Will I be able to update my site once you've finished?
The short answer to this question is yes, if you need that functionality. However, depending on your requirements, budget and timescale, we build our sites in a variety of different ways.
We're not a "one-trick pony" agency, if there's no requirement for you to be able to edit your site and there's a better/more efficient approach that lacks the ability to edit content we will encourage it.
It's therefore important for us to explore your scope thoroughly in the early stages of the project, ensuring that there are no curveballs later in the project.
How much can I expect to spend on....
This is probably one of the most common questions. Read on to the end to see what our own site would cost as a delivered project as a real world example.
If you've ever read other responses to this question on other blogs or sites, you'll probably find they all talk about "it depends what you want" etc. This is pretty much the truth, but we have another approach; how much do you want to spend?
This is probably considered a risky question, after all why would you want to spend more than you have to? The common denominator with web agencies and building products such as websites is TIME.
How much time do you want to invest in an agency delivering your requirements?
A startup company who wants a single page brochure style site that tells visitors all the key contact info about them can be done relatively quickly; which will translate to relatively cheaply. On the other hand if you're an established company with their own website who wants it growing with new sections, maybe a fancy booking system or dynamic quote calculator then you're potentially looking at spending more on one of those new features than Mr. Startup did on his entire website.
At this stage you're thinking this is another blog that isn't answering my question, and you're also probably thinking I've seen a local company offering websites with 3 different prices (usually along the lines of silver / gold / platinum, which is the same product but with more "pages"). So, to set expectations lets look at our own site, the one you are reading this from...
You will (hopefully) notice and agree, our site is quick! We have a deep understanding of web technologies and practises (which is reflected in our hourly rate). We opted to build this site with the functionality and flexibility offered by WordPress by using it as only a data layer. We then designed and built the website statically to get full confidence in what we wanted it to look like. Finally, the static site was re-built inside React and Gatsby, interlinked with the WordPress data layer to produce what you're browsing right now!
We completed this site over the course of 2-3 months in between jobs (and a couple of weekends!) and was contributed to by 3 of our top staff. To a client, this site would have been delivered for a sum somewhere in the region of £10,000.