Website Help!!!

[Mr Monday]

Hello All

Ive been silent member for a while now, Ive seen a lot of useful information and beneficial advice from members on this site. Ive been struggling with an issue and thought this is the perfect place to get some help.

I want to create a website, but I do not have a clue where to look for developers, I have been in contact with a few individuals, but when it comes to each individuals speciality, there is too much technical talk which I dont understand, when I am getting quoted prices I dont know whats the average price and whats expensive.

Can somebody give me a simple break down(for dummies) of how a website is created from scratch

The website I want simply has features such as a search box, some sort of payment system linked (preferably paypal), add photo/video


Any help will be very much appreciated

 

[james_firmsites]

There are several options open to you dependant on time, experience and budget.

A) Cheap option, site builders of which there are many like Mr site, square space, godaddy web builder thing etc. You pay a very low monthly fee and you set the site up yourself. Typically anywhere from £2-15 per month (Lots of your time, cheap)

B) Mid road, you pay a larger monthly fee but instead of building it yourself someone works with you to setup and maintain the website. There are lots of these companies about but since mine fits in this bracket to avoid bias I will not mention specific names. Typically anywhere from £15-60 per month. (mix of time/money, need to find someone you can work with long term to be good)

C) A web design agency, you pay upfront and get a designer to work with you on the whole project. Can cost anywhere from £500-5000 dependant on project scope. (lots of money, everything taken care of for you)

Now I always suggest people look at what they could afford over a 3 year period for a website, which works for a total cost of ownership better than a single upfront figure for month 1 (after all those revisions in the following months can quickly add up). But ask yourself, does my site do anything 'special', as chances are most projects are standard and you should not have to pay through the nose for a simple site that takes payment.

If your really stuck for jargon etc then I would suggest you either post your specifications on the forum so people can chime in on true rough cost or post your quotes so again people can tell you if your getting value for money.

 

[pelparc]

Or another way to give people an idea of what you would like ..... Is there a site you have seen that you would like the look and functionality of? if your selling products how many different items are there and will you be prepared to add them to the site or do you want someone to do it for you?

 

[Mr Monday]

ok, so the site homepage will have a search box, after entering the relevant info you will be brought to a results page, with a number of profiles matching what you are looking for, select profile to see further info.

Profile owners will have access to edit their profiles from a sign in box on the home page, new members will have the option to sign up and this is where the payment option comes in.

 

[james_firmsites]

So is this a dating site of some kind? Or is it more aimed at the professionals market?

That does add a bit of complexity to it, but depending on how complicated you want it and payment options you may be able to get a developer to use something like Buddypress which adds profiles etc to wordpress.

Profile sites can be expensive, and hard to get enough momentum to get them going. Perhaps you could PM a spec, or like pelparc suggests post something similar you like so we can give you a better idea of what you should be looking to spend.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

@Jamesfirmsites

Good ideas that you have suggested
Having been running a site for 18 years and always using a good seo company I am slightly concerned about the last question . What can you afford over 3 years ?
For a new site the question should be
What can you afford over the six months ?
I would expect the company to get results in this time .This should generate profits With this success I would be expecting to invest more in the site with the company once we know how well we are doing . We all have to get results to put food on the table

 

[fisicx]

I've recently built a site for a client in the Netherlands that does exactly this. They disabled the payment module (as nobody was paying) but it's still there. If you want your own version let me know. Or you can get one built from scratch. After reading your posts it's a lot more than just a homepage seach and payment form. Most of the coding will be in the back end, unseen by anybody except you and the developer. And because you will be allowing the public to upload to the database you need all sorts of security. This all costs money. Or you could use steady made solution.

 

[ryedale]

Unfortunately web design is a diverse sector and you will get a bewildering array of prices and working methods from different providers.

From our perspective, our design process runs as follows
1. Pre-start meeting. At least one or ideally more meeting(s) to plan out key functionality, content and to look at the site from the perspective of every potential user type and to assess the routes they could want to take through the site and the actions they may take. We may also use focus groups depending on the client and their target market.
2. Creation of interactive wireframes and mock-ups of both desktop and mobile layouts. It's far easier to adjust the design and work with the client this way before any actual site building takes place
3. Building of the site.
4. Minor revision rounds on the final build.
5. Go live!

Every agency is different. Some at the lower end of the scale would skip steps 1 and 2 and just build the site straight away. If you are on a low budget, then this is more cost effective obviously but the more planning that goes into the site generally means less revisions later on and a better experience for your users.

There is of course the free option as well- Avoid Wix, Weebly or any other free site builder tool. It's a waste of time and you'll only have to remake the site. Wordpress or Joomla are the best content management systems in terms of extensions that you can install to get close to the functionality you might be looking for.

 

[fisicx]

Step 2 before the site structure and core functionality is mapped out can lead to problems later on in the build. It's often much better to take a modular approach and build each component rather than focus on the whole layout. For example there are multiple ways to code a mobile navigation system, you won't know which one is best until the site structure has been determined.

 

[ryedale]

It depends how you approach it

The whole point of the planning process and using case modeling in stage one is to identify all the different modular aspects of the site so we know what we will be dealing with and then can choose the most suitable elements to use for navigation etc.

You are still slotting different components together in the build phase, it's just about making sure that you have identified them all first.

Of course, every agency or freelancer works differently but it's a process that has evolved for us over the last 11 years of work so we've become pretty effective at getting the structure mapped out correctly from the start.

 

[fisicx]

Ok, I get your part 1 now and your process is pretty much the same one I use.

Going back to the OP, doesn't look like any planning had taken place. A vague idea about profile views and payments isn't enough to put a quote together. Which is why they haven't been able to find a developer. The site I've put together for this Dutch client took two months to plan before I'd even started coding. And even then we had to modify things after user testing.

 

[bigbuzzbelfast]

I have been in contact with a few individuals, but when it comes to each individual's specialty, there is too much technical talk which I don't understand,

I can see that was taken on board in the replies lol

 

[Mr Monday]

My apologises I originally wrote "I do not know where to find a developer" which is incorrect, I have no problems finding a developer.

the problem is I will speak to an individual and I get different opinions about how to go about it, just as I can see it happening on this thread, which then leads to different quotes which are largely different ,so for somebody like myself its doesn't give me a clear idea as to what road I want to head down.

I would prefer a site from scratch as I have a lot of little additions to the site for example when the cursor is hovered over a profile a small window pops up with a preview of the profile and also emails will be send to users from the site with the professionals information or vice versa. whereas I do not feel these sites which you can use to build from some sort of template can do these type of things, correct me if I'm wrong .

I have the full user journey mapped out, but I just highlighted the main features, as these are things I have been asked for in the past. If I am not providing the correct amount of information, then please can you let me know what information is crucial for a quote as this is part of the reason I am posting this thread as I do not know.

 

[fisicx]

Like I said, I've built a site that does just what you want. It's not a template, it fully bespoke and can easily be adapted to suit your needs. Things like the popup are easy to implement (but there are better ways to do this), emails and payments are built in already as well as a chat function and filters to search for matches.

If you would like to send me a PM with the full spec I can do you a quote. The good news is a lot of the functionality is already there so this could save you a large chunk of cash.

But if you want something built from scratch to give you some idea of costs of the one I built was around £4K.

 

[Bridget Kelly O'Sheehan]

Would recommend doing it yourself. The website I'm building, despite im a coder/developer... If I had outsourced it, would have cost me a bomb for all the features etc.

I would highly recommend using Siteground (best support and any questions) and installing Wordpress privately, pretty simple to use

All you would pay is the domain, and hosting and nothing for WordPress.

Hope it helps and good luck x

 

[Allan03]

Try to watch some page optimization tutorials and its available online, it will help you a lot.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

The problem is I will speak to an individual and I get different opinions about how to go about it, just as I can see it happening on this thread, which then leads to different quotes which are largely different ,so for somebody like myself its doesn't give me a clear idea as to what road I want to head down.

I would prefer a site from scratch as I have a lot of little additions to the site for example when the cursor is hovered over a profile a small window pops up with a preview of the profile and also emails will be send to users from the site with the professionals information or vice versa. whereas I do not feel these sites which you can use to build from some sort of template can do these type of things, correct me if I'm wrong .

I have the full user journey mapped out, but I just highlighted the main features, as these are things I have been asked for in the past. If I am not providing the correct amount of information, then please can you let me know what information is crucial for a quote as this is part of the reason I am posting this thread as I do not know.

I have highlighted the important parts as I see it.

1. are you sending a complete specification of functions to the people you are talking to? if not then do it, and that MUST include the bits in section 2. There are many different ways to get the same results, you really don't need to worry about how the developer is going to do it, you need to be certain you have specified EVERYTHING. E.g you get to the end of the build then ask 'so where is my control panel to change x,y & z? Now unless you asked for that initially it will possibly not exist.

2. lots of little 'additions' can alter the entire development path. You may see it as a 'little addition' but unless it is in the original specification, you are heading foor problems. So as per 1 above, get it all down on paper

3. covered above pretty much, but you need to provide EVERYTHING.

every field you want to store data in within the profile, permissions for making changes is there a control panel backend you want, if so what do you need to be able to edit.

the payment system, and EVERY SINGLE piece of functionality. your vague comment that 'email will be sent from the site with the professionals information' what triggers that? when will an email be sent, who to, and what information will it contain.

It appears to be some sort of matching site such as a dating site, but what controls the 'match'? Is it purely a search result? what fields ais the search facility using to search?

As you can see getting a price should be simple if you have everything mapped out.

 

[Mr Monday]

You have specified how much detail I need to give and you have given examples of why they are important, questions like

"what triggers that? when will an email be sent, who to, and what information will it contain."

"but what controls the 'match'? Is it purely a search result? what fields ais the search facility using to search?"

Thank you, this makes things a lot easier to understand

As time goes on and I speak to more developers, I really start to notice the difference when it comes to the amount of experience.

Most people I have spoken to, don't understand that I am a normal guy who wants a website created, I don't know nothing about nothing when it comes to the technical stuff, I just know exactly what I want created.

My description about the site has been very vague and this is due to the fact that most people I have spoken to, have not been very clear in regards to what information I need to provide. If a developer tells me, I need to highlight the main functions of the site, then this is what I would understand to be the information that is needed to pass to a developer.

 

[UKSBD]

I would say the most important thing anyone needs to know is the data fields you want included and how you want to sort/search them.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

It doesn't have to be technical at all. As long as you have the users journey mapped out. All the information fields etc you want to use, then it should be fairly simple.

Draw it on paper in a flow chart, including the yes/no/ maybe triggers and results

 

[Mr Monday]

No problem, I already have the user journey fully mapped out

Information fields/data fields???

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Name address, skil1, skill2, area etc

 

[Alan]

People that can understand and translate business requirements into technical solutions are expensive. They are also ( not normally ) developers. It is likely that you have been talking to the wrong people.

You have had some good advice here, in that you need to organise your requirements in a logical, structured and complete way.

When we used to build complex websites, we used to provide tool and request that this was completed by the potential client, just to articulate the website strategy ( let alone requirements ). By being able to clearly articulate the strategy at least allowed us to then understand the business needs better and hence communicate regarding requirements.

We used to ask either the client complete the tool, or we could do it for them ( through a series on interviews with them / their key managers) at consulting rates. Most small businesses completed it themselves.

I think I still have that tool around, so if you are interested and PM me I'll dig it out.