In the industry of web design services, the biggest practice you need to follow before approaching a new client is never to begin a new project without a web design proposal.

Proposals are a way of keeping everybody on the same page. It’s a key document that introduces yourself, highlights your services, outlines your costs, and helps your client understand you are the right person for the web design job.

So, to ensure your web designing business remains competitive and effective, you need to craft a web design proposal that is well organized, concise, and contains all the relevant details the prospect needs.

In this article, I’m going to tell you what info you should include in your web design proposal.

Get Started on the Right Foot

You must do a good amount of research before you even sit down to draft your proposal. It is very essential to understand the client’s needs or problems from their perceptive. When you know about your client’s expectations you’ll be able to create a much more accurate and detailed proposal.

Use the following questions to get to know your client’s business after setting up a meet with your client on the phone or in person,

• Why does your client need a website? (why do they want to change the one that they already have?)
• What do they expect from the new website?
• In what way are they expecting the new site to affect their business?
• Do they expect to interact with the customers through their website? If yes then how?
• Who are your top 3 competitors?
• What makes you different from competitors?

Anatomy of a Web Design Proposal

While all the website proposals differ to a certain extent, but generally the basic components of a gripping web design proposal remain the same. Below are some of the key components of a winning web design proposal that you must include in yours,

Cover Letter

Those who ignore the value of cover letter while pitching their web design proposal, they miss out on the great opportunity to create a quick connection with the prospect. Because the cover letter is your real first point of contact with the prospect.

The goal of this section is to grab the client’s attention instantly by showing them how well you understand their business, their challenges, and their needs, and make them feel assured you are one with whom they’ll feel most comfortable working.

Recommended Solution

After outlining the challenges or the problems, you’ll need to recommend a solution. The rough outline or the sketch of your solution should clearly explain how your design services will address the issue of your client. This section should also layout the entire process that you’ll follow so they will know what to expect.

This is how a typical web design process looks like,

• Discovery Phase:This includes a variety of analysis methods to understand what client’s business and customers need.
• Content and SEO: This should include content creation, SEO audit, SEO strategy creation, and more.
• Creative and User Interface (UI):Explain how do you plan to create a visual “look and feel” of the website.
• Website Development:This should explain the technical part of the build, the terminology, and the tools you’ll use to build the slick and super speedy website for your client.
• Website Maintainance:This should outline your support and maintenance plan.
• Website Evaluation and Improvement: Explain how often will you be reviewing the website and make the necessary improvements after the launch.

Schedule and Deliverables

This section will explain how your workflow will operate within a timeframe. Break down all the key steps and the timeline fr your client. Providing an accurate timeline with deliverables allows you to set the client’s expectations early.

To go beyond the standard timeline, you can also include a separate client-side dependency timeline that outlines what you’ll need from the client’s side and when. This will show the client that you have a very in-depth understanding of your work. And plus outlining the client’s deliverables will also make them aware of what you will need from them and can make them put things in place from the beginning.

Cost and Budget

If you have been successful in the first three steps, your prospect is already sold on your Web design services by the time he reaches this point. But it’s not over yet; as now comes the biggest part… pricing up your services. Yep, that’s right it is one of the most important and stressful parts of the proposal.

This is where things get a little challenging because you don’t want to scare them away with your pricing. And if you go wrong in presenting the price you may lose your prospect forever.

The key to getting your “pricing section” right is by using an interactive pricing table. Such interactive price tables offer a variety of pricing options where your prospects can change the quantity, choose web design services that best fit their needs. In short, they can create a customized version of your web design services for them.

Testimonial or Case Study

Case studies: Love them or hate them but it still remains a critical part of your sales proposal.  A case study is something that can help set you apart from the competition by explaining the value you can offer with your services.

It is one of the brilliant ways to promote your business. Because people love reading stories about other people and when you tell them how you’ve helped your previous clients solve a problem, they tend to quickly relate to it because they’ve got the same problems.

A great case study in your web design proposal gives prospective clients a real insight into the benefits of your web design services and also an idea of what it’s like to work with you.

Terms and Conditions

Always keep the contract and your terms and conditions part of your proposal and get them signed together to avoid future conflict.

Call to Action

This is a very important element in your sales proposal. Here you must let your prospect know what is required to be done to get the things rolling. You can include something like,

• Sign the proposal (with e-signature)
• The initial amount to be payable while signing the contract.
• Schedule a next meeting call to discuss further steps.

Final Thoughts

With all this mind you should be able to create your web design proposal. And if you are still feeling it a bit challenging for designing and formatting a sales proposal, then you can always use our customizable and free web design proposal template to create a winning proposal in a matter of minutes.

Read more: Why is it good to use proposal templates?