There is a Lot More to Web Design Than a Pretty Face

When I started building websites for a living using the Joomla CMS, we were using Joomla 1.0 and converting HTML sites to this newfangled Content Management System. Life was pretty cool back then.

We simply took a basic template and modified it with a new header graphic, made a few color changes and added the content. Easy Peasy.  Most sites only needed a single category for content,  set up a few menu links and life was simple.

Fast forward 5 years and we have close to 5000 extensions available for Joomla 1.5.

The Explosive Growth of the Joomla CMS

You can find just about any extension to fit your needs; whether your building an online community for your local little league team or selling products through a fully secure shopping cart. I'm not even going to mention the Social revolution.

But with all this new found software comes challenges that we never faced before. The average boot-strap entrepreneur has technology available today that was only a dream to the average joe just a few short years ago.

Growing Pains

There's not only design, content and SEO today, but Wireframes, Usability, Information Architecture, Analytics, A/B split testing and a whole lot more.

The average web design firm is faced with more challenges today than ever before when it comes to creating a website that will not only look and function well, but actually serve the client and compete in today's saturated online market.

This is where a freelancer or small web design firm can really get into trouble if you're not careful.

I'm finding this out the hard way lately, mostly because I never knew to charge for all the little things I do when building a site.

Over the past 6 months, I've started tracking my time down to the minute. I know exactly how much time I spend on every client's site, with a breakdown of tasks and hours spent on each. Needless to say, I was grossly underbidding my work.

Now I'm no genius, but spend a lot of my time learning just to keep up, and the more I learn the more I try to apply that knowledge to my work flow and client sites.

With Growth Comes Expenses

The problem is, I'm becoming increasingly aware of how much more I need to charge to do the quality of work I know I need to do to make each website successful. But I don't know if my clients will agree.

So my question is, when you've been building websites at a certain price point, how do you make the leap to what you perceive is a much higher cost and convince your client to agree?

Or, if you are the client reading this, what information can a web designer or site developer provide to you that will help you understand the need for these additional steps to happen?