7 Strategies for Reducing your Website Development Costs

If you are creating a advanced website or starting a website enhancement project, complete the following steps prior to starting your project to ensure that your project stays on budget and on schedule. 1) Identify the person(s) that will assist you in developing a detailed plan for your site. Before starting your project, ensure that you and your team are on the same sheet concerning the final vision for your site. This will minimize (eliminate) any mid-development confusion between your team members and ensures that once the development/design activities begin, they can proceed with a clear definition of the end product. Website projects that are less defined can incur unexpected expenses due to "scope creep". Generally, scope creep occurs when unexpected tasks are added to a project. This leads to higher than planned project costs and an extension of the project deadline. When original tasks are added to your project, determine if these are necessary items to complete
during this phase or if a second phase is needed. If you decide to increase the scope of your project, be firm to quiz your website developer for a printout of the additional costs and an indication of how the virgin task will affect your deadline. 2) Identify the person responsible for communicating with your website developer. Also, identify how often and when you entail to communicate with the developer during the development process. Generally, the more meetings you have with your website developer the more it will cost you. If you have a well defined project, your meetings will be shorter meetings to determine if you're on schedule. Particularly with short web development projects or projects with budget constraints, you hope for to avoid ongoing requirements gathering meetings. If the project is not well defined, you risks staying in the "requirements gathering" phase for the duration of the project. This is always more costly than identifying, approving a
nd finalizing your requirements before any office is performed. For larger and lengthier projects, you should involve a requirements gathering phase at the commence of the project to ensure that the your goals, expected deliverables and project phases are well defined. 3) If your website project involves a site design or redesign, have a vision before you contact a website designer. Having a vision of your preferred site design reduces the number of revisions required. Design revisions can add to the cost of your site if you are unsure of what you want. Starting a design project with an "I'll know it when I see it" approach can increase your project cost and timeline due to an excessive number of revisions or increased scope. If you absolutely do not have a vision, fabricate a list of comparable websites that appeal to you. Be definite to communication any required elements that you'd like to contain on your website. 4) Finish writing your content or have someo
ne commit to paper the content just as you would like it to appear on the site. You can not (should not) launch a website with incomplete content. If your content is not ready, consider a brochure site (one page) website instead of investing in a larger inadequately defined website project. A website is meaningless without effective content. If your content is not ready, your website is not complete. Full text: http://computerandtechnologies.com/computers-and-technology/news_2008-08-08-22-00-04-318.html