Web design...help needed comparing quotes please!

[ChickenLidl]

DH is currently talking to a couple of designers about having a website designed and built. We've had two quotes, and they differ wildly. Not just in cost, but the actual work they intend to do.

Neither of us are particularly techy (understatement emoticon) so I was wondering if someone could take a look and explain to me slowly and in words of one syllable whether the cheapest one is missing vital stuff, or the most expensive one is exaggerating the work involved to push up the price?

I'll post the quotes separately...I could be a while...[hsmile]

Ok, first quote:

Work up homepage and about us page wireframe design for approval - 0.5 day

From approved wireframe design, work up homepage and inner page templates in Photoshop. Create CSS styles - webfonts, spacing, hex colour swatches etc. and prepare final Photoshop layered files and graphics ready for HTML cut - 1.5 days

Website Development - From final Photoshop web designs, cut graphics and create HTML/CSS coding into the content management system - 1.5 days

Second quote:

Developing and defining the site structure. This process includes:

• 2 x page wireframes (HOME & CONTENT page)
• 1 x sitemap

3 hours

Website design including:

• 2 x Initial mood boards
• 2 x Initial designs (HOME & CONTENT pages)
• 2 x final page designs
• Asset generation & management

6 hours

Website setup & config - Hosting & domain configuration

• Setting up a new domain on the server
• Setting up emails
• Creating new databases etc

2 hours

Implementation and configuration of the WordPress CMS on a specified server
2 hours

The construction of user-facing web page templates in HTML/CSS
8 hours

The implementation and configuration of the WordPress Content Management System (CMS) including:

• Template integration
• Plug-in Configuration
• CMS-level search engine optimisation

16 hours

Testing the website across multiple platforms, devices and browsers. The minimum specification for the site to be tested against will be clearly defined in the specification phase of the project.
4 hours

In-house training on the WordPress CMS including 'leave behind' documentation to assist in completing basic content management tasks
2 hours

Thank you to anybody who actually reads all that [hblush]

Hi! I was just bf DS to sleep so read the whole thing :)

I'm a designer by training and have done a lot of web and interface design, and put quotes together. I don't know what the scope of your web site would be or what your needs are (small startup business? web site extremely important or just nice-to-have? etc) but I'd say the second quote is far more professional and includes several important items the first one glosses over. Also, critically: the first one is for a static HTML website that you presumably won't be editing yourself. The second one is for a CMS-based Wordpress site that you will be able to edit and alter, and make live changes to. These are totally different kinds of sites and the second one allows for training and testing to ensure reliability and give you control over it.

Having said that I'm not sure you need to see mood boards. I'd say 9 hours for site structure and layout/look & feel is fine, but you could ask to slash it to say 6 or so, and go with only one design (do you need two alternatives anyway? just ask them to do the best job they can and show you that. you can always discuss and rethink if necessary). In any case that quote is otherwise OK.

Hope this helps? Let me know if you want me to clear anything up ?

ask about how they will search engine optimise (SEO) it. will it be linked to other social media so that appears higher up in a google search?

how well the site is optimised will determine how findable it is on the web. A good way to boosting this is to link it with say a facebook business account or page, twitter, and google places. the site will need to copywritten effectively using the right key words etc to achieve this too.

With facebook ensure that it doesn't directly link to your private account as you could be sharing more that you want to.

also, if you're creating say twitter and a facebook presence for your business, ensure there is a linked Like button on the website. Although the design of a website can be beautiful unless you do some of those other things, you may still miss the mark.

Thank you so much easilydistracted, I'm very grateful for a professional opinion

DH has asked if you would mind explaining the important things that you think have been glossed over in the first one? They could be written in Chinese for all the sense they make to us!

To answer your other questions, it's a re-brand and re-design (from scratch) of an existing company and website, the company is already reasonably well established. Website is a definite must have, rather than an extra.

Thanks again [hsmile]

BrikSchittHaus - the second quote does also include SEO, but I didn't copy that above because that was the only bit of the quote that I actually understood and didn't need a translation for [hblush]

The Facebook and Twitter accounts are something to think about definitely, thanks [hsmile]

Hi, I am a little tipsy so I won't attempt to answer this now, but am marking so I can come back to it tomorrow.

An essential for me would be to see examples of their work. Have/can they supply this?

Actually, it's obvious the second lot know what they're talking about / will give you something much more usable. Personally I wouldn't consider the first one. I'll come back and justify that once I feel a little more human!