You should have a very sound idea of the features to be included in the website in order to lower the cost of the web site development process. Only the most important ones need a place in the website, so that the expense will come down automatically. But how can you know in advance what to specify? Here are some helpful tips.

Start High Level: At a high level, what will your website need to do? Is it the proverbial online marketing brochure with the electronic equivalent of a product information pamphlet and your business card on it, or is it the internet duplication of your entire business? Here are some general website classifications you may want to start with:

Online business card- Online marketing brochure with contact capabilities- Online shop-Customer relationship management portal- Internal business communication and documentation network (intranet)-  Megastore- Online application- Public service portal-Content portal- Community portal- Search engine- Directory service

Break It Down: As you can imagine the levels of complexity of any of the above will vary substantially, so you then need to break your high-level categorization down. How many rooms in your house are you looking for? This is where you need to be a little bit realistic. You're not, after all, going to be able to have twenty rooms in your economy low-cost housing development, and neither do you want just one bathroom in your high-rise office block Try these common building blocks:

High quality professional layout, graphics, photography and navigation system - New page creation and text and image editing features - Database to store content, product information, application data - Search functionality - Product management tools - Payment facilities - Customer feedback and contact capabilities - Software programming - Email routing - Customer surveys - Site statistics measurement, monitoring and reporting

A good tip here is to find a couple of sites that offer similar capabilities to what you are looking for, and documents the features you like and need. Web design and development quotes will be much more comparable if they are point-for-point for specified requirements.

Contact An Internet Consultant: Just the same as you would speak to an accountant, legal adviser or marketing expert, internet consultants have the qualifications and experience to point out the things you wouldn't even normally think to ask, and help you devise a business strategy around your business' online presence. The internet is a much newer field of expertise than law, accounting, sales and marketing are, but the parallels are the same. Just as you would be advised to seek out the advice of a chartered accountant for your business financial planning, an internet consultant will help you devise a sound strategy first and ultimately save you a small fortune on wasted development even though it may be technically brilliant.