I recently started offering WordPress setup services. Because WordPress is so easy to work with, it’s fairly straightforward to build a secure, standards-compliant site for $1,000. A potential client recently told me that he was referred to someone who could build a site for half that amount.

Honestly, I don’t know how someone can build a website that cheap unless:

• The developer hasn’t thoroughly looked at their pricing and won’t be around very long; or
• What’s being offered is under-the-hood different from what I’m offering.

That led me to wonder about what was really being offered when you consider the whole package. Here’s a list of questions that I sent my prospective client to ask the other developer:

#1 Will the site include a content management system so that you can add and edit content?
Unless you’re completely confident that your site will be unchanged for months, a CMS is mandatory. There are few things as frustrating as needing to make a small change or add a new page to your site and having to wait for your developer to schedule it into their workflow.

#2 If so, what platform is the content management system? Is it a common one with an active developer community?
Wordpress and Drupal are probably the most common. I don’t like Drupal, because it’s too flexible. Flexibility leads to real use cases being unpredicted during the setup phase and frustrations down the road when you need to pay for modifications to your CMS. WordPress is fairly rigid and predictable, so it’s easily transferrable and less work to set up.

Most important, don’t use a CMS that’s custom built by your developer, because there will be fewer online resources available.

#3 Is it a custom design or being built off of templates?
For $500, I suspect that it’s templates, but the developer should be upfront about it.

#4 How much post-launch support is included?
You’d want at least 30 days included, I would think.

#5 How much content is included?
I’ve spent way to o much money on expensive shells of websites where I’ve been left to add the content before it’s operational. Adding content is the tedious, time-consuming part and it’s ideal if the developer includes at least some of it in the final product so that the site can be launched faster.

#6.1 Will the site be search-engine optimized?If so, how?
#6.2 Will the site be built according to the web standards set out by the W3C?
These last two will test if your developer is familiar with SEO and standards, because it’s two ways of asking the same question. Anything built according to W3C standards will be naturally optimized for Google and SEO. If the developer offers SEO as an extra service, then the site is probably not standards-compliant and additional SEO work will be an unneeded expense.

#7 What browsers are tested and supported?
Again, if the answer to this is only Internet Explorer, then you may have issues in other (better, proper) browsers and the standards-compliance will be suspect. Truth be told, IE is a horrible browser and most current web developers will tell you so.

Minimum browser support should be: IE8, IE7, IE6, Opera, Firefox, Netscape and Safari.

#8 Can you send me samples of your past work?
Make sure that you like what the developer has done in the past. If the site is being built off of templates — as mine are — then it’s less of an issue, but how they have done any modifications should also be considered and examined.

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