Use your loaf and sign up for Slices and you can significantly reduce the cost of a bespoke website build. Slices is designed with the small to medium enterprise in mind, allowing multiple clients to share the cost to be able to afford a website with all the features they want.
Cost breakdown
There are essentially three layers involved in for example an e-commerce site.
The database
The database contains most of the raw information that your clients seek. The database schema needs to allow for every aspect of your products or services with the information organised in such a way that it becomes searchable. Basically the attributes are arranged in such a way that the server can 'understand' them. Designing the database takes care and attention to detail. There are solutions available 'off the shelf' which may go some way to providing the solution but unless the database designer has taken time to consider the demands of your business and of your clients you may find that certain things do not work exactly the way your or your customers would like or expect.
The database roughly equates to around 10% of your total site build cost.
The front end
This is essentially what your site looks like. It encompasses the design process as well as constant and thorough testing of it in many different web browsers. There are often significant behaviour and rendering differences between the most poular browsers. Although it is not always possible to force your site to appear identical in all of them, time is allocated to make sure the experience of all your users is not impaired by these differences. Your site will employ CSS in order to separate the design from the site content. This means that your site is futureproof, in that in order to alter its appearance totally at a later date will not require its total reconstruction.
Because of the need for each site to be individual in its appearance, the cost of this aspect is not distributable. An individual cost will be provided for your site's look and will be separate to the cost of the Slices scheme. Broadly speaking, your site design will equate to between 10 and 15% of the total build cost.
The presentation layer
This is the part of your site build which takes by far the majority of the time, and therefore the cost. The presentation layer consists of various bespoke scripts and functions which are read and interpreted by the server every time your pages are accessed. They interact with the database, pulling out information and organising it on the page utilising the front end design. Although these are bespoke the fact that they can be written with multiple sites in mind makes it possible to abstract their contents slightly. This does add marginally to the build cost but the benefits of building for multiple clients simultaneously will more than outweigh the additional time spent. The more clients are involved then the lower the individual cost.†
Sign up
Simply complete the form below to register an interest in a slice of an upcoming project. Once I have determined the level of interest within a particular area I will contact those who have expressed an interest in order to gain further information required to calculate the build cost and give a breakdown of the cost at each level of participation.
Registering an interest in no way commits you to the project. Once a level of interest is established the costs will be presented to you before you make a final decision.
You can help to minimise your costs by getting other businesses to register an interest too. Simply send them a link to this page. The more you can encourage then the cheaper your site will be.†
† Due to the nature of web building and the necessary logistics of liaising with multiple clients there will come a point where the addition of more and more clients will make a project more unwieldy so the cost benefits of further cost distribution will be offset. If a project is oversubscribed then it may be necessary to break into smaller groups and complete on a first-come first-served basis.