Website needs updating or replacing.

[mistershifter]

Hello,

I am thinking I need to update or replace my website. www.mistershifterservices.co.uk. Around a year ago I had my site made by a member on here. At the time a bit of a slanging match started here when I thanked the designer for making my site when various people made comment (all comments were appreciated) about the site etc. I am happy and satisfied with the site for what it cost me and I have received a steady supply of work from it.
I have recently attended a Business link seminar focused on online marketing and now want to either make changes or have a new site built. The seminar was headed by Susan Hallam and I found it most interesting. I have been contacted by a couple of companies who have had my details from Business Link and have chatted about my options. My current site has not been changed for a while now as I find it a bit of a nightmare as I have to use dreamweaver on a friends computer or through my hosters website (hostgator).

I think I basically need a 7 page website with the ability to add photos, you tube clips, testimonials and maybe a blog but easily. I have been told that Joomla is ideal for this and suitable for beginers.

I have been advised that I may need an ongoing seo service to improve my organic positioning on searches. I know very little about all of the above as it is not my line of work and is one hell of a steep learning curve.

What should I expect to pay for a website that suits the above criteria? (I know, how long is a piece of string?)

Anyway I hope this thread can get the ball rolling for me.

Thanks in advance

Kev

 

[Faevilangel]

If you want a blog go for wordpress, it's far more suited to your needs and will be easier for you to use...

Price wise... Depends on the developer...Will the content be supplied by you? Images supplied by you? Any features needed? contact form? Rss feed? Twitter / Facebook integration etc..

I would love to quote you for this, get in contact if interested...

 

[ecenica]

Agree with recommendation to use WordPress over Joomla.

WordPress has some great built-in SEO features, thousands of plug-ins and great community support.

As to costs. Talking for ourselves only. We offer template WordPress websites/blogs, plus 1/yr hosting from £199. You can choose from over 100 themes and swap them as you wish.

If you're looking for something more unique, we offer a professional WordPress themes development from £400-£700.

If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

^R.

 

[mistershifter]

Thank you for the replies, I am currently researching my options based on what I have read.

Kev

 

[Unicora]

Joomla does have a large range of features and can create some really good websites but like others here I would suggest wordpress is a better choice for SEO and the ease of adding on features and installing addons.

I would suggest that you can get a nice custom coded template for your site to make it stand out as many people use wordpress and its easy to spot a well used template and makes the site look a little cheap.

I also don't want to step on any toes but £199/yr is very high for hosting a wordpress site and most hosts offer a one click install service for wordpress and joomla for that matter. Just buy hosting and click install and you have the wordpress site online and waiting for you to modify to your needs.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

Hey there,

Do you mind me asking what you paid for the current website to be designed?

 

[mistershifter]

Hey there,

Do you mind me asking what you paid for the current website to be designed?

No I don't mind. £50.

 

[webgeek]

Why go Joomla when you have Wordpress? It's like picking your own cotton, spinning it, and making your own clothing like done 100 years ago. Time is money and Wordpress is a lean, mean machine for new users.

You can get a lovely site with annual hosting for £100 to £150 all day long... Budget another £200 to £500 and suddenly you've gone from having a site to having a site that gets found.

Sites are like business cards - there's no point in having them unless people see them.

 

[mistershifter]

Why go Joomla when you have Wordpress? It's like picking your own cotton, spinning it, and making your own clothing like done 100 years ago. Time is money and Wordpress is a lean, mean machine for new users.

You can get a lovely site with annual hosting for £100 to £150 all day long... Budget another £200 to £500 and suddenly you've gone from having a site to having a site that gets found.

Sites are like business cards - there's no point in having them unless people see them.

Thanks for the replies everyone, I think from the replies that wordpress is the way to go. Is it actually worth having my site converted to use wordpress or better to have it rebuilt from scratch?

Kev

 

[Faevilangel]

Thanks for the replies everyone, I think from the replies that wordpress is the way to go. Is it actually worth having my site converted to use wordpress or better to have it rebuilt from scratch?

Kev

Honestly? It needs to be rebuilt, it's not going to give the right impression for your business in my opinion.

A good healthy budget will get you a great site that will outperform your existing site.

 

[mistershifter]

Honestly? It needs to be rebuilt, it's not going to give the right impression for your business in my opinion.

A good healthy budget will get you a great site that will outperform your existing site.

What would you call a healthy budget? would you propose an ongoing seo service?

 

[JDX_John]

Drupal or Wordpress would be great, since they also let you put content on without having to pay someone for every tiny change.

I was going to slag off your current site - it is really basic - but for £50 fair enough it works and the information is easy to find. I'd definitely ditch it though, my guess is a few £100 tops should be enough to get a more modern equivalent, this is bread & butter stuff to a webby person they can churn out. If you need custom art created, like a new logo, that could take more time to create than the entire website.

 

[mistershifter]

Drupal or Wordpress would be great, since they also let you put content on without having to pay someone for every tiny change.

I was going to slag off your current site - it is really basic - but for £50 fair enough it works and the information is easy to find. I'd definitely ditch it though, my guess is a few £100 tops should be enough to get a more modern equivalent, this is bread & butter stuff to a webby person they can churn out. If you need custom art created, like a new logo, that could take more time to create than the entire website.

Thanks for your comments. Yes, I know it is basic I was never told it would be anything different. After attending the Business Link seminar I have been looking at loads of random sites and getting ideas. I have just picked up a job from my website in the last 10 minutes. If I could improve my organic listing marginally I think it would make a good difference.

Kev

 

[Vision2]

Hello,

I am thinking I need to update or replace my website. www.mistershifterservices.co.uk. Around a year ago I had my site made by a member on here. At the time a bit of a slanging match started here when I thanked the designer for making my site when various people made comment (all comments were appreciated) about the site etc. I am happy and satisfied with the site for what it cost me and I have received a steady supply of work from it.
I have recently attended a Business link seminar focused on online marketing and now want to either make changes or have a new site built. The seminar was headed by Susan Hallam and I found it most interesting. I have been contacted by a couple of companies who have had my details from Business Link and have chatted about my options. My current site has not been changed for a while now as I find it a bit of a nightmare as I have to use dreamweaver on a friends computer or through my hosters website (hostgator).

I think I basically need a 7 page website with the ability to add photos, you tube clips, testimonials and maybe a blog but easily. I have been told that Joomla is ideal for this and suitable for beginers.

I have been advised that I may need an ongoing seo service to improve my organic positioning on searches. I know very little about all of the above as it is not my line of work and is one hell of a steep learning curve.

What should I expect to pay for a website that suits the above criteria? (I know, how long is a piece of string?)

Anyway I hope this thread can get the ball rolling for me.

Thanks in advance

Kev

This is a very how long is a piece of string type of question as others have pointed out.

General jist is basically work the math out. Few hundred quid and you will get someone spending best part of a day at most on it.

If you want something decent, expect to pay about a grand and up.

If you want something cheap, pay less basically. It's all about investment, and it's all about time.

You should also take note that different designers / developers cost different amounts, and have various degree's of skill and that skill varies industry to industry. So make sure whoever you use fits what you want the site to do / look like.

Hosting is a "you get what you pay for", You can get hosting for a few quid upto ten's of thousands / millions. Point is, if you spend just a few quid then expect nothing less than that server to be severely overloaded. It's another case of math, in order to justify that server that company needs to load a significant amount of clients sites onto it to justify the cost.

But this also boils down to the fact that if your business isn't generating enough to pay a half decent amount each month, say equivlent to what your broadband costs you, then perhaps there are some major issues that need addressing first.

 

[JDX_John]

Few hundred quid and you will get someone spending best part of a day at most on it.

A few hundred pounds should getat least a solid day, but of course it varies a lot. A consultancy might charge £800/day, a decent freelancer might charge 2-300/day (which is market rate for hiring a contractor). Some will charge much more or less but you should ask people how much work is involved in their quote so they don't charge you £1000 just to set up a standard template for you... there are always cowboys.

 

[LicensedToTrade]

mistershifter please contact me at 01484 514 714. I work for BT Directories within the marketing division and feel we have a package that could generate you the relevant business you require. This includes websites hosting and maintaining, search engine optimisation and also placement on the 118500 service. Please call me at your earliest convenience thank you

I didn't realise that BT Directories has changed their trading name to ...

John Woods Photographyhttp://www.192.com/atoz/business/hu...a5645a1c04284981d541db202bdbcdf40a3a9538/ldc/

Phone number: 01484 514 714
18 Byram Arcade, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, HD1 1ND

Has somebody been telling porkies?

 

[nicolestewart]

This is not John Woods Photography. I am in a BT Office and my employer is BT Directories ltd part of the BT PLC.

Please contact

 

[wood1e2]

Who are BT directories? Are you something to do with British Telecoms?

If you are then my advice to the OP is stay away, the websites are worse than the one you have!!

Plus fewer and fewer people are interested in business directories, yell, thompson etc.

Google is the only business directory you need to be in online!!

I think the answers you have been given are good, in regards wordpress/Joomla.

For your budget then there are thousands of templates, and for a few hundred more you can get a besopke design created.

As for SEO it really depends on what you are looking for, geo keywords are easier to get a higher rank for.

So 'Colchester removals' or Essex removals would be easier than say 'national removals' (obviously these are examples) as that may need more regular ongoing offsite seo, than the geo keywords.

 

[eliteanny1]

If you need a new site why dont you redirect your site to new domain name in this way you even check out with older visitors and use seo services to promote the new url.

 

[akirk]

Agree with Faevilangel - you need to rebuild / start from scratch...

there are many solutions which will give you what you want, find a company you can trust / get references from other clients / see the work they have done before... then do it...

price will vary, hourly rate from web companies / designers seems to vary anywhere between £10 an hour to £150 an hour - at the lower end they are likely to be a one man band with no prospect for growth as they are not making enough money to expand - at the upper end they probably have expensive plush offices in London with blue-chip companies as clients... so probably inbetween makes sense...

consider one man band v company - the one man band is likely to have less over-heads and therefore be cheaper, the company is probably going to have more overheads, charge more, but have more skills in house / more resilience when staff are ill etc.

consider that ideally your site needs skills from designers / coders / those who understand your business before ti can all come together to give the best solution - less common to find all of that in one person, but possible...

ultimately - finding a company you can do business with is the best route if you want a good long term relationship...

you are probably looking at around 10 - 15 hours work for a good site, less if just installing something like Wordpress / Joomla and then skinning it...

Alasdair

 

[TotallySport]

You might be better leaving that site, maybe doing a few updates to keep it upto date, and lauching a new site with the redesign.

 

[DPOM]

Hi there,

you've got some good advice here from a lot of people that I'm sure would do a great job on your site.

I'd love to quote you for either a Wordpress or Joomla site. PM for details if you are interested.

Thanks!

 

[altwebdesign]

consider that ideally your site needs skills from designers / coders / those who understand your business before ti can all come together to give the best solution - less common to find all of that in one person, but possible...

Sound advice!
You really do get what you pay for and the £50 price tag for your current site shows. It's important to work with a web designer who knows what works, shows a proffesional image for your company and most importantly what converts afterall thats what your website is there for, to get the user to spend there money with you.

 

[mistershifter]

Thanks for the updates folks. I have been busy for a few days with only my blackberry. I am still researching my options.

 

[Funny Business Cartoons]

As a designer, I have been looking into both Joomla and Wordpress as lucrative platforms and find that I can set up my own server known as Apache which is compatible with both and would give me the power to run everything locally. Jobs for webmasters are very much in demand with these applications on Freelance sites.

I did my own blog on Blogger and I still think this is vastly under- rated. It's so easy. You don't even need a designer to do that once you get the hang of it and can be very SEO orientated being basically a feature of Google. Having said that, you really generate your own traffic at the end of the day from whatever.

Other alternatives are sites like Create.com and (urgh) Vistaprint where you can build a site in about 3 days and pay no more than a tenner a Month to edit and maintain it.

 

[refinedline]

Thanks for the updates folks. I have been busy for a few days with only my blackberry. I am still researching my options.

We don't use Wordpress, but our own CMS system which is just as simple to use. If you would like us to quote too, just get in touch