IHR Services: Promotion Only Website Development Hosting Package Egg Donor Database

Managing the Costs
of Your Website Development

The main cost factors for website development are:

1. level of website design
2. number of web pages
3. degree to which the IHR client is actively working to manage costs

If you want to manage (i.e., lower) the costs of your website development, we encourage you to review the tips in the following sections below:

1. Managing costs of overall project management
2. Managing costs for domain name setup
3. Managing costs during the design/demo phase
4. Managing costs for developing website Images/photos
5. Managing costs during the web page creation phase

1. Managing Costs of Overall Project Management

• Provide one key contact person.  If you use more than one key person to provide input, this will increase costs due to additional coordination required.
   
• Proactively manage the project on your side. The more IHR has to make followup reminders (via phone calls or emails), the more the project cost will increase. And vice versa, the more you can provide active project management from your side, the lower the costs to you.
   
• Follow a timeline that is not too fast and not too slow:
   
  • Avoid long delays. If there are long time delays in your reviews of work, then costs will go up because IHR needs to re-review the relevant issues.
     
  • Avoid a tight timeline. A tight timeline increases costs for numerous reasons including: a) It requires tighter coordination which requires additional time (e.g., additional telephone calls), and b) There is little time to prioritize the work to define what is "out of budget" and what is "within budget."

2. Managing Costs for Domain Name Setup

• Avoid changing your primary domain name. If the Domain Name is changed during the development process, this requires additional time for Domain Name consultation, DNS changes, and changes to server configuration files.
   
• Provide your own staff to update your domain name DNS information. If you have access to update the DNS (Domain Name Services) for your Domain Name, you will save labor costs. If IHR has to make changes to your Domain Name and IHR has to do additional communication to find out how to make those changes, then your costs will go up. Of course, we understand that you are not the technical expert, however, we want to let you know that extra research means higher costs of perhaps 1 to 3 hours.
   
• More domain names equals more cost. The more domain names you want to hook up to your website, the higher the costs, since IHR will have do to more server work.

3. Managing Costs During the Design/Demo Phase

IHR typically creates two or three look-and-feel demos for you to review and approve. Here are some cost factors:

• Define your website look-and-feel before starting the project. As much as possible, if you can review other websites for look-and-feel features that you like before beginning work with the IHR graphic artist, then you can convey clearer messages and obtain demos that are more consistent with what you want.
   
• More demos equals more cost. If you want IHR to create lots of additional demos, then costs will rise accordingly. Each additional look-and-feel demo can cost $100 to $500 each.

4. Managing Costs for Developing Website Images/Photos

• Send relevant photos to IHR. If your organization already has electronic images (e.g. staff pictures, cell photos, logo, etc.) that would work on your site, you can send those images to IHR. This will reduce your costs. If IHR creates or purchases images for you, then the costs will go up (cost of photos and labor to find the photos).
   
• Take your own photos. If you, or someone you know, can use a digital camera to take photos or you can obtain the photos on the web, then you can reduce labor charges.
   
• IHR charges for optimizing photos for the web. Any website photos or drawings will need to be optimized for the web. If a photo is too large (e.g. over 50K) then it will take too long to download. This can frustrate users and they might also leave the site. By following IHR's picture formats and sizes guidelines for Adding Pictures to Your Web Site, you can save time and money.

5. Managing Costs During the Web Page Creation Phase

• Think about the following features of your website before IHR begins developing the web pages:
   
  • How do you want it organized from your business point of view?
  • Is there any information you want to emphasize on the website?
  • What are the main navigation links you want?

  Then discuss your preferences with the person who is developing your pages.
   

• If possible, batch your update requests. Avoid sending lots of small requests, as there is overhead for each request, including, for example, get oriented to website, set up the files, update, upload, review. This is more cost effective when changes are consolidated.
   
• Send text to IHR that is "approved and ready to go." This will save in labor costs. The more IHR is asked to continually make text changes to "already submitted" text, the more costs will go up.
   
• Be aware that some text will take additional time for IHR to process. A PDF file requires more processing time than simple ascii text or a word processing document.
   
• A web page that has photos and complex formatting (e.g. tables) will take longer to create than a web page with mostly standard text and basic formatting.
   
• When sending emails to IHR, the more you can do the following, the lower your costs, since IHR staff will spend minimal time reviewing your emails:
   
  • Clearly identify specifically what you want done.
     
  • Send emails with a clear subject header. For example:
    
          "ABC Clinic - 2/7/07 updates for IVF Services page"
     
  • If referring to a specific page, clearly indicate the specific page by formal name (e.g. "About Us") or by Web address (e.g., http://www.abcclinic.com/aboutus.html).

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