Difference between a £200 website and a £2000 website?

[Richard Boynton]

Im bowing out of this one.

Been great "discuss" everyone's views. Maybe thats why there are so many different ones.

 

[fisicx]

"Provide the viewer with an entertaining, informative, interactive experience"

Some sites maybe but not all of them. I'd hardly call Amazon entertaining or interactive but it seems to do OK. And when I buy my beans online from Sainsbury's I don't want to be entertained, I just want to add to basket. If I need advice on medication I want information not an interactive experience.

 

[The Byre]

@TheByre I'd suggest reading up on CRO (conversion rate optimisation) and UX if you think a website should not:
"Provide the viewer with an entertaining, informative, interactive experience"
Im laughing at my screen even saying that out loud in our office!
THAT IS WHAT MAKES CUSTOMERS BUY - There experience on your site.
Ive tried UK business Forum for a few weeks, im struggling with this outdated and quite frankly shocking information been passed out

That is a very arrogant attitude to take, when discussing website content. <edit>

I founded my company in 1979, six years before you were born. We are profitable, successful and totally self-financing company with holdings in the UK, Germany and Luxembourg.

I do my best to be as polite as possible to those posting here, but I do find that such an abrasive attitude hardly inclines me to remain polite. Receiving condescending and arrogant business 'advice' from someone who has yet to land their first customer or file a set of books is taking things a bit too far.

I suggest, if you want to achieve business success, you adopt a more conciliatory attitude.

 

[fisicx]

"Provide the viewer with an entertaining, informative, interactive experience"

The website delivers blank page for what seems like ages before something appears on the page.

<edit>It's a wix site</edit>​

 

[The Byre]

I could say a good deal more, but let it suffice to say that it reminds me of what record company boss and studio owner Micky Most said to some twerpish A&R girl from EMI, who was telling him how to run his company, RAK Records, "If you know so bloody much, where's your Lear Jet? Mine's at City Airport, but where the f**k is yours?"

 

[Bald Head Guru]

That's a pretty bold assumption. A custom wordpress theme with bespoke functionality could easily eat up a £2000 budget. I'm busy with a wordpress plugin project right now that has an £800 budget.

I agree, custom built will always cost more, whether using Wordpress or not. The point I was making is that you can buy a £50 pre-built theme on Wordpress that looks as clean and slick as a custom built site cost £2K+.

I was just providing a possible explanation for the original question. Jason, if you take a look at Theme Forest, a site which sells Wordpress templates, you will see an example of the quality of sites you can get. This might help to bring clarity to how the same 'look' can be achieved with sites with such a vast cost difference.

 

[AnotherSEOGuy]

Cheaper options will be a purchased WordPress theme 'branded' to your business (likely outsourced, in some shape or form, to India, Ukraine or Romania). The £2,000 option is likely to be the same, at best a custom WordPress site, depending how big and complex the development project is of course.

Good WordPress custom built sites can very easily cost £4-500+ whereas good custom sites (think any new form of JS, React/Vue are the 'trends' at the moment) could quite easily set you back £10,000+.

Slightly late to the party but judging by the above comments, it was little more than some abuse with a few nuggets from the regulars.

 

[Alan]

you will see an example of the quality of sites you can get

No, you won't, you will see demo sites highly optimised to sell the theme, in that they use stunning imagery to fool the amateur into thinking, that looks great that is what I want. As opposed to actually thinking about what they need to meet their business objectives.

 

[LiveNetworks Ltd]

Part of the issue is will the £200 web site do what you want it to do? You'll get a fairly stock site for that, so don't expect to have it do anything that it doesn't do out of the box.

£2K may give you the chance to have more 'tweaks' but it's very much down to are you paying more for experience and time, or just someone with the skills and flair to sell you a more expensive lemon.

 

[fisicx]

Part of the issue is will the £200 web site do what you want it to do?

Very often it does. Using a free theme for a simple brochure site is sufficient. What matters more is the content, get this right and the site will work. You could pay £2000 for a site but if the content is naff then you do get a lemon.

 

[Tim Marner]

Pay peanuts, get monkeys !

If you want a good website unfortunately you have to pay for it. If you're paying £200 for a website it isn't a case of "if" you run into problems it's a case of "when". From a web point of view even £2000 is kind of low for a custom built site, that being said you can get a decent site for £2000 providing you've got good content for the site.

Top tip; stay away from Wordpress whatever you do.

 

[fisicx]

Top tip; stay away from Wordpress whatever you do.

Why?

And I know some very successful small business that have done very well with a low cost website.

 

[Tim Marner]

I suppose it horses for courses, if you're a window cleaner you don't need a £3000 website, you probably need a simple 1 page. Maybe in this case you might opt for Wordpress or square space.

For other businesses though Wordpress is pretty easy to hack. Any plugins you want to install although free are usually a double-edged sword, and can contain malicious code, or conflict with each other. The main problem with Wordpress is the plug-ins because as soon as the site owner gets their hands on the site they start installing X, Y and Z and before you know it the site runs awful and buggy. For the money you can spend for a Wordpress site you're better off paying a little extra and getting someone to build something outside of Wordpress, there are other CMS that are safer and easier to use.

 

[fisicx]

For other businesses though Wordpress is pretty easy to hack.

Only if the site hasn't been set up properly. A well configured WP site is very secure.

Any plugins you want to install although free are usually a double-edged sword, and can contain malicious code, or conflict with each other.

If you get your plugins from the wordpress repository you won't get an malicious code. And conflicts are very rare these days.

The main problem with Wordpress is the plug-ins because as soon as the site owner gets their hands on the site they start installing X, Y and Z and before you know it the site runs awful and buggy.

They can do this with any CMS not just wordpress.

 

[g]

"

The website delivers blank page for what seems like ages before something appears on the page.​

Genuinely constructively...

Don't knock what's often the best bit.

'Website tip #14743289643: be sure to make your pages look like something from NASCAR.'

 

[Tim Marner]

I suppose it's all opinions. As someone in the creative industry who builds websites I can only go of my own experiences and what I've seen. Whether it's slow sites, too many plug-ins, been set up wrong, or whether they've run it into the ground it's irrelevant really. Just pay a bit extra to a decent coder and design team and set yourself so you don't run into problems and save yourself the hassle in the long run.

Only if the site hasn't been set up properly. A well configured WP site is very secure.

If you get your plugins from the wordpress repository you won't get an malicious code. And conflicts are very rare these days.

They can do this with any CMS not just wordpress.

 

[fisicx]

Just pay a bit extra to a decent coder and design team and set yourself so you don't run into problems and save yourself the hassle in the long run.

And how will this prevent anyone from changing or adding plugins to the site you build for them?

If not wordpress, what CMS do you recommend people use?

 

[Tim Marner]

A bespoke one, like ours. That's tailored to the clients needs with plug-ins which are all built in house.

 

[fisicx]

So it means they are tied to you for all further development work. Or can they move hosts and get someone else to support their website?

Wheras using a commercially available CMS means they can make use of the support networks, themes and a whole plethora of other products. Often for free.

I'm not suggesting WordPress is the answer to everything but for the average small business it does the job and does it very well. And of course for developers it can be very lucrative.

 

[Tim Marner]

They can move about, we wouldn't expect anyone to be tied to us ! We could probably even point them in the way of some well respected coders or rival agencies we know about. However, we've not yet had anyone who's wanted to move away because we make sure we do a bang on job every time.

Yes using Wordpress has it's pluses. it's lucrative for developer, they can put a free plug-in on the site and stick an £££ on the bill. But for us we find more cons than positives, we'd rather not work that way. We charge a little bit more but build for client instead, if they want a shop/subscription/blog that works in a certain way that's fine, we'll just build it for them. Sometimes you get what you pay for, if it sounds too good to be true (£200 for a website!) it usually is !

 

[fisicx]

...it's lucrative for developer, they can put a free plug-in on the site and stick an £££ on the bill.

That's not what I meant at all.

I build plugins and offer them for free. Anyone can install them on their site at no cost. But if you want a new feature or a bespoke version then there is a charge.

It's the same with themes, there are thousands of fully vetted and working themes you can get for free from the wordpress repository. But a good number of these have premium upgrades.

So while it's great that you can build bespoke everythings, for many it's just not an option. They don't have £2000 to spend on a new website.

But they can install wordpress, get a free theme and a couple of plugins (a contact form for example) and be up and running in a few hours. The £200 might simply be to get some help with configuration.

 

[The Byre]

Top tip; stay away from Wordpress whatever you do.

Well, that's told Disney, the BBC, New Yorker Magazine, MTV, Sony, Facebook, Bloomberg, Variety, PlayStation, Beyonce, Microsoft, Time, New York Times, SAP, M&S, Snoop-Dogg and most biggly of all, her Minajesty herself, Nicki Minaj - all of whom, we must assume, couldn't afford a proper website.

I can understand companies like SAP and Microsoft not knowing what they are doing, when it comes to computers and stuff like websites, but Her Minajesty is like well clued-up and totally illing with on-line stuff. She even has her own FB page.

So watch out like who you are dissing, cos me and all my fellow Barbisas no, when you dis WP you is indirectly dissing Her Minajesty.

 

[Tim Marner]

Like we said earlier, it's horses for courses ! There are reasons for and against, for us the cons outweigh the pros.