Start with a simple formula that lets you sleep well at night
Although it’s different for every project, the most important place to start is deciding what really is within your own budget to spend. Although many experienced clients understand how a site can cost $30,000 instead of $3,000 (or vice versa), it’s unusual—and difficult—for many SMB owners to understand the difference. There are a number of ways to stretch the $3,000 many times the dollar value just as there are many ways to waste $30,000 to not get even a fraction of the value. However, every project has to start some place, and the best place to start is to draw a line in the sand and say that I will spend x amount of dollars for this project, or better yet, I will invest x% of my revenue into the project. I’ve heard many of my clients say that they are more effective (and have a better piece of mind), if they go with the latter. So what’s the %? Usually, it tends to be anywhere from 3%~6% of your annual gross. So if you run a SMB that grosses around $500,000 a year, start with a budget that’s $15,000 to $30,000

Define goals that are as specific as how you like your steaks cooked
Although we all have our favorite kinds of steaks, some like the porterhouse, some just the fillet mignon, but we all have one very specific way we want that steak cooked. Well, the goals and objectives that you define for the website project should be just as specific, if not more. So how do you go about defining the goals? You will only make informed decisions if you’ve been monitoring your current site’s traffic, gotten feedbacks from your users, and have setup an internal infrastructure (whether it be people who’ll maintain the site, or a robust content management system). If you’re designing the first time around, the best way to start is to base your goals on the business plan, the business objectives, and the ideal target customers. Remember that your website is really just an extension of your overall business goals, and rarely and end to itself.

Know the components of an interactive project
The more you know your, ahem, enemies, the better chance you have with winning the war. Of course, at some point your “enemies” will be your trusted business partners, but I think the comparison still sticks. If you’re aware exactly what constitutes a typical project, you’ll have a much better time understanding what the design firm is thinking when it gives you a quote. Typically, these are the parts that goes in an estimate (whether you’re made aware of this or not):

• Visual Design
• Information Architecture
• Content Planning
• Technical Development
• Project Management
• Contingency Plan

And in our next entry, we’ll go into explaining what each means, and how you can start to balance what components you need, or what you can do yourself versus what you should always trust your designer/developer to do for you.