If you are ever pushed into price negotiations, remember that the price should only vary with the service offered. We're not selling 2^nd hand cars here, trying to get the best price we can. Accepting to a do a website way below the odds is bad for both parties.

Content

A hugely important part of the website is obviously the content. Some clients will insist on writing this themselves, whilst others will assume you will be taking care of that. It takes far longer than you'd think, so if you're having to drop the price, consider sliding this job across the table. If it does get slid, get the content before you start work, otherwise you'll find yourself in a position where you have to do it just to get the job done.

Unless you're given word perfect text, remember that there will be changes you'll have to make. Be they typos, or tweaks for SEO, so don't go slashing the estimated project time-length too far. Mention this in discussions.

Images

Whether you're trawling through Flickr or taking photos of premises, this is a job that can also be done (with guidance) by either side. If you are advising about images required, make sure you are very clear on what is required, or again, you'll be left doing this yourself. As with the content, you might want to get these before the job starts — I've had to do this myself (not agreed) just so we could get past the final hurdle.

Whoever ends up doing this, remember there will always be more time than you'd think spent faffing around in Photoshop. Mention this in discussions.

SEO, SEM, SE Whatever

Registering the site Google, Google Maps, Google analytics, Google ads, adding to directories etc etc (huge list, that varies depending on the project) and whatever other third party service is required will take a good chunk of your time. With a few pointers, this is probably something that could also be slid across the table. Remember that you are offering expertise here, so don't undervalue your knowledge of how the web works.

Design Elements

A bigger budget is better for everyone. It gives you more time to think, plan, implement and test. If the budget is being chopped, then all stages need to be trimmed down. If you were considering using some cool jQuery menu that flips upside down and turns into Chinese on mouseover, then consider dropping these type of design complexities for something more basic. The same goes for all your wonderful CSS3. If the budget's basic, keep the design basic. It can still look good, just keep it basic. This could be lovely transparency (and hacking it for IE), nice rounded corners (and hacking it for IE), custom type (with font-face or similar), nice drop shadows (I don't even think IE9 can handle those) etc etc.

Design Iterations

Clearly this is something that YOU should be doing, but the number of design iterations can be limited or lowered if the price is being shifted around. If you tend to present a few designs at the first stage, perhaps this can be chopped to two or a single design.

Design

I prefer not to use web page templates or themes, but one way to really slim down project time might be to go out and buy someone elses. Bear in mind that you get what you pay for!

Payments

Everyone wants their website designed, built and tested by next Thursday. In the past I've been happy to shorten the project time. This has left me up til midnight working, and often the site gets held up halfway, making all your late nights pointless. If the price is being lowered, the time taken has to be lengthened. Their website won't be your top priority if they want to pay over a longer period of time.

Another way payments can be adjusted is to suit you. Ask for more up front, or few payments, or more payments... Whatever will help your cash flow or bank balance. A little reminder that should any payments be late, you'll have to stop work on their site and move onto other work to ensure you have cash coming in should keep everything moving.

Support

Depending on the website, there will be varying levels of after-launch support. This could be programming bugs, or design tweaks, updating content... If you have a standard price for support, consider altering it (in an upwards direction) for websites that are being haggled down. They been given good value for money on the design and build, so you should get good value for money on support.

Why Budge at All?

There are endless blogs saying that we should all say no more, that there are certain red flags that should have you running a mile. When you have work backed up for the next three months, then you won't ever need to do this kind of haggling, but there will be times when you aren't worked off your feet and do actually need the project. Don't get desperate though, stand your ground and just make sure you are offering value for money.

I'm sure I've missed plenty off here. If there are any points you like to change, please leave a comment so we can all learn something!