help with the business end of web design

[maverickdesign]

I have been developing websites using dreamweaver and CMS (joomla, wordpress) for a couple of years. Mostly for friends and non-profits. I do the design, send a bill and go onto the next project. It's been fun, but not a very good business. We are good on the technical and design end, but not very good on the business end of things - ie. we work hard, make a good product, have pretty good support but we do not make much money. We are small and maybe do 5-10 sites a year on a part time basis.

Does anyone have any suggestions how to make it more profitable? I'm trying to find a way to pay for my kids education. Some questions that keep floating around in my mind, but I have no way of finding answers are:

1) what are maintenance contracts about, and how do they work?
2) what are reasonable prices to charge for design and build services?
3) what are other ways to generate income besides the "i'll make the site, and you pay me x amount?"
4) are there any books on this or discussion forums that are dedicated to these questions?

Thanks and Merry Christmas

maverickdesign

[Habtom]

The most important thing here seems to be the issue of having a good portfolio of the sites you have built/maintained yet, and reach out more people with prior written agreements and possibly a certain advance amount.

Expectations need to be defined to as much extent as you can.

[maverickdesign]

do you have any sample contract agreements or pricing structures for creating web sites?

[Habtom]

My contract agreements are written on case by case basis and include the most important points that I think should be covered for that specific client.

You might find some good general formats, if you google for 'Contract agreement templates'.

The fee structure totally depends on the expected amount of hours required for that specific work X hourly rate (which depends on who the customer is).

[Monalisa]

Hello,
Merry christmas to you too...

Lemme answer your questions one by one :--

1)Maintenance contracts are weekly,monthly or yearly contracts and they can range from $10/- to $30/- per hour on the basis of the quality of services you provide or it depends on the nature of the contract you will be responsible for and is neede on the basis of below circumsatnces :
a)as the business grows,it needs to update its visitors on the same.
b)you may happen to find upgradations on your competitors site and implement some of these ideas into your site.
c)you may want to update your site a little bit coz no one likes to see the same thing again and again.

2)For design services the charges depends upon the no of people you are having to work for you and also the quality of service you provide and also have to showcase your services...
a)If you are few members...then you cannot go for low prices all the time...coz you cant come up with the same in given amount and cost...

Reasonable price samples are as below :--
5-7 static html pages-- $175-$250
10-12 static html pages-- $250 -$325
15-17 static html pages-- $325 -$495
20-25 static html pages--$475-$700

amount can very for no of reasons...

3)Beside building up the site you can very easily go for SEO"Search engine optimisation"...nowadays its an added advantage..most buyers are looking out for this service...
and also you can provide maintenance services...

4)I dont think you need any book for this...if you can browse few websites engaged in these kind of services...u will definately a fair amount of knowledge...

Hope helped you to an extent...

If you need more information,do revert me back,i will be glad to help you out...

Cheers!
Monalisa

[varya]

We'd be starving and living in a cardboard box on thirty dollars an hour and ten isn't even thinkable.

We do more than just code simple html pages, but even for static html we aim towards $150 an hour for billable time. We don't bill by the hour, but by the project.

Obviously, rates are going to vary significantly depending on market, skills, and what's going into the site. Are you just writing html? Coding stuff? Hacking a cms? Designing graphics? Writing copy? Optimizing for search engines?

[maverickdesign]

we are close to the cardboard box scenario, but aren't confident enough to price ourselves out of them. we need to know what is reasonable to bill so we can move forward with this little business we have.

this is what we do: we can design in photoshop and split into html, we code html, we hack cms, we do photos, we don't know anything about search engines, not much about e-commerce, mostly brochure type with calendars, blogs, info, and flash.

by getting some guidence from you or others on what is the "norm" we can gain some confidence.

anymore guidance would be helpful