Want to build a professional website? This is how we work at Marsmedia.

Team Mars Insights

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Building a professional website… We are certainly not the first to write about it and probably not the last. What we do, however, is to give you an honest picture of how this works and what hours and costs are involved. Our designers and web developers make everything 100% custom based. This gives you, as an ambitious company, a website that fits your brand identity from A to Z. No templates, a unique design completely according to your wishes.

Kick-Off Workshop

Building a website with us always starts with a kick-off workshop at your office. Together with you and your colleagues we look at your current brand identity, the company objectives, the current website and the wishes for the new website. Together we think about what the landing pages will look like, what CTA´s should be created and what functionalities the website should have. In short, what the website should look like in general. The goal at the end of the workshop is to have a global idea of how the website will function.

On average we spend 8 hours preparing and executing this kick-off workshop.

Wireframes

After the kick-off workshop we enter a second phase. Our UX-designers will start on the initial designs on the basis of the information obtained during the workshop. We now make the so-called wireframes. This is a digital lines sketch where the structure of a page becomes clear. All elements are processed in this design without the use of pictures or colors. Based on the wireframes a WordPress web design can be made.

Making wireframes including one or two feedback rounds usually takes about 16 hours of work.

Web design

The third phase of building a website starts as soon as a final and definit agreement has been given on the wireframes. The graphic designer makes sure that the design really comes to life. Colours, shapes and pictures are added. Again there are feedback rounds where small adjustments can be made. Mostly, large adjustments that affect the previously approved wireframes are not done anymore. The result is a final sketch of what the website will look like after development turns the image into code.

Making a professional web design with the right images and the right color scheme takes an average of 20 hours. This strongly depends on the number of types of pages that need to be made.

Web development

Let the magic begin! Our web developers transform the design into code. When you let us build a professional website you will often hear less of us in this period. After all, no or little consultation is needed since the design has already been approved. Development now ensures that both the backend (the CMS) and the frontend (CSS, images and code) are put together. The result is a complete working website on a staging environment. As soon as this is finished, you will again get the opportunity to give feedback.

The conversion of a web design to code is strongly dependent on the complexity of a design. A simple design with few special effects takes about 36 hours. Keep in mind that building a completely new website is often easier than transferring from an old database to a new one. For example, importing products can take a considerable number of extra hours.

Go-live

The last phase has begun. The final feedback rounds have been processed and the website is functioning properly in the staging environment. It is time to put the website on the worldwide web. Our development team puts the website live and where necessary our digital marketing specialists will do the last check if everything is in good condition. Google Tag Manager is installed and Google Analytics is activated. The moment you’ve been waiting for about 10 to 12 weeks has arrived: your website is online! Time for champagne and a cake!

Maintenance & Bug fixes

After going live there is always a period in which any imperfections can be reported. These are made by us without additional costs. Hosting and maintenance is also carried out by us and depends on your wishes.

What are the total costs of building a website?

All phases of building a professional website have now been completed. A workshop, wireframes, a web design, development and go-live. But what did this eventually cost? Below is a short overview of the hours that were made. We do this at a rate of a 100 EUR per hour. Remember that this is an average website with about 5 different types of pages and some functionalities.

Phase Hours Costs
Kick-off meeting 8 uur 800,-
Wireframes 16 uur 1600,-
Webdesign 20 uur 2000,-
Webdevelopment 36 uur 3600,-
Total 80 hours 8000,-

If there are any questions after reading this article, please feel free to contact us by phone, chat or send an email to hello@marsmedia.nl. No rights can be derived from this article.

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