When?

The answer to the question “When can I get my site up ‘n running?” lies in the need for content, resources and time. So the first determinate is you… yes, you… reading this.

If you’re actively looking for a website, then it’s likely that you have the very first ingredient all sites require… content.

 
The “When?” of this question is also closely connected to your other question… “How much will it cost?” …or did you ask this question first? Either way these questions are inextricably linked.

Pricing a website is not easy and a site can truly cost almost anything, depending on what it’s intended to do.

As with all things in life…

• • “time is money“
• • “resources come at a cost“

To address the second element, “resources come at a cost“, while WordPress is indeed free, the following requirements for any website have both a purchase cost and a subscription.

NB. Subscriptions are renewable and go on to become annual costs associated with maintaining your website.

Cost and time are two sides of the same coin, given the only sane way to budget a project is with reference to the time it’s expected to take, multiplied by an (explicit or implied) hourly rate.

And allocating firm numbers is a hugely imperfect best-guess – but they’re the closest we can get, and can all grow or shrink wildly based on dozens of variables that are impossible to predict.

But in any and every site there’s Common Tasks – a list of commonly performed activities in every site, which drive a minimum time requirement. Often simple, most tasks can grow unpredictably in complexity if something unusual crops up.

• • Obtain the domain name (where required)
• • Purchase hosting and prepare it for a WordPress install (set up username and password, FTP credentials, etc.) (where required)
• • Troubleshoot a hosting/registrar/backend problem (improperly set memory limits, bad .htaccess rules, wrong DNS, etc.)
• • Install WordPress on a given hosting account (including database creation) (where required)
• • Update WordPress and all plugins, test to make sure nothing’s broken
• • Install a plugin/solve a problem that revolves around a plugin install (e.g. Akismet for comment spam)
• • Use a plugin’s interface to create what it’s designed to create (a contact form, a social button bar, etc.)
• • Migrate a previous site (where required)
• • Set up a domain-specific email account or onward email forward
• • Change a post’s contents, rearrange the site nav menu, etc.
• • Site administration, add a user, etc.
• • Any individual CSS changes (change the color of an object, change a font, re-position an object, give it a shadow)
• • Create any accounts in other systems, applications or websites, e.g. Twitter or Facebook (where required)
• • Then add anything else which could crop up, stalling and delaying progress, or is made a new requirement in the project

The Shortest Possible Development Cycle is the smallest amount of active development work that is feasible to set up a WordPress site that could potentially be used.

Projects can feel like they’re “almost done” for much of their actual duration. This is because the transition from “building the project” to “putting it live for the world to see” reveals a lot of details and complexities that may not come up beforehand. For example, client testing & feedback, bug-fixes & improvements not in original spec, late troubleshooting, add-on features, the list can seem endless.

These estimates contain only development work and no overhead (initial consultations, planning, estimates, feedback, invoicing, etc.). As such, they basically break down into items from the list above, such as “choose hosting and install WordPress on the hosting” plus some amount of more idiosyncratic work to make the whole thing usable (like fiddling with the homepage layout).

“Overhead”, as defined here, is time worked on a project that is not actual development work – that is, tasks that don’t involve working directly with the technologies used to build websites. Overhead could be either non-billable (e.g. an initial phone consultation), or billable (involving some form of work or activity).

The information presented here is intended to inform rather than deter further interest, and to explain where cost/time is required in creating/advancing your website. So we trust this has helped to inform you about what goes on “behind the curtain” when building a website.

To recap and answer the questions as best as is possible, “When can I get my site up ‘n running?” and/or “How much will it cost?“, the answer to both questions lies in the need for content, resources and time.