Getting started with setting a website budget
This is one of those topics that looks small until it costs you something. A short on-ramp to setting a website budget for teams who have not touched it before.
Clear scope protects the client at least as much as it protects the agency. Anything you cannot measure here, you are deciding by taste, which is fine as long as everyone knows it.
Why it matters
The cheapest quote usually costs more by the end. The cost of getting this wrong is rarely visible on the day it happens. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Budget for the year, not just the build
- Change one thing and measure it
Content is the line item most often forgotten. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
How to tell if yours is fine
The projects that go badly are rarely the ones with the hardest technical problems. Three things worth confirming about setting a website budget before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Budget for the year, not just the build — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
None of this needs a rewrite. Most of it is a morning's work once someone decides to do it.