[Closed] Cost of a simple website?

For a decent agency to build you something bespoke, you could be looking at anywhere from £3k to £30k depending on your specific requirements.

If budget is really tight, you may want to consider an off-the-shelf template site on WordPress.com, Wix or similar.

One thing I can tell you is that "needs to appear on Google" is not something that anyone can guarantee unless you're paying for AdWords advertising. We can follow best practices, create good content and hope that the site bubbles to the top of the rankings for your chosen search terms, but it's never guaranteed and can take time for a newly established site.

How much do you want to pay? Get it built in India, a bit of on faf on skype but doable.

Did mine for free on word press.

Did mine for free on word press.

Can we see it?

I would do a 4 page template driven wordpress site with content supplied for around 700-800.

Seo is another matter as it depends on competition and a whole host of other factors.

Drop us an email OP.

I have a mate who does exactly this for small charities and businesses.
All hosted on Wordpress

It's not a lot - will ask him exactly how much.

I agree with all of the above.

My website is on wordpress and it's free. [url= http://www.finelytunedride.co.uk ]FinelyTunedRide[/url]
lots of theams etc to choose from and ad ons/apps
The hardiest thing is finding time to up it updated etc.

Just have to pay for the domain name, which often includes email address for more professional look, which should not cost more than a £10 a mth.

It's going to depend on who you want to do it.
There are people doing simple Wordpress sites to templates for £300.

Then there are freelancers like myself who would still use Wordpress, but would create a custom theme. That would be around £700-1500 depending on a lot of factors (like who writes the copy, whether there are existing corporate identity elements and photographs that can be used, etc).

Then there are agencies, who are mostly not interested until £2k+ and who will likely want a monthly retainer for maintenance.

£2k? We wouldn't be interested for less than£6k....

My old agency wouldn't have been interested unless there was an annual spend of >50k, but that doesn't mean there aren't lots of web-only agencies that start much lower.

My old agency wouldn't have been interested unless there was an annual spend of >50k,

they've got to be transactional sites for >50k/annum, surely?

Interesting.

I've been approached by someone wanting a 4 page site for their S/E business. Friend and I are looking at doing it for 4-500, based on the fact we're not established at present. Static HTML files rather than CMS etc.

But the business plan I've been toying with is providing small simple sites with SEO, on the basis of that market struggling round here, as everyone wants a bigger commitment.

but is there anything that I need to consider before I go back to the parent charity and tell them that their agency is too expensive

the platform
how nice it will look on different devices
how easy it is to update yourself e.g. is it a nice CMS or do you always need to add testimonials by editing the actual page
Who will keep the site up to date with security updates
How often will content be updated and by whom (google likes fresh content)

If you like the other sites they have done then that is a good clue that they can do their stuff

The things you've got to remember with SEO are,

a) You want to be at the top of the Google ranking for (whatever it is you do). So does everyone else, and they're all paying for the same SEO services. As how good your SEO is there's an obvious problem here; a web dev company tells you they'll put you at the top of Google searches, you think you're the only customer they've said that to? As Dire Straits once sang, "two men think they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong."

b) Google are very well aware of all the 'clever' little hacks and tricks that people used to pull back when the Web was in black and [s]white[/s] grey. Not only will they not work, but you may get actively demoted in search ranks for attempting to artificially manipulate search results.

c) The best way of bumping your search ranking is, in a Catch-22 sort of way, by being popular. And the best way of being popular is by having content that people want to read, fresh dynamic content that people are likely to want to come back to. Is your Testimonials page going to be maintained by someone and kept up to date, or are people going to be coming to your site in 2017 to discover how great people thought you were two years ago? (and if 'yes', who's going to update that? You? Do you need training? Or a content management interface? Or a maintenance contract? £££...)

TL;DR - SEO is snake oil, and a "simple web site" is rarely as simple as you think, unless it's rubbish.

If I were you and wanted to save money for my charity whilst providing an interesting web page I could maintain, I'd sign up to a Wordpress site and learn how to use it.

Oh, and to answer your initial question,

Your "excessive" quote may or may not be excessive depending on the services they're actually offering. If they're banging out their standard template web page, uploading your logo and populating an "insert company name here" field before running for the Bahamas with your money then yes, it's probably excessive.

If they're doing a bespoke scalable cross-platform design levering HTML5 / CSS / JavaScript / AJAX / Flash / some other clever technology de jour, a mobile-friendly version, dynamic images / a gallery of your work, providing you with a maintenance contract for updates, technical support when it goes wrong, web hosting, domain name registration, DNS management, email services, mailback web forms, SQL database for feedback comments, etc etc etc then you might well have landed yourself something of a bargain.

I've been given a price for a new bike, is it excessive? It's only simple, wheel at each end, few gears, needs to look good and get me round a trail centre.

With a bit of know how, you can buy a template for £15 or so and do it yourself. The address costs about £8 and hosting about £25 for first year and £75 for subsequent years.

That's what I did anyway!

Prices vary a lot, mostly depending on who's doing it. Realistically, from my experience, I'd say:

Freelance - £700 / £1500
Small agency - £1000 / £3000
Larger agency - £3000+

That would be a rough ball park. It would be possible to find it cheaper. Especially if you were happy to use a standardised template.

SEO is very much snake oil on the modern web. If your site is built properly, and you have good content, then it will make its own way up the rankings. SEO has its place, but with a small brochure website, you'll likely just be ripped off by anyone who tries to approach you with SEO solutions.

I read a book called 'in bed with Google' that had really helped me with my ranking on my home made site. 3rd on page one! Took awhile but seems to be holding there for the last year or so.

Cougar...

Cross-platform?

Flash?

Are you still in 2005?

Thanks for your replies - they generally confirm my feeling that the quote we have been given is excessive.

The agency has quoted based on using the template they have designed for the parent charity so I assume most of the building blocks are already in place, although we would be using a separate domain name and would probably require separate hosting and maintenance (all of which would be extra). They have quoted just shy of £10k inc VAT.

Just to reiterate this is a small, locally based gardening and garden maintenance enterprise creating employment for people currently excluded from the workplace. The site will provide initial awareness via a Google search and also provide people who hear about the project with a bit of reassurance that the firm is legit, provides a range of services that they are interested in etc - a 4 page version of this site would be a good benchmark http://lingbobgardenservices.co.uk/ - we will provide copy and photos.

Yeah, £10k does sound on the mega side of pricy. As a rough ballpark, we'd probably pitch in at around the £1500-2000 mark to build something similar to your example. That'd be on a wordpress CMS (I.e. Self managed for content updates), UK hosted and a custom built theme based around what you need the site to do.

From there I'd suggest looking at some keyword and competitor research, find out what people that you're looking to sell to are actually typing into Google (have a look at their free Keyword Planner tool, it's a good place to start) and see how your competition are ranking for some of the best phrases. You might be surprised...

A well built site, that's responsive (works smoothly across desktop, tablets, phones) and set up cleanly is worth the investment over MOST outsourced SEO. I say most, because there are still a lot of very good agencies out there, but for a small site like this you'd probably be better looking at AdWords (PPC) to start with; essentially buying some early traffic.

Off the peg themes are ok for a quick fix, and I'm not knocking them - we've used them occasionally in the past when budget really was the leading factor. But, they hit their limitations very quickly as soon as you want something a little bit different. If you can afford it's something purpose built for YOU is most certainly the best long term option.

Bearing in mind there is already a template in place, even with my limited experience I could comfortably do a website of that type in 3-4 hours. That's at least £2,500 an hour - does sound a bit excessive.

If they have a content management system and have already got the templates from work with a parent charity then, frankly, they're taking the piss.

Beyond deployment of another instance of the site they can get the office junior to do the rest of the work as it's just loading text and pictures.

Cougar's SEO advice is exactly what I tell my clients too.
i.e. shortcuts are few and far between. Make your site relevant, interesting and naturally shareable and Google will rank it highly.
It's all about who looks, how long they stay, who links to it, etc, etc.

There are good wordpress plugins that double-check that you use the right keywords in all the right places, but that's only a small part of the puzzle.

Re:10k. If you think it's a lot, then it's a lot. There are many companies who would budget this for a website and many agencies who will charge it. They probably do a good job, will still be around in a few years and deliver when they say they will.
100 hours at £100/h does still sound like a lot though.

However, a good freelancer (or even a small agency) will do the same for <2k if you can find one (by recommendation is probably safest).

Don't expect the new company to be able to access the current agencies template though. So it might be starting from scratch.

Cross-platform?

Flash?

Are you still in 2005?

Eh, they were just random examples. Point still stands though, a "simple" website isn't necessarily all that simple.

Far as I'm concerned, the sooner Flash dies the better.

Op that link you provided would take a day (if that) to produce. Taking the piss With 10k. Obviously they're busy, don't need the work but fancy a holiday.

To put it into context of a recent experience for us - we charged £14k for a website and they subsequently wanted a satellite site promoting a particular sub-product. The price we quoted allowed for using the existing site *design* where possible but adapting it to the user requirements of the new site which were substantially different so further functionality had to be allowed for. We quoted £6k for the new site but in all honesty, it will probably take us more than £6k of billable time to complete, but the benchmark was set with the original project fee (which we quoted for competitively in a pitch situation).

The client still felt that £6k was a lot of money as they assumed we were just re-using stuff we already had but upon undertaking the first investigation meeting they soon realised that the additional functionality comprised a significant amount of work.

And Cougar, chill out, I was just pulling you up on (what you know to be the case) using Flash as an example in 2015.

£500

They have quoted just shy of £10k inc VAT

I'd guess they're quoting on more than what you've asked for. No one in their right mind would charge 10k for what you're describing. But then that's easy to say from a short description on a forum....lots of clients say they want something REALLY simple. Just a few pages. Then when it's finished... "Why doesn't it have a shop..?" or "Can we have a booking system on it?" ... "It'll only take a few minutes to [insert request here], won't it?"

If you genuinely just want a few simple pages, I'd go back and ask if they're taking the piss.

Hiya. Shameless attempt to plug website. ( it is for charity though)

I did this

www.garethbridgewater.wordpress.com

For free a week ago. I'm not really into computers and can hopefully improve it soon.
Not too bad for a first attempt.

Sorry to hijack x