There are plenty of companies who are prepared to pay the going rate. It's partly to do with how you position your offering IMHO.
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There are plenty of companies who are prepared to pay the going rate. It's partly to do with how you position your offering IMHO.
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bdw
- Original Poster
- #82
Yes, I do this probably about two or three times week. however after more than ten years doing this I am quite good at spotting the tyre kickers before I waste too much time on them.
My problem (if it is a problem) is that in I get about 500 visitors a day to my website and more enquiries than I need so I have to reject a lot of them for various reasons. At my time of life I am happy to just take the low hassle jobs and keep my existing clients happy.
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I've experienced the same thing, it's often those on the smallest budget who are the highest maintenance/most demanding.
I've spoke to people on the EKM type setup who have paid no setup fee and under £20 a month for their website but are unhappy that it's not outranking the likes of ASOS and generating £1millions.
I actually took a call from a guy last week who wanted "the front-end features of autotrader with the back-end functionality of eBay" (budget: £700).
As for affordable, there are plenty of companies catering for the lower end of the market (toolkitwebsites, EKMpowershop and the likes)
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bdw
- Original Poster
- #85
As shown in the link I posted previously I got an enquiry two weeks ago from a guy who was "seeking an experienced and very creative web designer". He wanted a website built to his requirements in 72 hours. This was to include Flash, a shopping cart, online payments, a product page, page tabs, blog, and embedded video. Budget $100 USD!
I passed.
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Some can. Some can't. Some can profit from it. Some won't make enough. Basically it's all down to who can PROFIT from selling cheap websites and who can't.
It also depends on who can sell cheap websites and still make them work for their customer. And who can sell cheap websites and not care if it works for their customer.
Currently I'm emabraking on selling blogs for £40. I have extensive knowledge on setting up blogs and can do great logos etc. So I think it should go well if I can get enough customers per month/week.
I really want this one to work because offering web design services did not work for me. And being out of work and living in the big capital I really need it to work.
I'll maybe come back here and let you all know how it goes. Starting marketing once I've finished the design and content. Which is hopefully by the end of tomorrow.
It also depends on who can sell cheap websites and still make them work for their customer. And who can sell cheap websites and not care if it works for their customer.
Currently I'm emabraking on selling blogs for £40. I have extensive knowledge on setting up blogs and can do great logos etc. So I think it should go well if I can get enough customers per month/week.
I really want this one to work because offering web design services did not work for me. And being out of work and living in the big capital I really need it to work.
I'll maybe come back here and let you all know how it goes. Starting marketing once I've finished the design and content. Which is hopefully by the end of tomorrow.
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I don't disagree. But I'm gonna give it my best shot. All I can think off for now. And the price is to compete. In web design I couldn't do it but I can do this. And I can do many per week. If I can get the customers. Thanks for the advice but I'll give it a go.. out of work and nothing else to do so gotta do this and at least try. Got my first customer already
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£700 is to much to pay for a site like that. It could easily be done by using Wordpress and a few free plug ins.
Regards
Dotty
£700 is not too much!! £700 should be the set standard for setting up a decently designed Wordpress site. Never mind adding all that functionality.
Yes it can be done for less but then you're just burning a candle at both ends by spending so much time to build something great for so little return.
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Please hover your mouse pointer over the emoticon at the end of my [previous] post and read what it says
Regards
Dotty
Hehe. You're right.
To the poster above. I can manage to profit quite nicely from selling 40 quid blogs. Only getting started. And I understand sales funnels so there's more to it than that inital sale
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Fair enough, but you did say that £700 was the standard. Did you mean £40 was the standard and then you upsell?To the poster above. I can manage to profit quite nicely from selling 40 quid blogs. Only getting started. And I understand sales funnels so there's more to it than that inital sale
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Oh we had good realtions on here with my previous username, just don't want to seem like an ass.
I'm not saying £700 is the standard but I'm saying if you want to make a living from creating great functional websites then the standard should be depending on the amount of hours, skill and work put into creating a site.
Before I was doing sites for under £200 and it just wasn't working as the time and effort put in was a lot for what I got in return.
This new business is an effort that I hope pays off as with failing previously I really want it to work and with losing my job I need it to work.
In essence I will give this my all to see how it does and if it does well I will be delighted.
Until then it's just an experiment.
But upsells will be a big part of the business.
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S-Marketing
- Original Poster
- #100
I'm sure he will be back to tell us soon. Although if he had a username before I don't know why he didn't just change his username, rather than starting again. Unless he's a recently banned member who has just reappeared under a different guise, which seems to happen a lot round here.
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Never been banned.
I just didn't like my old username as it wasn't branding what I'm currently doing and all the old stuff I posted about here is now irrelevant as I changed directions.
Sorry I won't disclose it but the old username is still alive and kicking just I'm starting fresh. Thanks for asking :d
Maybe if it is really important to know you can PM.
Cheers!
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The problem is with a lot of small businesses they want a lot for a small outlay. They do not realise the work involved, even if it is using a Wordpress template (there are some fantastic free and paid ones out there) there is so much more to it.
Whats the point of having a website that doesn't get seen?.
Try explaining SEO and Back-linking to your average business owner and he/she isn't interested. I have spent a lot of time explaining that content is VERY important, it need to be optimised with relevant keywords etc.
I read somewhere that 75% of people search online for local services yet business owners will still rather pay hundreds of pounds for a local newspaper ad or a place in Yellow Pages than have a good website that can be seen by many more people online if the SEO is done properly.
I am currently working with two local clients on SEO and Google Places and they are finally getting to see what i am saying but its a hard slog!
Whats the point of having a website that doesn't get seen?.
Try explaining SEO and Back-linking to your average business owner and he/she isn't interested. I have spent a lot of time explaining that content is VERY important, it need to be optimised with relevant keywords etc.
I read somewhere that 75% of people search online for local services yet business owners will still rather pay hundreds of pounds for a local newspaper ad or a place in Yellow Pages than have a good website that can be seen by many more people online if the SEO is done properly.
I am currently working with two local clients on SEO and Google Places and they are finally getting to see what i am saying but its a hard slog!
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This is how you sell them.
You have to spell it out to them and make them interested in SAVING money by cutting out the marketing that's not working and starting new marketing that does work.
You should be thankful to have a potential client who is using failing marketing methods because you can intrigue them and interest them by explaining how much money they're wasting etc.
In other words.. it's not 'they won't listen' or 'they're not interested'. It's that you need to find the right angle to intrigue them from. And it's also a numbers game as with all sales processes.
But not too negative on that approach, give it all a positive spin.
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No and after reaidng the intial posters opinion I see he said 'most' but that's still quite as far as to tar them all. Most could be almost correct but it's not a way to think of things if you actually want to sell your service. You need to think of every prospect as good as the other.
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I guess its about supply and demand. Lots of us web developers / designers out there to those clients needing a website.
Not many plumbers out there when it comes to leaky pipes. Maybe we should be looking for a leaky pipe equivalent in our industry ie responsive design, mobile dev etc ?
Im not a designer, I am a developer. Designers get paid more as they have something unique. I think Im opening another thread here
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Welcome mydigitalhome 
I agree with you. The deployment of templates do offer a great low cost way for small businesses to get a quality web presence. They don't cost the earth and can be self-implemented with a bit of research into the 'how to'. If the small business business isn't confident enough to do this themselves, plenty of web developers will configure and implement templates for a fee that wont break the bank, and provide training in how to maintain the site.
Templates do have their limitations and may not provide a complete match to the business requirement but many will get close enough to provide a great low cost solution.
I agree with you. The deployment of templates do offer a great low cost way for small businesses to get a quality web presence. They don't cost the earth and can be self-implemented with a bit of research into the 'how to'. If the small business business isn't confident enough to do this themselves, plenty of web developers will configure and implement templates for a fee that wont break the bank, and provide training in how to maintain the site.
Templates do have their limitations and may not provide a complete match to the business requirement but many will get close enough to provide a great low cost solution.
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The answer to that is because they don't see why you should get £XYZ an hour or charge £XXXX for something they think you can knock up in a couple of hours.
Surely the service provider must shoulder some blame for the lack of transparency. If it was costed as per a garage in hour blocks with an hourly rate, then they could hardly dispute the number of hours and the hourly rate might be negotiable.
At the moment, all we get is a bill for £XXXX and no tangible explanation as to what was done to generate such a high charge.
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bdw
- Original Poster
- #112
Do you stand over the mechanic when your car is being fixed to ensure that the garage is only going to charge you for the actual time spent working on it? Do you honestly think that all garages scrupulously maintain a record of how long someone has spent on a job?
The truth is that garages tell you that a job will take 4 hours and that is what they will charge you even if it only takes two. If it takes 6 hours then they will increase the charge accordingly. Most garages are anything but transparent with their charges.
I offer people a fixed price for their websites based on my estimate of how long it will take. It's a fair price and it's up to them if they want to pay it. The know how much it will be and they can decide if it's worth it.
If I get it wrong and it takes me longer than I had estimated then I have to take the hit. On the odd occasion that I grossly overestimate it I will reduce the final bill to the client. When I am doing work on existing clients sites I charge £35 per hour, which is about a third of what some garages charge. My conscience is very clear.
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Do you stand over the mechanic when your car is being fixed to ensure that the garage is only going to charge you for the actual time spent working on it? Do you honestly think that all garages scrupulously maintain a record of how long someone has spent on a job?
The truth is that garages tell you that a job will take 4 hours and that is what they will charge you even if it only takes two. If it takes 6 hours then they will increase the charge accordingly. Most garages are anything but transparent with their charges.
I offer people a fixed price for their websites based on my estimate of how long it will take. It's a fair price and it's up to them if they want to pay it. The know how much it will be and they can decide if it's worth it.
If I get it wrong and it takes me longer than I had estimated then I have to take the hit. On the odd occasion that I grossly overestimate it I will reduce the final bill to the client. When I am doing work on existing clients sites I charge £35 per hour, which is about a third of what some garages charge. My conscience is very clear.
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I recently put a car into a garage for some repair work. Prior to authorising the repairs, I was presented with a computerised printout which detailed every part which would be replaced and every action performed and the associated man hours for each one, down to 6 minute intervals I think.
I didn't ask for this detail, it was automatically provided by the garage. It set out what would be charged and for which action, all listed section by section. It was the most transparent estimate I have ever seen.
It isn't about conscience and to be honest, I think your £35 an hour is cheap for a professional service. I also don't assume a website will cost £4.50 and a bag of toffee.
What I am saying is that I am a consumer, right now. I need two websites built, or perhaps one which can develop over the next year or so as the complexities of one far outstrip the complexities of the other. I expect one to cost thousands and the other perhaps hundreds.
I can visualise your charges per hour with X hours for this and Y hours for that but what I cannot visualise is how a £5000 website is so different from a £1000 website. If the guy writing the £5000 gets it all right, then does that mean the guy charging £1000 doesn't really know what they are doing ?
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bdw
- Original Poster
- #115
I think we may be talking at cross purposes here. There is no real transparency in a garage telling you that it will take 48 minutes to regrind the rear offside widget pump. The vast majority of people have no clue what these tasks mean and even less of a clue how long it should take. The garage has set pricing for all of these, which are highly lucrative to them but more importantly they don't have to go back to client and ask them if the regrinding of the rear offside widget pump looks OK.
I worked in maintenance engineering for many years and there were many repetitive tasks that we could time to the nearest couple of minutes because they were always done the same way. That is not a problem. There are however factors involved in website design that cannot be properly estimated. I could produce a similar estimate to the garage if required but all it is is a piece of paper.
Let's try it. How does this sound to you?
Design of masthead to clients specification 5 hours £175
Set up of DNS and hosting 0.5 hour £17.50
First level KW research 2 hours £70
Second level KW research 3 hours £105
Stock image sourcing 3 hours £105
CSS layout design 4 hours £140
Testing of interactive components 2 hours £70
Usability testing 1 hour £35
Page layout and SEO (10 pages) 10 hours £350
TOTAL £1067.50
My normal quote would outline the work to be done and at the bottom I would quote a price, which for the above site would have been about £750. What do you think is the best deal?
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I go the same way as the last post, I break it down into core elements then apply a price. If the customer thinks its too much, I can lose a part and save them money.
There are two ways to look at it, either you the customer agrees the price or you don't. If you don't there are plenty more web designers to choose from, and you may save money, or you may not.
I provide ground up design or a package option, the first costs what it costs, the second costs a fixed price, and is based on what the customers budget.
If you buy bespoke you pay for the skills and labour at the company rate, which for most designers is at least £20 an hour, so 1 week is £800...simple. If you buy a package, the designer has already done the core design work, so the cost is reduced.
If you don't agree with the hourly rate, you can phone the next guy. Most designers take a living wage, the rest goes back in to keeping the business afloat. I work for £25 an hour, but I only take £12.50 of it as a wage, and even then I can't spend all of it, because this business has its dips in trade to budget for.
Also, most designers don't just do design work, most have to do copy editing and maybe some copywriting, some graphic work if a logo or images are wanted, some basic seo to get the website seen, some database management and the list goes on.
The average web designer has to wear a few hats just to provide a decent level of service and to keep a business afloat.
There are two ways to look at it, either you the customer agrees the price or you don't. If you don't there are plenty more web designers to choose from, and you may save money, or you may not.
I provide ground up design or a package option, the first costs what it costs, the second costs a fixed price, and is based on what the customers budget.
If you buy bespoke you pay for the skills and labour at the company rate, which for most designers is at least £20 an hour, so 1 week is £800...simple. If you buy a package, the designer has already done the core design work, so the cost is reduced.
If you don't agree with the hourly rate, you can phone the next guy. Most designers take a living wage, the rest goes back in to keeping the business afloat. I work for £25 an hour, but I only take £12.50 of it as a wage, and even then I can't spend all of it, because this business has its dips in trade to budget for.
Also, most designers don't just do design work, most have to do copy editing and maybe some copywriting, some graphic work if a logo or images are wanted, some basic seo to get the website seen, some database management and the list goes on.
The average web designer has to wear a few hats just to provide a decent level of service and to keep a business afloat.
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You are speaking to the wrong agencies. Most should provide an itemised project breakdown. However not all models are structured 'per hour' some are per feature/product (whereby they have an R&D setup) but even then you'd usually get a breakdown of elements and associated pricing.
In terms of why you'd get such a varied price (from £1k to £5k) the answer is you are most likely not comparing 2 like-for-like solutions. Quality, stability, support, security; these are the 4 things you need to need look at when trying to compare one quote to the next. For example you will pay more for an agency than you would a freelancer, but an agency will usually offer better stability. You'll pay more for a UK company than you would an Indian one, but usually quality and security will suffer.
If you compare portfolios, staff/support levels, functionality, timescales, age of company, size of company/project team, location of company and so on this will probably highlight why you are getting varied quotes. It's a little bit like saying "I approached Daewoo and Bentley to manufacture me a car, why am I getting such different prices?" as you can imagine the final product from each manufacturer would differ greatly even if you provided an exact spec of the required functionality (which I dare say you haven't, most don't - which again makes it hard to compare when you haven't listed the required functionality). Without a spec, it's like walking into a garage and asking how much does a car cost? Imagine how varied the response would be depending on the garage you walk into (even when comparing the same car the price can vary massively depending on the optional extras).
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I think we may be talking at cross purposes here. There is no real transparency in a garage telling you that it will take 48 minutes to regrind the rear offside widget pump. The vast majority of people have no clue what these tasks mean and even less of a clue how long it should take. The garage has set pricing for all of these, which are highly lucrative to them but more importantly they don't have to go back to client and ask them if the regrinding of the rear offside widget pump looks OK.
I worked in maintenance engineering for many years and there were many repetitive tasks that we could time to the nearest couple of minutes because they were always done the same way. That is not a problem. There are however factors involved in website design that cannot be properly estimated. I could produce a similar estimate to the garage if required but all it is is a piece of paper.
Let's try it. How does this sound to you?
Design of masthead to clients specification 5 hours £175
Set up of DNS and hosting 0.5 hour £17.50
First level KW research 2 hours £70
Second level KW research 3 hours £105
Stock image sourcing 3 hours £105
CSS layout design 4 hours £140
Testing of interactive components 2 hours £70
Usability testing 1 hour £35
Page layout and SEO (10 pages) 10 hours £350
TOTAL £1067.50
My normal quote would outline the work to be done and at the bottom I would quote a price, which for the above site would have been about £750. What do you think is the best deal?
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Best value is obviously £750 but perhaps the level of transparency needed is not quite so granular. Perhaps it is the steps you are taking which is the correct level ? Even without allocating time to each section, itemising them gives me, the layman, an indication of the steps of work required whereas previously, I had no idea whether there were 2 steps or 20.
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I think in hindsight and as I have indicated in my previous response, it is perhaps the unfamiliarity with the number of stages which needs transparency. I guess like many, I have some experience of the "build your own website" stuff, either free or at very low cost and at that level, there is no transparency to speak of as you do it yourself without knowing just what you are doing.
Moving on to bespoke, you know it will cost but you don't know if the estimate is £50 for the nuts and bolts and £4950 because they know which buttons to press and you don't. That makes it hard to understand or to negotiate because you don't know whether they are removing functionality or reducing quality as you negotiate the price down somewhat.
It is a problem with the intangibility of software versus hardware I know because you cannot see or touch the quality, as you could in your Bentley versus Daewoo example for instance.
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