Staying in budget on any website project takes work. There are so many ways in which costs can escalate.
For the success of your website design business managing budgets must become something that your agency masters.
Until you reach that point, here are five ideas that will help you to stay in budget on your website redesign projects.
Plans approved before development
The biggest culprit that affects both a website redesign budget and a timeline is when changes or additions are made to the project scope. And once your website reaches the development stage, a change in design can totally derail the project. Your agency must have all designs tweaked, and approved before development begins. You must also explore technical needs and content needs. Perhaps you can handle the website build in house, but highly technical or sophisticated needs may mean you’ll need outside help. It’s best to understand your needs upfront so that the cost of those needs is incorporated into your budget, plan and timeline.
Choose a dedicated project manager and the right team
A dedicated project manager is essential during a website redesign, they are the glue that holds the project together and they make sure that it stays on track and on budget. But the team extends beyond the project manager and can include strategists, designers, developers (tech team), content writers and executives. With that many voices, website additions can easily be added and timelines can be blown up and pushed back. Strategic management is essential, ensure that the project manager has the experience and resources to manage the project from beginning to end.
Create a budget that matches an agreed upon project scope
In order to create a budget that matches the needs of your client's website rebuild, you must ask questions and never assume. Clients should also be encouraged to ask a lot of questions and be upfront with their needs and goals for the future of their business. Once you think you understand the needs of your client you can start to put together a project scope and timeline. If you are using an outsource development team to handle the more technical aspects of the website build, now is the time to collect their timeline and budget. This way you have hard numbers before the build even begins.
Incorporate the advice provided by your web development partner
Behind every great inbound marketing agency is a great web development partner. When choosing a outsource development team to handle the build of your website, you should look for a team who offers advice and counsel. Development agencies have years of experience developing websites and web applications for agencies like yours and are well aware of how processes, timelines, and builds will affect your website build. Their advice on plugins, solutions, functionality should be incorporated for the benefit of both your client and the success of your agency on this project.
Stick to the agreed upon timeline
Timelines can be derailed quickly, your team probably has a multitude of projects on the go and it is easy to get side tracked. The simplicity in that statement is that if you are focused and dedicated to meeting a timeline, then you will. This is where a project manager comes into to facilitate open communication and reinforce project timeline goals. If a team member has agreed that they can complete their scope of work in a certain allotment of hours, they should be held to it for the benefit of your budget.
Website projects can go off budget easily, many agencies and marketing team underestimate the process and budget. It’s your responsibility as the agency to ensure that communication, planning and project scope is transparent for the best outcome possible. Interested in growing your website redesign business? Download our newest ebook, where we provide advice from a development perspective on how agencies can improve their website redesign process to ultimately generate more business.
