to a site. The adverts are affiliate based so would only advertise products in a similar industry (Optional as incurs additional cost.)
m)Site redesigns
-Website trends and technology changes extremely rapidly. A Site redesign will incorporate shifts in user trends and add new technology. It can also be done to reflect any changes in the working processes of *Company Name*. This process would build on existing style and content.
Projected Timescales (bearing in mind I am doing this in spare time around two other jobs)
(Task - Complete end of week)
a)Hosts - 1
b)Place mat - 1
c)3 designs - 3
d)Development - 5
e)Addition of content - 6
f)SEO - 7
g)Testing - 7
1 Week Contingency
h)Launch - 9
i)Maintain - ongoing
j)SE submission - 10
k)Link building - Ongoing
l)Affiliate/Google - Optional
m)Redesigns - Optional
Instruction/Conformation to Proceed
Please sign and return one copy of this fee proposal to confirm your instructions in this regard
COMPANY NAME:*Company Name*
AUTHORISED BY:
(signature)
(block capitals)
DATE: dd/mm/yyyy
CONTACT FOR CORRESPONDENCE, PRODUCTION QUERIES AND ISSUES
(name)
(tel)
(fax)
(E-mail)
PLEASE RETURN SIGNED PROJECT PROPOSAL TO:
MAK + Address
So that's about it. Sorry if that was a bit of a marathon read.
Thanks for you time
(i)MAK
[edited by: kittimakai at 9:01 pm (utc) on Dec. 8, 2003]
You have been doing a lot of reading.....
A quick read through of the terms seems to be very complete. :)
The initial question that I had was where is the definitation of how much work will be performes for the monthly maint fee? And how is that measured?
jb
Re-reading my first post I guess I should have said that I have been helping produce websites for the company I work for for the last 6 months. Only on a very limited basis, but I had picked up HTML. CSS and a bit of serverside stuff. The Marketing bit seems to be straightforwrd - I just have to follow the rules.
Unfortunately for me I have only just found Webmaster World :o( . Reading the stuff here has just enforced what I have picked up and further informed me.
jbinbpt
Money! everybodies favourite topic ;o) and actually the big grey area for me! I do not really know how much to ask for.
For the initial design and development I was going to ask for £500 then I was thinking a fee of £40 month. that way I can improve on what I have delivered and receive income from the site long after it is completed. Is this even a recognised method of payment?
Thanks
(i)MAK
I think that the process that you have outlined is sound, and since this is not a major source of income, then whatever you charge is fine. However I do believe that, given the soundness of the proposal I would price it higher. That's only my opinion.
I am not in business for myself, so I cannot give you direct costing, but I do have some things to keep in mind.
Make sure that it is well understood that this is a introduction price and not available on the next project(s).
You may want to keep your pricing, but don't lock yourself in.
Every project I have worked on has taken more time than what the client thought it would.
A monthly fee for updating needs to be tied to some measurement. You might want to define X amount of hours or X amount of changes just to protect yourself.
Don't experiment on the customer's tab.
Since you are getting paid REAL money, Alway validate your code.
Good Luck,
jb
"Since you are getting paid REAL money, Alway validate your code."
Thanks jb
Good advice; I should have known to validate but there is soooooo much to remember! I think that I made it clear that the contract is confidential so changing the goalposts for the next job should be OK? Right?
I am delaying sending the contract over for a couple of days - My client is not well.
Anyone else got any tips?
It's really interesting for me to see a sample contract like that. I've also been trying to work up a good contract template, for my own use and to offer on my site as a starting place for others-- I'm trying to put together all the research I'm doing on starting my business to make a resource for others doing the same thing. So thanks for sharing that. I haven't time to go over it right this moment, but I will look at it tonight and let you know if I notice anything missing in that one that I do have in my other samples.
Best of luck to you!
Dragonlady
I am "primarily in this one for the learning" so thanks I won't worry too much.
Thanks ,I look forward to what you have to says after further perusal.
Choster
"it's still a good idea to have professional legal counsel review it"
that is a good point - I hadn't really thought too much about the leagal issues involved. But they are a proffessionally chartered company so I really shoud look into this. thankfully I have an uncle who is in the business of legal writing. I'll see what he has to say.
"after which you can boilerplate the text for use in the future."
That is kind of the idea - I hope that this one could be reused in future jobs assuming I get it right an will feel like doing it again ;-)
Thanks
iMAK
Don't tell us we didn't warn you that this place is addictive :)
Don't tell us we didn't warn you that this place is addictive :)
Nobody warned me. Do I qualify for compensation?
TJ
Welcome to WebmasterWorld KittiMakai!
"Don't tell us we didn't warn you that this place is addictive"
Was that my warning? ;)
jb
