The Website RFP, Understand Tiers to Avoid Tears

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The process should clearly show at what point you may ask for revisions, when things are 'signed off' and it should reference charging models for scope changes and how this may impact schedule.

If this has not all been thought through then you really have to question the experience and competency of the company.

Evaluating the Maintenance Contract

You should expect an ongoing relationship with the web designer, as you can't realistically launch a website and not have any updates made to it. The web is constantly advancing, and new web browsers come out all the time which should be compatibility-tested.

You should explain you require ongoing service from your web designer, and ask them to propose how they will charge for testing of new browsers. Mention you need to ensure that the site stays secure and ask them what they suggest - they really should mention to you a way of them rolling out security updates to you if vulnerabilities are found in the software. Expect to pay for it, but expect it to be offered too!

Evaluating yourself

I can't stress enough how important it is for you to consider a business model for your website.

You need to perform a market review and come up with some kind of plan on how you will differentiate yourselves against your competitors, how you can beat them without them just copying your innovations, and how you will reach your future customers. If your differentiation is weak, you also need to consider how you will be able to create a superior solution than your competitors on the budget you have.

Remember that you are not competing with your competitors as they are now, you are competing with them in the future when the project is finished (it takes time remember, and things can happen in that time). Not only this, you need to consider the situation where all you end up doing is raising the bar in the industry when your competitors just absorb your own ideas in their next updates.

Plan defensively and strategically! And, budget accordingly.

And...

Budgets are always limited, so to fit your budget a web designer probably will not suggest all the things that would be a good idea for you. Can you blame them, they don't want to hear a thump as you fall onto the floor in shock? Besides, it takes time for them to make suggestions, and it is futile for a web designer to suggest what they think you can't afford. It's pretty common for web designers to have future clients coming in for a project that costs ten times more than the client thinks even in it's most basic implementation, because web pricing really isn't that well understood.

Here are a few things I would not expect a web designer to suggest, but if you can provide a large enough budget are quite possibly worth having included:

Production of a high quality introduction video for your front page A print stylesheet, so your pages look good when printed A favicon (that's the little icon for your website that shows in the address bar and bookmarks) A mobile version of your websiteUsability testing (highly recommended, but potentially relatively costly) A staging site, so that you can test and experiment with your CMS