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Website: Ballpark figures/opinions.

  • Thread starter Thread starter whatnoise
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whatnoise

Hi all,

This is more or less the website that I want to base my own on.

http://azuresupercarhire.com/index.php

I will providing the copy, which I will let the designer/builder edit to suit.
I will want exactly the same number of buttons along the top, with the same number of "clic on car for details" links.
I will also want my customers to pay online.

My questions are:
1. Assuming I provide copy and pix, what sort of lead time would be required to build such a site?

2. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure as to what sort of cost I should expect for a quality, optimised site?

I realise I may be asking how long is a piece of string, but it seems the more research I do on websites, the more confused I become. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. cheer's Ian
 
As you say, it will cost the same as a car... depending on exactly what you want will dictate if it costs the same as an old banger or one of your own super cars.

If you are taking payment online with deposits being in the region of £5,000 plus the cost of the hire itself I assume you will need the site to actually manage availability (the linked site just has a query form)? Are you therefore intending to take telephone orders through the same system so it will need both internet and MOTO card capabilities or just allow admin to log in and blank out dates?

How are deliveries to be calculated? The reference site has a fairly rough banding with costs but how will you be doing this? (from a business rather than technology perspective)

What control do you want on the site once its live (eg changing prices, delivery charges etc)?

Plus the 50+ other questions.
 
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if you have a finer brief we could provide a better and more accurate quote.
 
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whatnoise said:
This is more or less the website that I want to base my own on.

http://azuresupercarhire.com/index.php

My questions are:
1. Assuming I provide copy and pix, what sort of lead time would be required to build such a site?

2. Can anyone give me a ballpark figure as to what sort of cost I should expect for a quality, optimised site?

I realise I may be asking how long is a piece of string, but it seems the more research I do on websites, the more confused I become. If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it. cheer's Ian
Click to expand...

The original site from what I can see is relatively basic. Its essentially a fair number of pages which link to one of 3 enquiry forms. Its pretty basic - ie if you view a car and then click 'reserve' it just takes you to a standard form whereby you have to select that car again etc.

So for this EXACT type of site I'd guess you would get quotes ranging from £1500-10000. If you want quality as you say you do (and that's subjective!), bare in mind there is more to a website than the design/build. Normally this includes a fair amount of research, planning, design, image editing, SEO copy-writing of your supplied copy etc etc - so I would then say a minimum of £3/4k.

However I think adding certain tweaks and features would increase that sites usefulness and so hopefully provide a great conversion rate/ROI etc.

But more functions increases costs. So it really comes down to budget - but if that is limited most web designers will be happy to tailor their services to meet a happy medium between your ideal requirements and budget available.

Also I deliberately missed out your request for on-line payments. Like Dan/Astaroth (2nd post) says although it might sound easy - this would require a booking system built so that its not possible for users to book out the same car twice on the same day/time.. or if you have multiple cars to then keep track (stock control) track of them too. Much more complex and expensive and so not really the same as the site shown - again as Dan says how you want (expect) the website and your business to be linked is something you would need to discuss before any accurate quote really.

If you want any more advice and/or a quote feel free to visit our site and drop me an email.


Jason
custardfish.com
 
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If I was to quote a brief which, in effect was for the website you linked to.

Which, in it's most fundamental form, is a simple website with a few contact forms.
You're looking at between £3/400, that would include the normal basic SEO optimisation.
 
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Ian if you just want an info site or brochure site as many people call them then £600-£1000 is a good price range, if you're looking for more functionality then budget for more. Or even get the brochure site done first then add functionality when budget becomes available.
 
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Jason is absolutely right. If you would like all these complex features such as the payment and management systems, professional graphics/images then the costs for completing the site to your requirements are going to be very high. The programming especially is going to cost a lot of money. I think more than "£3/4" going by Jason and Dan's description if you find a UK company that could do the job professionally.

I would suggest you find an overseas website design company there some really cheap ones. But if you just want the site as the current site then it'll be very cheap. In fact I know someone who might do the project for you. Let me know if you're interested and I'll provide the details.

I might also be able to provide some website design/template and logo concepts. Contact me or have a chat with me online via here.
 
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Anything from £300 upwards I would say. That site isn't really very professional it looks a bit home made to me.

I very rarely make websites for clients and it is not a service I really offer so I always think it gives me a good chance to comment on threads like this. I know quite a bit about web development I did my dissertation on a large ASP.NET net project I built and I used to work as a CSS designer while at university many years ago (CSS was new back then).

Here are some tips:-

Not all web designers are the same, some are cheap because they are talented but have no experience so may mess up but in the end deliver a great site but may be late and may be buggy at first. Some are cheap because they are crap. Some are expensive because they are trying it on and don't really want the work, some are expensive because they are the best.

Make sure the company has a good portfolio. Make sure the site is done in CSS, if you say too site has been made using tables or frames walk away.

Make sure you get an agreeded delivery date and make sure the quote includes everything you want.

What ever you do don't go on price alone :)
 
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JoyDivision said:
Anything from £300 upwards I would say. That site isn't really very professional it looks a bit home made to me.
Click to expand...

I'd agree with all your other tips, but bare in mind the client mentioned a 'quality' site I don't think a quote like that is at all possible and something has to give!

For quality I would say that entails a professional web/SEO focused re-write on the supplied copy (and so prior SEO research) and tidying up/optimisation of the images too. From experience I know car makers are reluctant to give permission to use their images, so it might also be the case professional photo shoots are needed and then image manipulation/retouching too. Since these are luxury branded vehicles - surely on a 'quality' site they have to look great!

Unless your chucking up some CMS+free template, tweaking a header graphic, adding a few forms and giving the client the job of adding all the rest of the text/images (ie a days work, essentially leaving the main building of the site to them!) there's a fair amount of time involved with just adding and preparing that amount of content - regardless of time spent on the rest of the css/html build etc!

From what I can see there are at least 50 car pages inc 250+ car images - plus all the 'other' pages etc.

I'd love to see a breakdown of hourly costs and where the time is spent on any build for a figure of £300 - for most UK developers that's at most a days work - and your certainly not going to get what *I* would call a professional or quality site completed in a days work!

To the OP - as you can see essentially like many things it really all boils down to your expectations and budget! And your idea of 'quality' too! :)
 
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We would need to clarify your needs ie do you already have all the images of the cars etc, have you got a merchant account set up to link to etc. But to produce a similar website we'd charge £500. If you'd like to talk it over send me a message and check out my website.

Just to explain that our fees are low because we outsource all the programming to India plus we offer 12 months free hosting on our own secure servers and domain registration is included in the price.

Louisa
 
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Fair enough I was just thinking of what I have charged but it has always been on the cheap. For £300 you would get a very very high quality CSS site coded from scratch but any photographs/content/SEO etc would be a lot more!


The ones I have built have been for new starts and the website was never designed to bring in income.
 
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JoyDivision said:
Fair enough I was just thinking of what I have charged but it has always been on the cheap. For £300 you would get a very very high quality CSS site coded from scratch but any photographs/content/SEO etc would be a lot more!
Click to expand...

£300 is the standard daily rate for a (good!) freelance designer/front end (css/html) developer. So again I doubt your getting a whole site designed and built to css/html in a day.

'On the cheap' isn't likely to give the same end product as 'quality' which is what the OP asked for.

JoyDivision said:
The ones I have built have been for new starts and the website was never designed to bring in income.
Click to expand...

Surely a start up wants to bring in income too?

Essentially if your website doesn't bring you income in (ROI) you might as well burn your money IMO.

Personally I'd rather invest £100,000k on a website that makes me £1m than pay out £300 on one that makes me nothing.
 
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Fascinating difference in prices for this site.

I must declare an interest because I was brought in as an SEO consultant for one of the top three companies (client confidentiality lasts for ever!) in this industry a couple of years ago.

This site you are using as a template is awful - and I would agree that £500 would seem a fair price! It hasn't been SEO's to any degree and isn't going to have any effect on Google - but if that is what you want - its your choice!

You need to work out what your marketing stratergy is going to be - is it going to be down to SEO, or are you looking at Pay Per Click or off line advertising / PR etc?

This is an important question because otherwise, you might just be throwing good money after bad!

Hope this helps!
 
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Fair enough, I was only going by the look of the website. But assuming you got to both, I would be instantly drawn to purchase from the second one.

Seems the type of service best marketed direct to target audience, perhaps more offline, and aimed to tempt then into it rather than relying on search engine?
 
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For a properly optimised site (and for this I would recommend having the copy proof red by an SEO specific copywriter) which has a custom made online payments system you're looking at £5k+ for a site that will look good and work under the bonnet as well (sorry to use a car pun!)

Obviously the quality of the site and actual price depends on budget and a more specific brief. I would say though that you can get a better design than the example you gave, maybe something more eye catching. Hope you get a fab site, whatever option you go with :D
 
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Just to add my two cents we'd look to charge around £1200 for a 'simple' website (which looks amazing, is researched, optimised and implemented to a high standard that meets W3C guidelines).

If you were looking to add functionality such as online ordering, reservation systems and deposit taking then the costs go up.

Also if you're looking to add and edit car details onto the website then you'll either need to pay someone to do this for you or have a content management system in place so you can update it yourself.

We would probably charge upwards of £3k for something with this level of functionality and it could easily rise to £20k depending on how far you want to take it.

The more you spend the more you get, in general. It's not my place to say whether you should take quotes like £200 seriously or not.

What I will say is that I could probably buy a ferrari for £200 but it wouldn't do much...

Enter our competition if you like, £1000 towards a great website eases the pain a little eh?!
 
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