[Closed] Website - am I being ripped off ?

Different companies will provide a different service. Some will just stick the text and images into a stock template, color it in and hand it over. Others will look to see how they can help you build an online presence that helps you reach particular goals with your business.

It depends what you are looking for to how much you want to pay. Is your online presence essential to your business, will it become a primary way of communicating with your customers and business partners? If so, you need to do it properly...

Rachel

oxforddan - what do you do for a living?

+1

Our minimum charge for a site is around £5k.

It depends what kind of a website you want. If you just want a brochureware "here we are" site with maybe a contact then £500 is reasonable.

If you want a business application then £5,000 is chump change.

Err on the side of the £5000 ones.

I wanted a bespoke kitchen made but the guy wanted to charge me a small fortune. I don't get it, all he is doing is cutting some bits of wood and sticking them together again.

Thanks rachel. It is very important to my business to have a good online presence so what should I be asking for in the website build? What should a 5k website do that a £500 one does not do? cheers

I'm surprised that folks are advising that 5k is the way forward, no really, I am.
OP, talk to the ones that you like the look of their work. Ask them how much it costs and what they offer. Decide if you want to pay them.

[quote=oxforddan ]Thanks rachel. It is very important to my business to have a good online presence so what should I be asking for in the website build? What should a 5k website do that a £500 one does not do? cheers

Dan, you have it the wrong way round. What do you want your website to do? Based on that, you can get an idea of what it will cost.

It's worth really getting back to basics and working out *why* you want a website and what you expect it to achieve. Don't worry about content just yet.

You need to work out who you expect to visit the site, what is their background/abilities/expectations what you expect them to do and what they are going to get out of it.

What messages do you want them to take away about your business? What is the "call to action" you want to make? How will you enable them to do what you want them to do?

I would expect a £5000 company to be helping you to answer these questions. THAT's what you are paying for over just a template with some nice pictures in it.

Does that help?

Rachel

Hand made kitchens and furniture. Obviously a very competitive market so will need the site to display our products and generate enquiries. I need it to rank well in local search results and maybe have an online quote system where people can pick and choose units, work surface etc and get a ball park figure.

To be honest, if you don't understand the business benefit of investing in your website heavily, then spending £5k on one probably isn't the best idea.

As I am supplying the images and text, what exactly am I paying for?

You haven't really given any details. I need someone to build me a house. How much? 🙂

Content, design, photo selection/cropping optimisation, structure, layout, form processing, browser/device compatibility, SEO smoke n mirrors - that sort of thing.

MIght you be able to find some websites you like in your field and find out who designed them then carry on as usual with references and quotes and so on.

I'm surprised that folks are advising that 5k is the way forward, no really, I am.
OP, talk to the ones that you like the look of their work. Ask them how much it costs and what they offer. Decide if you want to pay them.

Putting it in the kitchen scenario, the customer needs to know what he wants, what appliances he needs, know budgets for taps, worktops etc - I could go on but I'm on a phone and can't be bothered 😉

[url= http://www.1and1.co.uk/ ]1 and 1 website advertise on TV looks fine to me if your start up cost is low.[/url]

Basically, you use their template but then you are kind of in control ... price seems reasonable so long as you don't keep adding extra features you do not want.

Putting it in the kitchen scenario, the customer needs to know what he wants, what appliances he needs, know budgets for taps, worktops etc - I could go on but I'm on a phone and can't be bothered

It's a minefield to be honest. Price isn't always an indication of quality.

My advice would be to proceed carefully and do your research.

As the the others say, you need to start by deciding what you actually need. A website is not just a website. A website can be very simple, or it can be a very complex piece of software.

Edit: giving some the stuff you're asking for, it could potentially be bloody expensive. If that's any help. But without exact details we can only be vague. 5k Doesn't sound unreasonable at all.

Thanks rachel. It is very important to my business to have a good online presence

Good online presence doing what? What kind of functionality do you require?

Kind of, like, seeing a mate's kitchen and saying that you like it, asking how much it costs, finding out who supplied/installed it then making a decision to do further investigation on the finer details, you mean?

Then the fitter who copied your mate's kitchen and doing it cheap hadn't bothered to check that you had gas fitted, that the walls actually needed insulating before wall units were put up, chucked the sink in the same place even though it isn't below a window in your kitchen, didn't bother to ask whether you wanted in built in coffee machine even though you hate the stuff and then you end up with a great copy but not actually what you need.

Is that what you mean?

Is that what you mean?

Thanks , some useful info to consider.

John, I wanted a system like john lewis has on theirs, nothing to fancy just a rough guide price

David +1

Just trying to make a point. Pay peanuts for a kitchen and you get what you have paid for.

Same with a website and the majority of things you spend money on.

But buying a website on looks could be a huge waste of money. Like buying a car because you like the colour before finding out if it does what you want, have the extras you need, uses the right fuel, handles as you like.

John, I wanted a system like john lewis has on theirs, nothing to fancy just a rough guide price

[quote=oxforddan ]Thanks , some useful info to consider.
John, I wanted a system like john lewis has on theirs, nothing to fancy just a rough guide price
Do you think John Lewis paid nearer £500 or £5,000?

Do you think John Lewis paid nearer £500 or £5,000?

Needs more zeros.

Which was the point he was making I think...

I want that Smallbone of Devizes kitchen with Neff appliances OP. That's easy isn't it? £500 should cover it, don't you think?

But buying a website on looks could be a huge waste of money. Like buying a car because you like the colour before finding out if it does what you want, have the extras you need, uses the right fuel, handles as you like.

Mind you I did see a lovely Black Porsche yesterday. Do you think it'll be a dog?

Which was the point he was making I think...

I know. I was just reinfor....oh never mind.

have an online quote system where people can pick and choose units, work surface etc and get a ball park figure.

You'll get cheaper quotes if you leave this out.

Which, of course, would be a ridiculous thing to do. I'm sure a normal person would at least have a play on the site to see how it all feels and drives, kind of like a test drive of a car.

To put this in context; a client of mine requested a "simple static site"; just 4 or 5 pages - he supplied content/images - that was cheap.

He's now decided that he'd like to update various bits of the site on an ad-hoc basis to reflect the changing nature of the products he offers and allow people to order things online. To facilitate this we've moved across to a CMS system that takes the risk out of letting him edit his own pages - and the total cost reflects the massive increase in complexity..

Dan - you are in Oxford? There's a company I know there - Torchbox. I would trust their judgement on what they think will help your business. Have a word with them.

Rachel

llama - Member
have an online quote system where people can pick and choose units, work surface etc and get a ball park figure.
You'll get cheaper quotes if you leave this out.
POSTED 1 MINUTE AGO # REPORT-POST

There you go - some free advice. Would your £500 'churn 'em out' monkey give you that?

😉

@johndoe - or he may not have any idea what it actually costs to build a truly bespoke site. I don't know anyway that could quote £500 for a website that included even a simple quoting engine.

Very true - £500 wouldn't even cover writing the specification for the function...

Rachel has it 100% right. I've seen websites where people have just asked for a website and paid GBP 500 and they got a website but not really what they wanted. The more time you spend specifying what you want the more likely you are to get something that you want. There are some other things that you might want to specify that you may not have though of:

1. Do you want it to only work on a PC, a tablet, a phone?
2. Do you want to be able to update content yourself or will you always ask the developers
3. How fast do you want the site to be? Which visitors are those for? If it is only local people you may not want the site hosted in the US
4. How many people do you want updating the site? Just yourself, colleagues as well?
5. Who is going to maintain the site? Most 'systems' require security updates to avoid being hacked into. Remember that people don't hack in to see your secrets - they hack in to compromise your visitors computers. You need this in the service contract
6. What is the rework cost? It is not unusual to have a low upfront cost and then rip you on rework. Discuss it up front.

500 is way to cheap and it may not be as much as 5000 but it will be getting up there.

Also, and very importantly, having a good site doesn't mean you will rank well but it will help. If spending money on a good site got you first page google then everyone would do it. Getting seen will also be up to you getting links in from people who you have done work for, getting reviews (maybe you need a reviews section but that is risky), photos are always good. You need to ask your supplier what [i]you[/i] need to be doing to get your ranking up

Exactly, a quoting thing like that will take min 1 day to code, and 1 day to test. That's after you spend a day deciding exactly what you want and explaining it to them.

Coders and testers are 400 a day (edit: for good ones, not counting profit)

Exactly, a quoting thing like that will take min 1 day to code, and 1 day to test. That's after you spend a day deciding exactly what you want and explaining it to them.

Just crack on and build it yourself. No harder than fixin a bike, and plenty on here would have you belive that can be done by a monkey.

Seriously a simple site done using WordPress or joomla could cost you nowt but a bit of time. A bit of reading about SEO should get you up in google.

It would also give you a bit of knowledge so you can understand the difference between a $500, $5k or even $50k website.

In my experience web and software companies can be some of the worst for promising the earth and producing a steaming heap of smelly stuff that helps ruin a business.

And how would the app show the customer what they are speccing? It would have to be very visual (ie, you could just ask them to tick a box next to a description of 'mid-oak worktop in natural finish' - they would want to see pictures. They won't know what a 500mm corner larder unit is not if it would fit in their kitchen.

£5k won't come close to getting you a web app to do that.

You would be better off spending £5k on some professional pictures.

Any idiot can make a website look good, it's making it visible that appears to be the tricky part.

No point paying a lot of cash for a website that nobody knows about.

So, to return to just about the first question you were asked - why do you NEED a website? Other forms of advertisement are available and probably more cost effective.

Yeah, and we can all fit kitchens. They just won't actually be as good as the ones the OP fits...

oxforddan - Member

Hand made kitchens and furniture. Obviously a very competitive market so will need the site to display our products and generate enquiries. I need it to rank well in local search results and maybe have an online quote system where people can pick and choose units, work surface etc and get a ball park figure.

OKay missed that in my previous reply.

Errmm ... might be a bit expensive but have a look at website that sell customised computer components. Theirs are a bit like mixed and match the components you want while fitting your budget as you choose.

🙂

Other forms of advertisement are available and probably more cost effective.

Yep. If this is the first time you have had a website up virtually no-one will just pop by to see what you have unless they are doing a very specific search. At least to start off with you will need to complement it with some online advertising such as Google AdWords. Facebook isn't bad either. A website by itself won't really add much (yet)

but you do need to do it in the end unfortunately, even if it is only for people who already know who you are to see more pictures

So what form of advertising then?

So what form of advertising then?

Google AdWords works pretty well but not cheap and you have to work at it to get visitors who buy rather than just visitors. It's not just fit and forget as you're always paying for it. You have to pay attention to why people are visiting and then make sure at a minimum they land on a relevant page that will make them read and do something

edit - to give the OP an idea, I work for a small non profit and I would say that the bulk of paying visitors actually come directly from offline campaigns, next up is Google AdWords which is significant and bringing up the rear is facebook (for the moment)

But if he's not got a website? I thought the argument was to spend money on advertising rather than a website...

I'm not sure you have a choice nowadays. At a minimum you need an online presence but if you imagine that the purpose is to bring in extra business by itself then you are wrong. You need extra spending on advertising to do that

If the purpose is only to complement offline stuff then you may do the site differently

Is the online quote function really worth spending money on? I am currently in the market for a new kitchen and if I came across a website which offered quotes or 'ball park figures', I wouldn't really bother - there's no way you'd get an idea of cost that was meaningful IMO. Plus, think of all the money you'd have to spend updating the data that provides those figures.

But if he's not got a website? I thought the argument was to spend money on advertising rather than a website...

I would also ask about the infrastructure on which the website guys plan on hosting the site; do you need load balancers, redundant hosts, PCI compliance? How does it plug into payment gateways? What are the hardware SLAs? Is your bandwidth burstable? How much does it cost? Who handles your DNS? Is it multicast? Who pays if you get slashdotted? if they can't answer these questions I would walk away.

allthegear - Member
Different companies will provide a different service. Some will just stick the text and images into a stock template, color it in and hand it over. Others will look to see how they can help you build an online presence that helps you reach particular goals with your business.

Thats the answer right there. You need to work out what the site is for.

If I were looking at a kitchen site the last thing I'd want is to be choosing units from drop downs. I imagine that would be a bit tedious and people would leave your website.

Building the site is just the start, you need to get people to see it which is where the work starts. Then you've got about 10 to 20 seconds to get people interested or they're ooot.

I think the variance in price can also be answered by how much they factor in for the lifetime support type calls.

I think the variance in price can also be answered by how much they factor in for the lifetime support type calls.

Pay once, own your soul. Recently had a really aggressive call from a client because their Twitter feed had stopped working. We explained that Twitter had changed things and stopped allowing free access to feeds and that it had only just changed. When we said we could fix it in an hour and charge for it all hell broke loose - they seemed to think that by buying once, they should have lifetime support (they chose not to take up a support contract).

We asked them what happens if someone buys a car from them and it breaks down once it is out of warranty...

If you have text an content ready and you've chosen a web address nothing stopping you putting together a small site yourself using somebody like 1&1. you can then register your site with google, DMOZ, yahoo, bing etc. It's good to make sure you're on their maps/local page. A Facebook page is really handy for a bit of "word of mouth".

Having a basic site hosted is inexpensive and gives you some professional e-mail adresses to use.

That's the very basics of what you might need, but should be much cheaper than going with the pros. You need to think outside the box if you're going to shine in the search rankings if you're playing against the big boys.

Bear in mind even companies the size Ikea struggle to build and maintain a useable design and quoting system. not everyone has time to play kitchen designer online - isn't that your job?

When my folks took over their business the it took me a good while to wrestle control of the site out of the hands of their old webmasters, I thought the charges were ludicrous for what we were getting, especially when I looked at the quality of promotion provided.

Bespoke (high end) furniture makers need seamless websites that really swoon people into believing they are paying for something very special indeed.

Have you seen [url=www.clive.com]Clive.com[/url]?

Makes me want a hand crafted, gold-leaf, family-emblem en-crested dining chair, and i don't even have a family emblem!

I'll bet that website cost more than 5000 though.