decent price for website

[joel29m]

where to go to build a decent site? have anyone tried vistaprint websites?

[robstandard]

Joel,

In my experience I've not been impressed with Vista Print websites, you definitely get what you pay for. I'd contact a local web design company and say you want a simple site created in word press for you. If they use a template it should cost around $3,000. Definitely not chump change but a website is one of the most worthwhile investments you can make in my opinion.

[tonygreek]

Re: Vista Print sites, you're effectively paying for an online brochure and nothing more. Getting your site found by means other than seeing it on your flyer/ad/truck/sign/biz cards means being found on the search engines, and I don't see any of the large, inexpensive companies (and even some pricey ones) do this real work for you. I tell people that the actual web site design/build accounts for a fraction of the project. Once the site goes live, getting it found is the real effort.

[robstandard]

I agree with Tony on all accounts. Wordpress comes decently optimized for SEO out of the box and offers a lot of free SEO plug ins (SEO = search engine optimization, getting found online).

The web design company you contact to build your site might also offer SEO services.

[tonygreek]

Originally Posted by robstandard

I'd contact a local web design company and say you want a simple site created in word press for you. If they use a template it should cost around $3,000.

A template-based site, for you typical LCO, should cost around $3,000?

I do this for a living and, unless I was bidding high so as not to win the project, that number is ridiculously high, and that's if I build 100% custom.

-

[greg8872]

Agreed, $3000.00 for just a wordpress site, even where I used to work which was way expensive, that buys you 2-1/2 days of full time work, more than enough time for a Wordpress website to be made unless you are having a ton of custom programming added to it. Companies that deal with making a wordpress site will have things ready to go other than the actual design (and if they don't then they are not experienced enough to charge a higher rate IMO).

That being said, more back to the original question of where to go to build a site... Coming from a web developer standpoint, this would need to be defined more. For me building a site is everything from scratch. However since you mentioned VistaPrint, while I have never seen what their system offers as far as how you build the site, I'm assuming you mean for a site where you pick a base template and add content.

There are going to be many places out there for things like that (I'm actually building that type of system for a client right now). Read though some of the suggestions on reviews here for other sites, mainly about features lacking on them for SEO purposes, then compare those type of features with where you go.

Some important notes:

- Do NOT go for price alone. Think of a potential client saying he found someone cheaper, different industries, but the core of the reasons you would give would be the same (more experience, doing things right from the beginning, doing it with "big picture" in mind, not the base task)

- Do NOT go with "simplest to use". Now don't get me wrong, there are a few exceptions where they are simple to use AND good, but many times the simpler ones will be lacking somewhere, getting you stuck down a road that you have to completely rebuild to leave. While a little more involved system may seem too much at first, that learning curve may prove to be worth it in the end for site performance.

- Take the time to go through many example sites, try looking for more than what they show you in portfolio. (hint, look in the footer for same branding text on their sites, and then in google, search for that text (wrap it in quotes so it does an exact match search).

- Once you have some sites run them through a validator (http://validator.w3.org/ ) Now, depending on how much range of editing the site there is, keep in mind that the client could have caused it to not validate, but if you see what looks like same errors across most of the sites you check, probably base issue.

When in doubt, you can ask here about a particular one (ie, the comment on vista print's site were good)

Good luck on this, when it seems like it is taking too much time, remember your site may be the first impression for new customers, and will be working for you 24x7 to let people know about you. (if it can be found). It is worth investing time and money into.

-Greg

[Cedar Lawn Care]

There is always the option of building it on your own. You could learn a lot, and save 3k. If you're not super busy in the winter months it might be an interesting project. My site isn't very exciting, but I built it, not knowing anything about web design in about 3 days in my spare time. Just an idea.

[HPI_Savage25]

Websites aren't that hard really. If someone already has information I wouldn't mind helping them out to get one up and going. If you are interested send me a PM
Posted via Mobile Device

[mdvaden]

Originally Posted by tonygreek

A template-based site, for you typical LCO, should cost around $3,000?

I do this for a living and, unless I was bidding high so as not to win the project, that number is ridiculously high, and that's if I build 100% custom.

-

My son does sites too, and the $3000 sounded pretty steep when I first read it. Not steep for a more advanced intricate site. But for most lawn services starting out, they may really need not much more than 3 to 5 pages to start with:

1. Home

2. About

3. Services

4. Contact

5. Album optional

Probably wouldn't hurt for more new small companies to try out a site for several months and then have more built once they get feedback and think about it for a while.

...

[tonygreek]

Originally Posted by mdvaden

My son does sites too, and the $3000 sounded pretty steep when I first read it. Not steep for a more advanced intricate site.

The $3,000 price is very steep when, as he pointed out, it was for a Wordpress site using a canned template. Of course it's not steep for an advanced site. At one time, $4mm was not steep for an advanced site.