Hi there,

Instead of looking at what other museums of a similar budget were able
to put together, I'd look at how much your museum is willing to spend
on a good website design.

First off, unless you have your own servers and domain name, that will
run you about $8-$30/month for server space and another $5-$10/year
for domain name registration. I highly recommend getting the .net,
.org, and .com versions of your site as less than savory people have
been known to register the .com and .net versions of a name and put up
porn or spam sites. (The classic example is www.whitehouse.org and
www.whitehouse.com. The REAL White House site is www.whitehouse.gov)

A local ISP might donate server space for your website. It doesn't
cost that much to them and it's a tax write-off to boot. You'll still
need to pay a domain name company for your domain name tho'.

Website design will run you from $25-$75/hour, depending on what you
want done. A simple site should take a good web designer about 5-10
hours if you keep the graphics simple and submit all your text into a
format that can be easily cut and pasted. (RTF file v. a Word doc)

So for $500 or so, you can get a nice website that is easy to
maintain. Avoid frames, lots of custom graphics, and keep the site to
just text and pictures. Unless you have thousands of extra dollars,
that should be all that you need.

One caveat - ALWAYS go with a professional web designer. Volunteers
are fine IF they have professional web design experience. There's a
lot of people out there that SAY they can do web design but are
self-taught and don't know the first thing about design,
functionality, and accessibility. Look at other sites potential web
designers have done and talk to them about their experience. A good
web designer won't try and talk you into expensive extras and be
honest about what they can and can't do within your budget. You might
even find someone to do it for you pro bono if you just want a few
pages on your site.

Good luck!!

Deb

On Wed, 16 Mar 2005 11:58:16 -0500, Simons, Michael A. (Contr)
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I am trying to convince my board of the need for a better web presence.  I'd like to see what regional museums in the $100,000-500,000 operating budget range were able to put together.  I am more interested in museums that could not rely on local goverments for assistance.
> 
> Mike

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