Important Elements Of A Web Design Contract	Visited: 1151 Not rated Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
by Kabir Bedi April 30, 2009

Contracts are an crucial part of any web design project. Be it a small start up company or an established firm, contracts are an essential element that defines and documents the core features of a project. Efficient web design contracts include a list of regulations that would further define the contract and list milestones for the same. Here are some important elements that you should include in the same.

Authorization
The contract should open up with an authorization statement that declares that the client is contracting with you to provide a service i.e. the client is authorizing you to perform services on their work processes on their behalf. . You may have to access their hosting account and disk space, create and maintain databases or applications or even optimize projects with respect to search engines.

Sole Agreement
This is the point that declares that the work that will be performed will strictly adhere to the time and limitations specified in the contract. If the work needs to be extended for more time or more work needs to be done on the same project, it would need a new contract. You can also list the time limit for the specified prices. For example, the said prices are only valid till 2010.

Confidentiality
The confidentiality of business information exchanged between the client and the service provider should be a key point of concern. Both the parties, the client and the service provider should agree to keep the information secure and not disclose it to any third party.

Project Design Specifications
This point would list and also describe in detail all the services that the service provider is paid to perform. This should be in line of the proposal document that is send my the service provider to the client and should describe in length the nature of services that would be delivered by the service provider. In a web design project contract, you should include all the details about coding, design, SEO strategy, CMS and so on.

Content
Also list the content provision details. Will you be providing the content for the website? Or will you hire an outside copywriter to do the same? Content of the website includes the text as well as the images on the website. Based on this, you can add on a specific price for the same.

Project Assignment
This points imparts information to the client that your have the right to hire subcontractors to complete the task in addition to your regular employees. Include this point only if you know you would need external resources and make sure your convince the client about the confidentiality issues.

Web Hosting
Clarify all the hosting concerns within this point. Do you wish to host the website yourself or do you want to outsource it to a third party hosting service provider? These points are best cleared off in the contract in order to avoid any issues in the future. Also, clarify points of backups.

Domain Name Registration
State the ownership rights of the domain and who will own the website. Also, make it clear to the client that they need to be responsible for renewing the website domains on time.