How Much Does It Cost to Redesign a Website?

Website Redesign

The cost to redesign a website depends on who is asking the question. For example a solo website owner may expect to pay a few hundred dollars for a redesign, whereas a corporation with many employees may expect to pay a few thousand dollars. I run a small web design company which primarily targets small business owners so my prices are in line with most of my clients’ budgets.

Problems conveying design costs

Most new online business owners don’t know what’s included in building a website. Some may think it only takes a few clicks of a mouse to create a design but are unaware of the intricacies involved in designing or redesigning a website. Even if you try to explain the costs in layman’s language it’s still difficult for them to understand why they have to spend so much money. Let’s look at some of the elements included in designing or redesigning a professional website.

The Design Process

1. Creating sample designs

Before building the actual website I provide several image designs so the client can see what the finished product will look like . They have the ability to interchange elements between the different image designs (e.g. colors, fonts, images, navigation, etc.) until they achieve the perfect design they want. This usually takes constant communication between the client and the Web designer.

2. Building the actual website

Here is a list of some of the elements included in the design:

  • Graphic design: this may include the header graphics, background images, navigation images, logo, horizontal rules, special gradient effects to highlight headings, subheadings, etc.
  • Styling the design with CSS: cascading style sheets(CSS) controls the design of the website e.g. file size, color, weight, height, spacing between elements, positioning of elements on webpages.

  • Coding the XHTML: CSS combined with XHTML builds the actual webpages. To enable webpages to load fast coding should be free of errors. This also helps make the website display correctly in all the major web browsers.
  • Navigation: this should be consistent throughout the website so visitors have no problems finding the information they need. Simple navigation may include text links whereas complex navigation may include drop-down menus.
  • Scripts: these often used to process contact forms, create flash presentations or interacts with databases.
  • Database driven website: this usually refers to a content management system (CMS) such as Joomla or WordPress which include hundreds of files in contrast to a 10 page static website that contains only 10 HTML webpages, a stylesheet and images.
  • Web content development: usually the customer provides their own content for the web pages. if the designer needs to write the content (or his copywriter) it dramatically increases the time to develop the website and the cost to do the work.
  • Search engine optimization (SEO): although this is often not included in the original web design it’s often the reason why a site needs to be redesigned. Some of the elements included in SEO are keyword research, creating correct meta tags, header tags, file names, links, image descriptions based on targeted keywords as well as optimizing the web copy.

As you can see from the list above as the complexity of the design increases so does the price. Once the site has been designed and uploaded to the server a lot time is spent testing how the website will display across different browsers and screen resolutions.

Consult with your web designer before redesigning your website

The best way to clarify your redesign needs is to communicate with your web designer. If he is a professional he’ll quickly make you aware what is involved to redesign your website. As a professional web designer I usually listen and ask questions during the consultation to clarify your needs. I’ll then write a preliminary proposal that breaks down the costs of redesign.

Approximate website redesign costs

10 page redesign of a static website – $1500-$2000
CMS redesign (e.g. WordPress, Joomla) – $1500-$3000

If these prices are not within your budget consider purchasing a commercial template or using a free template then have it customized to fulfill your needs.

Related Articles

Top 7 Reasons to Get a Design Makeover
Top 7 Reasons to Get Your Web Pages Redesigned

Get a professional website design or redesign
for your online business by visiting:
Professional Website Design Company

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)
owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

Comments

  1. Really nice, I love DIY ideas. I’ve truly discovered a huge amount through doing my very own Do it yourself projects in the past, as well as saved a huge amount of money also 😉

  2. DIY is good, but most people don’t have an eye for design or architecture of the site at all. Even the template they pick out is a disaster.

    They truly need an outside person to do this otherwise, they do have a website, but no one is coming to buy their product. They show up and leave almost immediately.

    Good info for those looking for a design and those looking for a re-design!

  3. Hi, I like your template, did you buy it or is it unique? I am searching for a template like this for my web site but haven’t found anything as good as this.

  4. You actually wrote about many curious points in this posting. I came across this article by using Msn and I have to admit that I am currently subscribed for your blog site, it is quite decent (;

  5. I suppose that the cost would depend entirely on the web site
    Would it just be an informational site, a commercial site or a data gathering site?

  6. Adina Dornbusch says

    Rather beneficial appreciate it, I reckon your current readers may want a lot more posts of this nature maintain the excellent content.

  7. Superb read through! My partner and i found this truly fascinating…

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