ok
this is not rocket science but it sure feels like it sometimes
A web designer makes their money from the initial site design and then by being kept on retainer for updates/alterations/etc.
There are three parts to website creation
- obtaining a domain name which is a fixed price per year (never get yourself a free one with a web-hosting company because your brand could walk if you decide to change hosts - most web-hosts register the domain name in the name of their ceo and charge exit fees to recover what is essentially your trademark)
- obtaining hosting, which is a fixed price per month and should reflect your expected usage - i.e. don't get the cheapest package if you plan on generating mega traffic - get the virtual private server package or better - it will cost more but you are guaranteed that they won't take you down for sudden increase in traffic that you have no control over (most of the cheap packages allow the webhost to shut you down with no warning and no e-mail to tell you why - you discover by accident that you have been out-of-business for several days some time after the fact - read the small print and the fine print and the superfine print before committing)
- the actual design of the site, including graphics, sales channels, content, display and so on.
Your designer may handle all three aspects for you as an agent, but you need to make sure that you own the domain name and that your are the person who is in charge of the hosting plan - i.e.e you get all e-mail related to the management of the account and that you the primary authority on how the account is managed.
I have an outline proposal that demonstrates each aspect of the business model if you are interested.
Fundamentally as a web designer I design the site and do basic site maintenance for the 3 months after going live for an agreed fee that reflects the nature of the maintenance work.
For me there are three types of site maintenance:
- Proprietor errors - content errors that were approved by the site owner but are later found to be incorrect
- Designer errors - content errors and such that are found after the site has gone live
- system errors - internal server errors that can arise for any number of reasons, usually related to database issues and running out of hard drive space
Errors of the first type must be paid for by the proprietor as it is due to their failure to catch the error that leads to the problem.
Errors of the second are automatically fixed at my expense, as I was at fault in some way.
Errors of the third type have to be paid for by the proprietor as it is an error outside the control of the designer.
If a customer wishes to assume responsibility for their own maintenance, I will provide them with basic training for a fee. I will also be available to assist if they run into something that is beyond their skill level (again for a fee), I may even write up the procedure for their use later on.
Please ask more questions