Building a website on a budget - your answers & advice

[Vestor]

I'd charge £250 just on securing a site nowadays (depding on size / type).
SEO £200

custom build and design can range from £50 - 5000 depends what your building - I specilise in webshops as theres a lot of good automated cart systems but graphics and altering the code taes a lot of work. You have to alter the code else its too vunerable and your are bound to want to customise it that means rebuilding style sheet debugging and all sorts.

The other thing I do is tutoring - its essential - I can SEO and secure you but without the tutoring that can be lost so easily. It really is a vast vast subject. What I do is give people a 15 consultation or free e-mail and 9 out of 10 jobs i have to no to because their business plan is fundamentally flawed. Thats just the sad truth and I'm not gonna help someone build a failure.


Peoples biggest fll down is often home security as well - you can't go running a business of a standard cheap broadban connection - its like shouting in the street and someone will rob you blind of your idea/suppliers etc straight away.

 

[Poppet2]

I attended The Business Show at Excel last week. The Internet Business School was offering a one day course to set your website up live and running by the end of the one day course for £149.00 + VAT.
What do you reckon, good deal or not? They use WordPress.

 

[Deleted member 162294]

I attended The Business Show at Excel last week. The Internet Business School was offering a one day course to set your website up live and running by the end of the one day course for £149.00 + VAT.
What do you reckon, good deal or not? They use WordPress.

I don't think so. Whatever information they can cram in to you within 8-10 hours won't be enough to produce a quality website. Tweaking WordPress will only get you so far. If all you need is a simple online presence then there are already plenty of free WordPress tutorials you can find.

 

[caktyk]

Hi All,

As a newbie here, I want to tell my experience with some of my clients. I'm a seller on fiverr and targeting internet marketer as my customers on graphic design. Some of them utilize us as cheap resources but with a guarantee result to satisfy their requirements.

Commonly less than $100 needed to build a website from this kind of resources.

Just in my humble opinion!

Regards,
Tikno

 

[albertbarry]

I don't agree with you when you say "renting" sites can be more expensive on the long run. You forget all the assistance, statistics, apps, and all the services you get with them.
I think some of them helps you at least as well as a good employee would help.
I think it's probably the best option.

Otherwise companies and associations like Tata Group, General Electric and Amnesty International wouldn't use Shopify: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify

 

[ShaunL]

When I bought my hosting and domain name, there was some software that came with it that you could install and use, carts, wordpress, forums etc.

One of the software products was called Joomla. I've used this before and its pretty simple when you start using it + it's free. There are loads of free and commercial templates around swell but I bought a program for it called template creator which lets me create whatever I want and it's also easy to use. This was about £25.

When I want an awesome website, I'll want the money at the time to spend on it, as the ones you can get for around £500 as just mediocre.

 

[simpson7647]

I'd charge £250 just on securing a site nowadays (depding on size / type).
SEO £200

custom build and design can range from £50 - 5000 depends what your building - I specilise in webshops as theres a lot of good automated cart systems but graphics and altering the code taes a lot of work. You have to alter the code else its too vunerable and your are bound to want to customise it that means rebuilding style sheet debugging and all sorts.

The other thing I do is tutoring - its essential - I can SEO and secure you but without the tutoring that can be lost so easily. It really is a vast vast subject. What I do is give people a 15 consultation or free e-mail and 9 out of 10 jobs i have to no to because their business plan is fundamentally flawed. Thats just the sad truth and I'm not gonna help someone build a failure.


Peoples biggest fll down is often home security as well - you can't go running a business of a standard cheap broadban connection - its like shouting in the street and someone will rob you blind of your idea/suppliers etc straight away.

Please explain this please as I'm interested in what you mean? What do you mean about not running a business from a broadband connection?

Thanks,

 

[Alan]

I have never heard that a home broadband service is less or more secure than a business broadband service.

Maybe there is a difference, but I have never seen it in their marketing, which focusses on support and no 'throttling' (which is common on many, but not all, home bb services).

 

[simpson7647]

okay, Thank you

 

[ani_124]

One of my friend has recently started his eCommerce business and he got his initial website through a company run by professionals who specialize in helping start-ups. It was done at a very reasonable cost and time. The biggest advantage was they were very flexible in terms of future changes and ongoing support for the website.

If someone needs a service then send me a message and i can point you to a contact.

PS :- I can just help you to get in touch with the service provider and no more.

 

[joinuniverse]

If you want a great website easy to manage, SEO-friendly and strongly appealing, follow these steps:


1- Buy a premium joomla or wordpress template. For example on https://www.elegantthemes.com/ you can download unlimited quality themes for a one year $45 subscription, truly value for money.

2- Find a trustable designer that can personalize those templates as per your requirements, so you can get differentiated and brand the site accordingly. This won't cost you more than £200, if you can't find a developer for this just send me a private message I can connect you with some guys.

3- Download the necessary plugins for SEO optimization, videos image galleries, and some for managing advertorials as per your preferences.

4- Contract a hosting. Depending on the expected traffic and size of your website, but a shared server with a £200/year plan would be enough.

Voila! you have a highly indexed, easy to manage appealing website up and running with less than £300 invested and a wait of couple of weeks.

Feel free to ask for any further advice. Good luck!

 

[XLIN.Ltd]

I am sure this must have been said by many people already here on these forum and elsewhere, but it definitely makes a sense to have a checklist prepared for your website.

To start with, start with asking yourself the basic questions like why do you need a web site - i.e. to provide information about your business or to sell your products online?

What will be the content of your web site to start with and how frequently you would be changing / adding content to the site. Content is most important for the site as most search engines these days are becoming smart and they understand the relevance of the content.

I feel it would be best to get the ideas from web designers and developers to decide what will be best for your web site so you do not need to change the same frequently

 

[Michelle111]

....but generally i recommend spending money on working out what your message is, and giving as little as possible to a web designer (within reason).

Completly disagree with that... if you want to start up "lean" save money on renting nice offices, buy a cheap laptop instead of working on a Mac... but do not cut money on the web designers: it's your image and it is also a way a startup can compete (at leat apparently) with a major corporation... people do not even read your "message" if they feel the webpage is crap! It's like having an MBA from the LBS, going to McKinsey for an interview... wearing a training suit! No way to be hired!!!!

 

[adzay]

I hope this is the right section (if not please advise me). I have created a location finder website and I would like to put adwords on it. For payment from adwords, do you recommend a new starter in this situation to start a company bank account or just do it from his own personal account (for the meantime).

 

[confused-new-starter]

I hope this is the right section (if not please advise me). I have created a location finder website and I would like to put adwords on it. For payment from adwords, do you recommend a new starter in this situation to start a company bank account or just do it from his own personal account (for the meantime).

Personally, I wouldn't be thinking that you'll be raking it in with adwords...

I've had a website for a number of years, (a blog) with educational content, I know (as people have told me) that the site is good, I know that the content is good, (as it's been used as course reference material in a university course.)

I get thousands of hits per month, I can see that in my host dashboard, according to the adwords dashboard, more than half my visitors don't even see the ads due to adblock, and the other half don't click on them.

In six years I've made about 7 pence.

I'd suggest going it with the adwords just paying into your own bank or savings account until it's paid out at least as much as it'll take to register the company!

 

[confused-new-starter]

for the original post, I'd also disagree with the infographic.

there is no reason that DIY need look unprofessional, it's a bit of a learning curve to learn a good package (and a huge learning curve to learn to write the code) but there is plenty of help out there online.

I find that the medium solution level where you pay for a template can also be expensive. and not look that great at all.

And finally, there are plenty of people out there who will create a website for not a lot of money,
And people who can create a custom shopping cart/stock control system etc, for next to nothing.

It's just a question of knowing where to go, there are freelancer sites out there where price is reasonable, goods are good quality, and neither party need worry about being "sniffed" as there are escrow services...

personally I'd go with the either the DIY custom site or the proper professional site every time.

leave templates (either free or paid for) unless you want a generic run of the mill site that people just click straight past.

 

[confused-new-starter]

I attended The Business Show at Excel last week. The Internet Business School was offering a one day course to set your website up live and running by the end of the one day course for £149.00 + VAT.
What do you reckon, good deal or not? They use WordPress.

I'd argue no, there is no way that anyone is going to teach you enough in a single day to run out and make a website.

if you have literally 0 experience then it might be nice just to see what can be done, and then go home and get on a load of computer forums and learn how to do what you were told!

and ea totally depemds what you wanna do,

you aint buildimgthe next ebay and papyal sister company websites on a budget lol.

'this reply is a bit weird, you;re saying anyone can learn to code. and then you'd need to pay millions to set up a simple funds transfer site? suffice to say. I disagree. but I'm not going to start posting up receipts from websites etc to prove a point... it's about the knowledge, I truly believe that anyone *could* learn to make their own site, of whatever scale they wanted. but that doing that might actually distract from the core purpose of your business.

(anyone who doesn't believe that consider the maths, a student spends only half their week in lessons, and takes long Easter summer and Christmas breaks, If you could spend 8 hours a day "in the books" you could be at the same level as someone who just graduated. and given that most courses involve elective subjects, and subjects that probably bear no relation to the end goal of creating a website, - my point is, with concentrated learning, you could probably be as good at creating websites as a computer studies graduate by Christmas, maybe even before...

Step 1 read the google algorythum

Oh, you must mean that algorithm that is frequently updated to stop people making SEO sites and artificially inflating their rankings, that is kept as a secret sauce (to stop people developing SEO techniques and inflating their search rank)

The other thing I do is tutoring - its essential - I can SEO and secure you but without the tutoring that can be lost so easily. It really is a vast vast subject. What I do is give people a 15 consultation or free e-mail and 9 out of 10 jobs i have to no to because their business plan is fundamentally flawed. Thats just the sad truth and I'm not gonna help someone build a failure.

is it flawed, or do you lack vision? without wanting to be "that guy" what makes you qualified to determine if a business plan will work or not?

Please explain this please as I'm interested in what you mean? What do you mean about not running a business from a broadband connection?

Thanks,

Essentially. the company that I work for actually creates and hosts websites, (I work in IT support, so some parts of my job touches these).

The servers that we take care of live in data centres, (large warehouses full of computers) where there are uninterrupted power supplies, -e.g if there is a fault in the national grid, a battery backup takes over, for the short warm-up time of the diesel generators that are sat on the roof, which can then power the building and all the computers for hours.
we don't have one ISP, we have about three, (i used to have a cool video on my phone of my computer following the network cable to the switch it was plugged into, then to the router, media converter, along the bit fat fibre optic cable out the room and into a "cage" where everything was branded "level 3". the web servers we tend to use are virtual machines (that's a bit different from a virtual server for the point of web hosting) these virtual machines run on a single machine, but if that machine were to fail, say it's memory dies, or a power supply breaks (though there are multiple power supplies plugged into each server). then the machine just starts running on another machine in the virtualisation cluster, and if the whole thing were to fail, (like a plane crashes into the big data centre) well, everything is replicated about 50 miles down the road. we can immediately just make a couple of changes to configurations and have sites back up and running pretty quickly...

Multiple possible hosts for the virtual machine, with multiple power supplies, with multiple batteries, backup generators, multiple network connections with multiple service providers, and if the worst came to the worst, a whole other place where the servers are constantly replicated to just sitting and waiting ready to take over.

At home you have 1 machine plugged into 1 wall socket, with 1 connection provided by a residential supplier.

the power company has no service level agreement with you, (they could take their sweet time getting the power back, but to the datacentre there are financial penalties for extended downtimes).
you internet could go down, - but with the business one there are service level agreements -e.g if the service goes down for more than a short while they start loosing lots of money).
your dog/cat/child could accidentally pull the plug, fuse could pop.

also, you'll need to pay extra to get a static IP address on a home ISP, (or use a dynamic DNS provider -which means if your connection does drop and re-establish your site might be off-line for a bit waiting for the DNS records to update).

not only that, but if you're using a home broadband connection it is possible (and reasonable easy) to find this out. I think a part of what he was trying to say is...
if you're a business with an obviously home made site, obviously running on a cheap home broadband connection, is suggests that you;re a cash strapped start up, which in turn suggests that when I rip off your idea you won't have the means to fight me in court about it.



I do agree that website security is pretty important though, if you can't just download and use a tool like nessus (which you just give it a name and it tells you if you're vulnerable or not) then hiring a penetration testing company can be a good thing.

How long did this take? 10 minutes?

I thought it would include something about the cost of domains, cost of hosting, do I need SSL certificate, which platforms are good for which websites?

yeah, to make it even more funny, Microsoft used to make front page (and front page express) which they weren't exactly "premium" web design tools they would let a beginner knock something up. Microsoft clearly see a want and need for starter websites, but pulled the tools (that used to be bundled with office) used to make starter sites!

 

[powerplant]

In my mind building the website is the easy part.
Building interest and return traffic is the challenge.
There are thousands of great websites that no one goes visits and there are many websites that one wouldn't think were any good...that get millions of views.

Any new website owner will need to invest at least as much time or money in promotion of your site, as you will spend making the site. Both are hard work.

Ken
GeneralMarketingService

 

[Robert A]

Have you tried going to elance?

 

[liamx1234]

when I get to will hire some sorting out my website I will get a proper developer to do it image is everything

 

[capitalvirtual]

Theme Forest offer excellent WordPress themes and they are highly customisable. If you have a small budget you can easily obtain a new theme for about $45. Most of the themes come with page builders which are drag and drop and the styling is highly customisable. I would take your time looking at the features as some themes are more customisable than others. I would go for one that allows menu colours, backgrounds and a good page builder. Make sure to have a look at the demo's they offer.

 

[Deleted member 226268]

I have to admit that I know just about zilch regarding websites, html, seo etc, etc,

but I am amazed at how much it costs to have someone to make a website for me.

Is it not possible for me to buy a second hand version of Serif Webplus x7 or similar on Ebay
for £ 30 and put a reasonably functioning website together by myself in my spare time in the evenings ?

 

[Alan]

lol. If your time has zero value you can do it yourself in the evenings for free. But if you are doing it yourself don't use old cr** like serif.

The cost is because web designers / developers need to be earning money to live.

I'm amazed how much it cost me to get structural calculations done for the steel work in my extension. I did a maths degree, so I'm sure I can read a few books and work it out. But I didn't as I have better things to do with my time than learning a skill to save a little bit of money.

 

[John_Adams]

I always think it's valuable to learn new skills - and learning about building a website, even just in the evening is really valuable - IF you work in digital.

But you'd have to be interested in it, not just to save a few bob.

 

[jacksonian]

and ea totally depemds what you wanna do,

you aint buildimgthe next ebay and papyal sister company websites on a budget lol.


My expertise is in webshops, domains, SEO, comtrol of traffic, secfrity and penetration testing - i also do business cosulting on models and tactics.


Mostgly for fiends now - I've made my momey so I just help them set up their ad were finding my methods working in untappend markes all the time - ehich syrprised me as is 2013 but still thers a lot of business sectors ntoeven employing well know systems.


Step 1 read the google algorythum
Step 2 lean the security you need in place - once you start geting big - you become a target
Step3. learn coding and script modifaction (this may take years dending on what you've got -you can rely of off shelf stuff depeding on what you are doing but tend to look quite unprofessional and without knowledge of coding how can you debug and penetratuon test)
Step4. Secure, secure, secure - for me back when I started over 10 years ago my first webshop was hacked in under 2 weeks as they guys run crawlers searching for unsecured systems - and word press well ye stay up to date but that won't stop a zero day exploit or half the other patches that are still unfixed

Learn it your self. I'm completely self taught trial and error and its the only way - never say never I'mmd 30's this year and I'm still keeping up with these punks.

Every generotion of 13-16 years can and will crack your site and its so easy now you don't even need to hack. You just install some fire fox add ons and look for weaknesses.

theres basic rules to prevent 90% of this - if you have no idea get a host than runs it all for you but that cost you a fortune.



Just remember too - bigger you get - bigger target you become - hire whitehats you can trust at this point to to pen test your system but be careful who you hire thats fire sure... tking a company client database in blackhat community earns a pretty penny and many peoples sites hsve so little protection its just a brute force decryption and knowing how to not get caught.

Self taught...? Presumably not in content writing though !

 

[jacksonian]

For anyone on a budget and/or starting out, I wouln't even advise a website per se. Not because you shouldn't, but because you needn't.

Granted, this thread is centred around websites, but in terms of accruing some income, no-one has mentioned building a list, and if you've nothing to promote in one, use affiliate products. Of course this will have to be based on a spot of market research too, using something like the SOSTAC(R) formula. My point is that all you need in terms of a website, is a very simple single-page squeeze or landing page, and email opt-in. Sure you need an autroresponder too, to create a follow-up email series, but they're easily learnable.

 

[Nuno]

For anyone on a budget and/or starting out, I wouln't even advise a website per se. Not because you shouldn't, but because you needn't.

Granted, this thread is centred around websites, but in terms of accruing some income, no-one has mentioned building a list, and if you've nothing to promote in one, use affiliate products. Of course this will have to be based on a spot of market research too, using something like the SOSTAC(R) formula. My point is that all you need in terms of a website, is a very simple single-page squeeze or landing page, and email opt-in. Sure you need an autroresponder too, to create a follow-up email series, but they're easily learnable.

Oh Yippee! Someone who wants to promote marketing/SEO/Social media instead of answering the very simple question that the thread is about.
You could of course start your own thread on the marketing forum.

 

[Alan]

Lol

The thread title is "Building a website on a budget - your answers & advice"

Which is open to all sorts of complex responses in the "advice" section.

My advice is "never put budget ahead of ROI, so don't ask any questions about creating a website on a budget, asked questions about who can you get the best return on your investment"

(when we used to build websites, we knew immediately the ones that would fail, not because of what we produced, but because of the attitude of the requestor - the conversation normally starts "I haven't got much budget ..." )

 

[jacksonian]

Oh Yippee! Someone who wants to promote marketing/SEO/Social media instead of answering the very simple question that the thread is about.
You could of course start your own thread on the marketing forum.

Sorry you interpreted my opinion (and that's all it was) as promoting... I wasn't intended to be! As and when I market my business in a thread, it is in my sig space.

All I'm saying is that too many bona fide people get hung up on thinking they have to create fancy websites (usually promo'd by those who wish to sell them such things) and overlooking their objectives. Anyway, much of my marketing begins with publishing content, followed by an offer of a free 30 minute consult (i.e. Skype call) anyway.

 

[Matteld80]

Don't build a website yourself if you have not marketing, design or tech experience it will suck. I'm yet to see a self that's self built that's any good as a marketing tool.

There are a lot that goes into a good site and these easy online builders still fall short for me.

All Wordpress sites look the same - Joomla is a horrible system to use. Even for techies.

Spend your time setting up a landing page to build a marketing list by offering a leadbait or free trial ect. Tools like Lead pages or clickfunnels are create tools to get you started. You can then integrate them with your site once you can afford to pay a professional to build your site up for you.

Thought I'd throw my 2 pence in

Thanks, Matt

 

[Web Desires]

We come across allot of clients with low budgets, its a simple fact that when you are starting out or your a small business trying to expand that the cost starts to outstrip the funds you have available. Some people will simply take a gamble and take out a loan to fund development properly. Others unfortunately will try and "get it on the cheap" which I can tell you now IS NOT A GOOD IDEA.

Here at WebDesires were a new start-up and this issue you mention is such a problem to our business (because we get clients approach us, we get their requirements, give them a quote and then they drop the idea because they cant afford it) that we have been forced to think of ways we can perhaps help.

In the next few days we are going to be offering a service where we do the quote, give a price for the good quality work that we do, BUT give the client an option to spread out the cost over 6,12,18 months so they simply pay a small chunk every month as part of their hosting.

Remember - don't go cheap but don't get ripped off, make sure you go with a company that not only does "Web Design" but can actually do "Web Development" and has a very good understanding of SEO and best practices, because the inner workings of your site will have a huge impact on your business and its ranking.

 

[AddPeople]

Making sure a website is responsive is key in my opinion. With mobile traffic taking over desktop in recent years, it's crucial that potential customers land on your website and have the best experience possible.

I'm new to the forum by the way so hello all

 

[Jack Anderson]

I can't help but agree that one of the solutions one can obtain fast is choosing a ready-made theme from a template provider that has a website builder + theme offered in one package. To me personally, there are other resources that seem nicer and a little less expensive than the one that is offered in the subject.

 

[seangannon]

Wordpress is perfect for anyone starting a business on a budget. It's relatively easy to install (lots of USPs offer single click install now) and there are lots of free themes available which allow you to create a decent enough looking site. Google also loves it and tends to spider new blog posts very quickly.

 

[Jack Anderson]

Wordpress is perfect for anyone starting a business on a budget. It's relatively easy to install (lots of USPs offer single click install now) and there are lots of free themes available which allow you to create a decent enough looking site. Google also loves it and tends to spider new blog posts very quickly.

Yes, WordPress is very good for the beginners... I'd also recommend Joomla! solutions, but only for those who know what they're looking to get. If we speak about WorPress, SEO wise there are lots of seo plugins available to make your resource friendly for the search engines!

 

[aRBemo]

The internet is scattered with the ashes of many a self-built website. Unless you have amazing skills in web design you will at best produce something that is a hotch potch. Web design is a learned skill not something that happens by accident. I spent twice as much on my business cards and brochures as I could have got away with. Why? Because I am a professional and I want my clients to trust me. If want to you skimp on design, you want to cheapen your image. It's a false economy and I would be embarrassed to.

 

[Jack Anderson]

Why? Because I am a professional and I want my clients to trust me. If want to you skimp on design, you want to cheapen your image. It's a false economy and I would be embarrassed to.

Can't help but agree with you! I would also prefer spending more time to develop a nicer design not to hurt the image of my business... But here's the thing - I guess sometimes people are more interested in getting the revenue faster than gaining authority among clients, so they put up a quick and inexpensive website that meets all of their requirements... For most this is quite acceptable.

 

[Annie Starks]

Great thread! Especially for those who are new to web design and get lost in all the info one can find in the web. I think it's better to post here reasonable recommendations for novices, but not argue

 

[Deleted member 231954]

There are many examples of budget sites that outperform professionally made ones, but I think it also depends on what type of business you are running. The online site builders nowadays all offer responsive design templates that look very professional and solopreneurs that rely on local trade such as handyman services, man and van businesses, mobile hairdressers, carpet cleaners, etc. usually don't have the money to employ professional web building companies. In my opinion, these types of businesses are better off building a DIY site and spending money on advertising.

Some tips that worked well for me and may work well for other small one man / woman type businesses that offer a service in their local area are;

1. Keep it simple with a two or three colour design. Search Google for a colour wheel to see what colours work well together. Many people prefer simple black text on white background.
2. One way to make your site more personal is to include a headshot on your home page. It worked well for me and I got more people enquiring about my services once I did it. I think people prefer to deal with an individual when it comes to small businesses.
3. Include pictures of YOUR equipment.
4. Include feedback and even better, get the comments plugin from Facebook that lets people comment on your site and services using their Facebook account. It builds credibility.
5. Include a video of what you do. You can hire a pro on a freelance basis on fiverr or Elance, but again, it depends on what type of business you run. There may be no need to employ a pro because most smartphones take reasonably good video and any modern computer has editing capabilities that add text and frame transitions to your clip before publishing it.
6. I believe site speed is a ranking factor nowadays. Optimising your images for the web using something like tinypng will help.

As I said before, it depends on your business and how much you have to spend. Of course, there is lots more to it but I do not think the lack of money prevents you from having a good online presence that works well for your business.

 

[MarekBober]

The most economic for many businesses, as they are providing scalable and complete solutions with the benefits of economies of scale.

It is not matter how much you pay for something but what you get for it. It is better to go for SaaS professional platform than have own stand alone not functional or with missing features... All those who do not like gamble with their money I would recommend Idosell Shop- with 40gbp a month you get platform which you had to spent 3500-4000 hours on... and there is no 7.20/hour for developer but 200-300 GBP a day for 8h work.

within this range you have really low market entry barriers + there is no technology gap + you can always cooperate with others on the same platform... 3200 potential partners are already there.

Happy to help.
Marek