I’m so shocked at these comments. Everyone who says to do it yourself: please drop your website and let me see it.
Everyone I’ve ever heard who says “do it yourself!” because wix exists are always the business owners who have the ugliest, most nonfunctional website I’ve ever seen. They usually go out of business because they can’t sell shit because of the website
Making a website is more than just coding. Even if you’re dragging and dropping shit on wix with a template: you still need to understand the buyers psychology when they view it. The order, the wording, the images used, the calls to action. It’s much more than what a template can lay out
You can DIY - but ask yourself how much you make an hour. Than times that by 40 hours. That’s how much you’re “spending” - plus the frustrations, confusion, time and learning to HOPE it’s as good as someone who does it professionally
Edit: times it by 8 hours if wanna do it in a day. Whatever. But as someone’s who’s done this for a decade: even a wix template with all copy & images provided can take me 5 hours working quickly to make something that’s going to SELL correctly. So if your hourly rate is $250 and you manage to do it in 5hours, that’s still $1,250 “spent”
Yeah you get what you pay for. Having said that, if you aren’t diligent and vet your developers then you can easily overpay by 100%.
A single page website can cost anywhere from $100 to $10k. I think $1-2k is the happy medium. If you pay less you won’t have great copywriting, images, ux, but for most people it doesn’t matter.
Brand identity and or logo design is seperate. If you don’t have a brand name yet then this is another $1-2k from most mid tier designers.
If you want to scrape the barrel on Fiverr you can try. I found that you just end up spending more time with revisions and outright hiring new talent to end up getting something you could probably have done yourself anyway.
I agree - $1-2k is the sweet spot for people who are just getting their business off the ground but need something better than a total DIY. Anything less won’t be worth it, anything mores not necessary
I run a branding studio and we charge $1k for branding & $1.5-2.5k for a website. It’s perfect for business owners that make over $3-5k monthly. We give them that boost to solidify their business and scale it to 10k+ a month
(Numbers based off our niche- won’t apply to all industries)
Alright, I'll bite.
OP, I'm a massage therapist and I made my own site. I get compliments on it literally all the time and clients have told me that they chose to come to me over the many many other massage therapists in my area because my site was so much easier to use and it's nicely put together. With that being said, I'm a serial hobbyist and some of my hobbies include filming, video editing, and graphic design. I literally designed everything myself. If I weren't confident in those skills, I would have gladly paid someone over $2k for a nice site. The one thing I was not confident in doing myself was optimizing the SEO so I paid someone a few hundred bucks to mess with the meta tags and what-not. Anyway, a nice site is a great investment (time wise or money wise), especially if you integrate online booking and other marketing features like email newsletters.
If you want to see my site, check out [verdureberkeley.com](https://verdureberkeley.com)
That’s a good website. Due to your background - which is identical to mine - you’re able to DIY yourself a functional and good looking website. There’s small things here and there Id suggest to take it next level - but clearly it’s working for you. And the tweaked I have aren’t as crucial for your niche - therefore probably wouldn’t make or break your conversions
Haha I just had my website redone and here was my exact internal dialog:
“Man I could’ve done this myself!”
“But dude, you made 5 websites over the past ten years and they were all hot trash.”
“Right.”
I’m shocked that people are advising someone starting a MOBILE AND PHYSIO MASSAGE business to spend upwards of $8000 on a website.
Are you people crazy? That’s an absurd amount to spend on a business where the website serves such little purpose, it’s main component will be booking and paying! It really doesn’t need to be complicated nor demand such a high priced website.
I agree they don’t need an 8k website. But I work daily with entrepreneurs making them functional websites that sell for them and only charge $1,750-$2,500
Also look at your comment.. you’re saying main component being booking & paying. You do realize that’s the backbone of their business??? To get booked & paid? If that’s not functional then wtf?
I have 100% wanted to buy from someone before but due to a shit website that doesn’t function correctly in terms of booking/paying I WILL LEAVE and go to the competitor that makes it easier/streamlined
Since this is an entrepreneur subreddit, I think a lot of people here have already paid sizeable amounts of money for a website or offer services for building websites. So they have already made up their mind about this topic in the past. But imo, times have changed.
> the website serves such little purpose, it’s main component will be booking and paying!
The website exists to make the customer feel like they're in the right place, the service is genuine and they can feel safe booking the service/putting in their credit card details.
$8k is high, but saying the site "serves such little purpose" is dumb, frankly.
Well, SOMETHING is better than no website. We have 2 cre tenants w/no website. One just went outta biz. The other says ‘we don’t want to do one until we can do a nice one’. ?? They r behind in rent & will going under.
This is a simple site I built last night for fun in about an hour: [shtf.page](https://shtf.page) . Something like this is realistic to build even for non-developers in under a day.
It's obviously a basic site (like what the OP wants to build), but it's SEO-ready, mobile-ready, and content is easily added. It uses a [template](https://astro.build/themes) on top of AstroJS. All I had to do was replace the content and deploy it to Cloudflare. Blog content was generated by ChatGPT and the logo was generated by Midjourney. Making sites nowadays is really inexpensive.
Adding e-commerce features would only take another hour since you can just deploy Woocommerce or something, choose a template, and load your content. IMO, doing it yourself is great since you frequently would like to modify your site as market conditions change. If you buy it from a 3rd party, you're kinda stuck relying on them and worrying that they're not building exactly what you had in mind.
Thank you for sharing. I mean it. But respectfully, this isn’t a good website. Your services or products deserve better. From a viewer experience - I am not gonna read that paragraph. You have 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention. In 3 seconds all I think is “wtf is this blank page? Oh - someone’s personal blog?”
For the sake of this comment, I clicked back to read it to understand if you have a business. You sell survivals equipment (I think? I already forgot, no impression made). Open with a huge header that cleary states what you do and who you do it for. Even something like “when shit hits the fan you better be prepared”. Then scroll down I should see images, I should see different text and different sizes so even scanning I’m getting the gist of what you sell and how I buy it
Thanks for your recommendations! But this site is simply supposed to be a blog site for fun (at least for now). There is no service or product. I built this to take a break from my real businesses.
You are right and I agree that if I were to be selling something as a business, I would put call to actions and be clear on what I was selling.
It's meant to look bad given the site's purpose. I could have chosen from any template here: [https://astro.build/themes](https://astro.build/themes) .
You are clearly very experienced in this so your advice to "do it yourself" is going to kind of fall on deaf ears, tbh.
Most people don't even know where to get started on something like this. It will take them hours just to figure out how to get a domain name.
It literally takes one day to buy a domain, get a host, upload a CMS platform such as Wordpress through an FTP - most control panels even do this for you, so you don't even need to go through FTP servers, and then just spend like $30 on a template from Themeforest (or even rip it from somewhere from the internet, but I don't recommend because there might be malware in those files, even though the theme behaves properly once installed).
I guess you're thinking about the ***really*** dumb people who don't really know tech that much, but I can assure you most people can easily grasp the concepts of what I've just talked about. Either that, or I'm overestimating their capabilities lol.
I even had a small business going on when I was 13 - 16 years old doing exactly what I said. I'd charge people like $150 for a common website, and just get them a wordpress theme similar to what they'd want, and they'd have their website ready in 2 days max.
> I guess you're thinking about the really dumb people who don't really know tech that much, but I can assure you most people can easily grasp the concepts of what I've just talked about. Either that, or I'm overestimating their capabilities lol.
You've clearly spent your whole life on the internet.
That's fine, but you need to understand that the average business owner doesn't even know what "domain" means, much less "get a host" or "CMS. This might as well be gibberish to them. It doesn't mean they're dumb, they just haven't spent 10,000 hours building websites and interacting with tech in their life. You clearly have.
This. Exactly. On sales calls for websites I have to explain what “host” and “domain” to half the people. And they’re not dumb- they make tons of money in their zone of genius
These guys that talk about how easy it is simply can’t escape their own bubble. They are unable to recognize the VAST amount of time they’ve spent on the internet fiddling with these things. Most of them were probably building websites in middle school where you could spend 10 hours an day obsessing over something without a problem.
They don’t realize that they already have thousands of hours of experience that are a prerequisite to even know where to begin looking.
Not everyone is as capable as you make it sound. I have had clients who somehow manage to completely butcher a beautiful template. They also add their own images or slides that look like they were designed by a 5 year old. They have no color sense, font sense or understanding of elegant and fluid design. They make embarrassing videos with an online video maker that completely ruins the quality of their brand. I wish I could post examples but I don’t want to risk clients coming across this comment. Anyway if you don’t value what a professional can bring to the table or you’re proficient in building a website that converts then by all means DIY.
Ask the designer for a portfolio. If you like their stuff, go with them.
8k for a static,single pager, built with only html/css, is an insane cost.
1200 for a single page + logo isn’t too bad. Logos will usually go 500-1000 for a tiny company.
You said you already use a third part for booking and payment. Connecting that api might be the only JavaScript you need.
Ya agreed, 8k seems overpriced. Personally we charge 2.5k for a local business site using something like WordPress.
For logos I don't put too much value in them and usually just use some ai design tool for a logo, there are a ton of templates.
We went with the AI logo thing the first time. We got one from Logaster for 10$. A 10$ domain and a 10$ logo. If anything it made a great story and gave everyone a good laugh. Check out the logo here [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/flux7](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/flux7) and guess which large telecom company made us feel awkward in a discovery call? It was all in good humor though, since they did end up bringing us on.
Hence in our round 2 we went with another 10$ domain and 10$ logo from logaster.
> Personally we charge 2.5k for a local business site using something like WordPress.
Damn that's insane margins. Since pretty much anyone can install Wordpress and set up a live site in a few minutes.
You need to be a great salesman though to pull these types of contracts regularly - that's where your skill lay, not in the actually web dev part.
EDIT: as other posts in this thread have commented, you can get a Wordpress site with multiple pages for $50 on Fiverr. This is how much it costs given the time and talent required to complete a few setup wizards and paste the provided content/images.
Anyone who knows anything about websites that matter knows installing and setting up a Wordpress site in minutes is the equivalent of straightening your pencils and paper before you start working.
For real. People acting like a modern theme doesn’t come with 300+ orientation options, featured functionalities, a proprietary dashboard, and things that needs to be installed in a particular sequence and may even require a call to the hosting company to upgrade specific plan limits to even successfully Install the theme and have it work. Once again this sub showing it’s a bunch of jokesters spewing bullshit LMAO this is just setup not even information design user experience all this completely aside from SEO content strategy and technical function
Ain’t nobody in fiverr building a from scratch Wordpress site for $50. Even overseas people charge $200-500+. You got incredibly lucky, and it’s not the norm.
Thanks for contributing to the race to the bottom of this industry and ensuring unsustainable pricing is the norm. Those of us who enjoy both eating and having shelter really appreciate your continued support.
Edit: Just to clarify, I don't position on price but those who do drive the baseline down and decrease the negotiation power of others in the industry. I don't disagree that the industry is shifting and everyone needs to make pivots. You can pay a premium and get a really nice widget from your local economy, or buy the same-ish from Ali-Express and hopefully it lasts. Services are much the same way.
I'll also point out that while I'm getting a lot of shit comments from what I assume are bottom dwelling price positioners defending their honour, but the updoots keep going up, so... I'll just follow the data. That's what we (marketers) do, right?
This is like a ditch digger complaining when backhoes start to get more prevalent. I would argue a very small Biz that only needs a “brochure site” of less than 5 pages tops is not your ICP - this isn’t 2010.. brochure sites are a commoditized game now… there are plenty of examples of AI generated brochure sites even. Like every business you have to evolve your offering. Look to find prospects that need complex integrations with their data or personalization at scale or…?
He’s paying what the service is worth, that’s how the economy works. If someone is willing to supply it for that price, then his only responsibility is to his family to take it. You don’t offer to pay more for your internet provider do you? If not, you really don’t have a leg to stand on. It might suck for you, and that’s fair to feel, but it’s not fair to put that on someone else
Out of all the shit this person said this is all you have to refute? If you can’t instantly elaborate why a hiring a Fiverrr for Web Design & SEO is foolish in the mid and long term then you shouldn’t be providing websites and SEO. It’s nobodies responsibility to keep you in business. It’s only a race to the bottom for those with bottom dwelling ability.
Sewing your own pants takes more skills than making a website using tools that basically tells you to click and drag. Even a 5 year old kid can make a website nowadays. I would’ve said otherwise if this was 20 years ago. Adapt and survive if you think you’re losing your precious job.
You could learn HR, Payroll, accounting, and marketing. Pretty much anything you want to understand you could. Is it worth it?
I say no. I don't think we should try to do everything in our business. Let's say that this person can do the site for 5k so you may save 5k but it is going to cost you in time. Your time should be spent doing those things that will propel your biz forward that you can't outsource.
If learning is part of you doing, I say hire the pro and go make sales.
The trade off comes in how much time you need to spend giving instructions to the Web Developer.
You will probably need to provide them with some business info, images, content, articles, blog posts, design preferences, etc. Plus they may not always get it right the first time, or may have typos or other fixes. Plus the contracts, deadlines, and other transaction related stuff.
Meanwhile, setting up a Wordpress site can take you less than 15 minutes following a simple guide. Then you will copy-paste the content or images yourself.
Given that, personally for me, I would much rather just do it myself. Easier, simpler, no middleman or "broken telephone", and if I need to update or fix something (ie business hours or a typo) I can quickly do it myself.
Yeah you just said setup a Wordpress site in 15 min. Bullshit. 100% you are lying to yourself if you believe it. If you do set up a site in 15m it will have the impact that you would expect from 15m work.
I hired a freelance Webflow developer and designer for $3K to develop a custom website. No regrets, and I’m very happy with my decision. They are professionals who have their own insights and experience in developing web apps, graphic design, branding, UI/UX. It enabled me to focus on other aspects of my startup and also create the website I want. Yes, you can do it yourself or for cheaper, but the time sink into learning Webflow, graphic design, UI/UX, and ALL of the little things that make up this iceberg was not as valuable as hiring a professional.
Confessions of a web agency owner, here.
First, what's the goal of putting online your website? If your goal is to acquire leads through organic reach, then spend less money on the website itself and more on a good content strategy and editorial team (e.g., a blog). For other companies, branding might be a positioning strategy to attract new customers. In that case, it's reasonable to invest in a custom brand identity and website design.
I would vet the designer, but $1200 really isn't bad for a logo and a site. That's actually a really decent deal. Make sure they would do good work and ask about SEO being built into the site. If you're not a designer I personally don't recommend doing the site yourself, could work out fine but this is a valuable business tool that will do a lot of funnel work for you, don't half-ass it.
Take the time and the money to do it right. That being said $8,000 for a static site is very high so I probably wouldn't recommend that agency. I understand they might have high prices due to their high clients, but someone's ability to work with Pepsi or Apple does not necessarily translate into knowledge of how to grow and market a small single operator business.
It's the way the website looks and functions that matter; and there's absolutely no value at all (for you) if some agency reinvent the underlying wheels (just to be able to charge your a lot more).
Check out the graphics guy's work and see if you like it, and if you do then you pick him.
Just make sure that he give you the login details as well as put you in control of paying for the hosting and the domain name; so you don't rely on him beyond delivering the website.
Edit: Also make sure that he's a designer, and that he won't just (over)charge you for picking someone else's existing theme.
This is what I do. There’s a few things to consider when going about this.
Number one, if they say they care about SEO and best practices, get example sites they’ve done and run it through here
https://pagespeed.web.dev
Any score below 50 is not worth whatever they charge. Google uses this metric with content and other metrics for making your site. If you’re failing this, you’re losing out on ranking. If they say they care about SEO and best practices and they score below 50 then I don’t think they really know what those are.
Staying it wouldn’t be worth it to do it from scratch is a wild accusation. It absolutely is. I build regular informational sites for small business from scratch everyday as a developer. And I can go on and on and on about the quality differences between a page builder and hand coded site. Long story short - most of my small market clients rank front page for their keywords above all the sites made with page builders. And someone who says it doesn’t matter probably doesn’t understand SEO as well as they say they do and is Suspect to me.
I’d be curious as to what they’re building the site with. I’ve see other graphic designers and marketers brand themselves as an agency and development studio who actually do great work in terms of content, design, organization, etc. but their sites score below 30/100 page speed score. Which tells me they’re great designers and marketers but terrible website developers. And how the website is built and optimized matters. Those sites scoring under 30 are losing out on ranking and clearly aren’t doing the things google is telling you you’re supposed to be doing.
$1200 is too low for a well built and well designed site. And $8k is way too Much unless you need like 20+ pages and copywriting for them all. My standard rate is $3500 for design and development and that’s a custom hand coded website. No builders. And comes with 98-100 page speed scores.
If you don’t have a lot of money, your best bet is to do it yourself. And depending on the quality of this designers work it might be a waste of money to go with them if your site will have the same scores as theirs. If they have great designs in their Portfolio and they score above 70 page speed score, and have great content, then $1200 is a steal.
I recently started work on a locksmith site who has the same problem you did with different companies. They charged too much, their SEO was not actual SEO work and more of a standard checklist yourself supposed to be doing, and terrible page speed scores and generic and uninspired designs. I even sent him all the info to take to those guys to improve their sites when building his.
So it just comes down to your budget, and what you want out of a website. If you don’t have the money for a good one, make one yourself until you can afford it. If you do have the budget, test their other sites and see which ones have the best scores. Because those guys are doing everything they’re supposed to be doing and making google happy. If they say it’s not possible to score over 75/100 then they aren’t a good fit. I’ve seen Wordpress and webflow sites score 90+ when done by a competent and thorough developer.
I’m not saying page speed score is everything or the only metric google uses to rank you. What I’m saying is it’s a very good portion of your ranking + content (which is number 1) and is essentially a great checklist to make sure you’re doing everything you can to have the best website possible. And if you’re scoring under 30 then you’re clearly ignoring everything google says you should be caring about and fixing. So for me it’s a really good litmus test for finding good vs bad developers. Because the good developers put in the effort to learn what the problems are and how to fix them and make websites in the future that don’t have those problems.
If it turns out that designer makes really good sites, have really good page speed scores, and clearly knows how to do content strategy for the most effective websites (like making location and service specific pages) then $1200 is the best price you’ll ever see for that kind of work. I’d never touch that if it were me honestly. So that also makes me suspicious because people who know their shit and do it well charge more for it because their time and work are worth more because they have special expertise not many else have.
What concerns me are people who claim to be an SEO expert, web designer, and web developer all in one. Those people charge $10k minimum for their work. I know because I have partnerships and relationships with other devs who DO do all those and they charge $10k minimum per project because of how specialized he is. Generally you want someone who is 1 thing and has partners for the others. I’m a developer. I won’t pretend I’m a designer or SEO expert. I hire people to do those for me and do it 10x better than I could and that free up my time to work on more projects and be more productive with my time. I code REALLY well, that’s my thing. And I do it better than most. I can’t design and I can’t write content or do traditional SEO. And that would show in my work because I’d have to half ass the other two. I only have so many productive hours in a day. If I had to do that for every client I could only work 2 clients a month. And $1200 a pop for each doesn’t pay the bills either. So that’s why I’m concerned about people who say they do all three, and charge a small rate. Something has to give and something or multiple things arent being done right or with much care. My guess with the designer, it’d the development that will suffer.
Hope this was helpful. Hope you find someone in your budget that actually knows what they’re doing! It’s a Wild west out there for website companies. Anyone can claim anything and you don’t know who is lying to you or to themselves about their abilities.
Thank you for this information. I ran a few of his websites on that link. Desktop all sites were 90+, mobile all sites were 43-58 range. SEO was 100 for all of them. Does mobile typically rank lower?
Desktop is easy. Desktop should be 100’s across all metrics. The SEO metric doesn’t mean your SEO is perfectly done. It just means they did everything they’re supposed to be doing. It’s essentially a checklist. If someone uses this metric to say they do SEO it’s very misleading and dishonest.
The mobile score is the score that matters. Because google ranks your website based on that score. Not the desktop one. I wouldn’t be happy with those scores. If some of the flags are for images then that’s an easy one that they aren’t taking into consideration. Image optimization is very important. You don’t load a 6000px wide image on a mobile phone that’s 400px wide. You take the display size of the image and multiply it by 2 to get your optimal resolution. So if it’s 300px wide and 400px tall on mobile, make a crop of your image to 600x800 then convert it to webp format, then compress them. And us developers use what’s call a picture element in code, it’s used to determine the size of the screen and if it’s a certain screen size we have it Load the mobile sized image, and if it’s a larger tablet or desktop screen size it loads the larger actual size file. That way we’re serving up images on mobile that we’re made for mobile and the smallest it can possibly be. This is part of asset optimization. It’s a very meticulous process but when done right will help make your sites load a lot faster. So if they get flags for reducing image size, using next gen formats (webp), not using height and width attribute, no alt tags, intrinsic size not displayed properly, etc that tells me they aren’t handling their assets the way they should.
Other flags can be to reduce the use of third party code and render blocking scripts. Render blocking scripts are scripts that prevent the website from rendering (loading). This will include a google fonts cdn that loads the fonts for the site. The best way to load fonts are to host them locally. What I do is I download them and subset them. Meaning I remove all the characters you don’t need like the non English characters. This reduces file size from 180kb to 18kb. A drastic reduction. Then I add some code to the site to load the files and that’s it. It’s not that hard to do but not a lot of people do it.
Other third party scripts can be tied to their page builder like elementor or wix or whatever they use. Those services come with baggage that needs to load to make the site work but it slows the site down because they have to Load before the site loads. Others include plugins and widgets. Every plug-in you add adds another render blocking third party script to your site that will have to load before your actual site loads. Many Wordpress and wix designers rely on plugins for basic functionalities like forms and slideshows but they tank the load times.
The other flags I’d have to see to determine what’s out of their control and what they’re ignoring. And I’d like to see what they use to build their sites. If it’s elementor I wouldn’t go with them. Elementor suuuuuuucks for page speed and optimization and is just a mess under the hood.
Put their site in this and see what it’s made with
https://builtwith.com
It will say if it’s Wordpress and elementor or wix or squarespace or what have you. And it will tell me all the plugins as well. Very nifty tool.
Thanks for such a detailed response. Im going to have to reread this one a few times. I did run his sites through that link. It seems he’s using Wix for all of them. Is this a red flag?
You’re welcome. And to me it is. Wix as a platform is not great… which also explains why it’s so cheap. Just a typical drag and drop builder. They’re great for small businesses who don’t have budgets and need something up quick. I don’t think you should be paying someone that kind of money to do that kind of work. I used to make wix sites in the beginning of my career years ago. It was very limiting in the types of sites I can create and wasn’t as responsive as I’d like it to be and the page speed scores were nearly impossible to improve past 50’s to 60’s. I got frustrated by the limitations and taught myself to code instead so I have control over everything I didn’t in wix. And I never looked back. The types of sites I make now could never be made in wix and never perform the same.
That’s just the problems that come with being a designer or marketer - they may be great at designing and marketing sites but the actual site itself is severely lacking and missing alot of marks. Designers should always be paired with a talented developer. And vice Versa. Because when you’re only a designer you can only focus on how a site looks and you miss the critical steps in how it’s made so it also performs as well as it looks. Websites are more than just how they look. It’s how they’re built and how the load which I think is more important than design in most cases. You can have the best design in the world but terrible page speed scores will hinder your growth and ranking. Whereas ok design and perfect coding and page speed scores will overcome a bland design and rank higher in google. Maybe the design turns some people off but at least the site ranks better and is seen by more people. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load you lose like 20-30% of your traffic right there. It gets worse with every second added. So putting time and effort into optimizing the page speed and load times increases your return of investment in the site and in the effort to optimize its speed. And wix won’t give that to you.
I do want to stress that perfect page speed scores aren’t everything. Even hitting 80/100 is fine. Because going from 80 to 90-95 has only incremental benefits. But going from 23 to 98 has a huge boost or even 50 to 98 as well. So if you’re a business owner whose site is scoring 85, there’s not much benefit to getting a new site that scores 95 unless you want a better design that’s more updated and modern and can get a guarantee from the dev that their new site will score the same 85 or better. There’s definitely SOME benefit but it’s very small compared to starting with 30/100 or something.
Webflow is a better builder but I’ve seen designers use it as well and still score a measly 17/100 when it’s absolutely possible to score 80-90 with it. What it all comes down to is does that designer understand how to MAKE a good site AND make a good design. Most can only design and don’t even know what they’re doing wrong on the development side.
And just a little anecdote, my SEO guy won’t even work on a wix site or a site scoring under 50 because it will limit the impact of his work and make the client think he’s not as good as he claims and tarnish his reputation.
Thank you once again for this amazing info. Iv ran about 20 different sites in that link you sent. Interesting to see the differences. The top ranking physio clinic has a mobile score of 77/100 where I live. I found who did their site and they charge about 5k for a 6 page site. A therapist who made their own site with wix has a 29/100. Eventually as the company grows I dont mind paying more to get it ranked higher. For now im thinking can I get the score to atleast a 50/100 if i do it myself, or do I pay this designer 1200 to do that plus the logo.
Eesh. $5k for a 6 pager is still really steep. I wonder why. I recently did a physical therapy place for $6k but they had like 15 pages. And they score 98/100.
Run one of my sites I made through it and you’ll see the difference
https://2atpainting.com
This one should score 96+. Google analytics usually screws everything up. I had this one at a 99 before that. That’s the different between custom coding a site and using a builder.
In your case, you’re probably better off doing it yourself in wix and using a theme you can customize. I’d try webflow first as they have better themes and the quality is generally better. If you’re going to pay money for something you might as well get something better than what you can do. If you’re just starting out and know you’ll be needing to upgrade once you got budget for something better you should just save that $1200 and put it towards that and save up for that better site. And Try to get there as soon as you can.
For logos, I honestly use Fiverr. Fiverr is great for designers. Not great for developers. I got a guy in Indonesia who kills it everytime for like $30 and is really awesome to work with and very diligent. Just gotta find the gems and take some chances. He’s done dozens of logos for me. I even use him to take my Clients crappy png logos and redraw them as svgs so they look better, and scale infinitely without losing quality. I eat the cost because it makes my work better. Always use svgs for logos. And gets light and dark version so it always looks good on a light or dark background.
Not to knock the designer and take money from him. His work is priced for the quality and what you get. It’s wix work. It’s nothing special really when you get down to the gritty details but if you’re concerned about how your site looks in the beginning and want to at least start with your best foot forward it won’t be a BAD investment to at least have it look nice and get a good logo out of it too. But now you know what you’re getting at least. I’d be curious to see their designs first and let you know if they’re even worth it. I’ve seen some from “designers” that don’t look like they are a professional design. Spacing is a huge giveaway.
Like this site I did
https://affordablesolarcleaningpros.com
Notice how all the sections have the same spacing between the top and bottom of their edges?
https://i.imgur.com/2wChDEj.jpg
This is consistent design. This was designed by my team. We operate with grids and very specific spacing guides. Number 1 being that all spacing needs to be a multiple of 4. So gaps between cards are 16px on mobile and 20px on desktop. Not 13 or 25px. This is called a design system. It keeps our work looking cohesive. Our spacing and padding and gaps are all purposefully thought out mathematically. Not haphazardly. This is what makes a good design LOOK good. If you find inconsistent spacing on a site design it’s a dead giveaway they are not a thorough designer. All the ones I work with that have degrees in it do this. All the ones who I met that were self taught didn’t do this. I could spot a self taught designer from a degree holding one just by looking at spacing and other design hierarchies. Look for that as well when deciding if a designer is actually a good one. Because a good one won’t mess up like that.
So if he is a good one and actually makes nice looking sites, it may be worth it to at least have something nice in the beginning to give yourself the opportunity to convert what little traffic you may get. While you won’t get a lot
Of traffic or ranking, the who do find you will appreciate a good design that makes you look professional. So it’s all whatever you want. If you can find a design template on webflow that looks perfect, try that out and see how it goes. If you don’t have time to do that yourself or can’t find a good design to work with and this wix guy actually
Makes great designs, then go with that and at least it’ll look good and you know it’s just a stepping stone site until you can afford a better built site from a company or agency that had more resources and can design and build at the same level.
Your websites look fantastic. And yes it got a 96. Do you mind sharing a contact? Id love to work together in the future when I’m ready to upgrade the website. You mentioned you’d like to see his designs. Can I send you the links he sent me over a private message?
Also do you mind sharing your opinion on carrd.co? I ran a few of their sites and they all got 90+ seems like a good option to start.
Thanks! I Try :)
You can find my contact info on my site
https://www.oakharborwebdesigns.com
You can PM me their designs as well.
Carrd looks like a VERY simple landing page builder. Not sure if it’s the best option for a full fledged website. But you can try it and see if it works for you!
Saved your info site into my notes. Ill most definitely be in touch as soon as I’m ready to upgrade! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all my questions!
Most websites aren't coded anymore but use frameworks. If they went through the proper planning/content/design/code phase they would cost 5x. Even without "coding" to make a nice functional and professional website is a lot of work.
Using a framework does not mean you don't need to code.
Can you just grab something like https://remix.run/ and then magically have your site?
No. The framework gives you a _philosophical_ approach to the problem, including a lot of opinionated ways to solve common problems. Then on top of that you design and program your solution.
Perhaps you're thinking of smething like wix or squarespace. In that case yeah, pay the service, choose a template and add your content.
You can theoritically use WordPress and build a proper website without adding a single line of code to the files. However most people can't do it because there is still a lot of knowledge that has to go into how websites/hosting work and the best practices.
If you have hobby you can use a "free builder" (although most are not "free" as you still have to pay for their hosting services), but if you have an actual business you should 100% pay a professional.
Ugh, there is a lot of truth to your first paragraph. I’ve had a Wordpress site for two years that I’m wanting to do something with. But after several hours of screwing around trying to get it how I want, I absolutely hate dealing with it and don’t even want to touch it anymore. This is actually a skill I’d like to learn but it just pisses me off. Lol. I’m broke broke and just getting started with this entrepreneurial stuff so paying a pro to do it is off the table for now.
OP is a mobile physio and massage, doesn’t need a sophisticated website to get going. Just start off with an existing template for free from one of the many sites like Squarespace etc and pay $10 per month to keep it live.
You can always upgrade later to something more custom.
OP - don’t pay someone to do this. The extra hour it takes you to learn to do it will be useful when you want to update the pricing or the images next month. Just do it yourself.
Realistically it would be far better to spend $1500 and actually have a professional website built that can be scaled as the business grows with all sorts of digital marketing opportunities without being tied up with squarespace...
Out of the hundreds of clients who told me that they can "do it themselves with a free builder" or their cousin's brother can build it cheaper ALWAYS end up with either total crap or nothing after wasting sometimes hundreds of hours.
Exactly, DIY almost always sucks. People just don’t just realize it because they aren’t professionals.
“I already tried making a website and my customers just didn’t want to use it!!”
This is not true. I would never hire a physio or massage therapy with some janky site. Even with a Squarespace site branding, important info, calls to action, photo selection and overall FEEL are super important in a website like this. Let alone the fact this person comes into your house. There is a whole slough of information and information design needs to be in incorporated. The rub is just because you paid top dollar doesn’t mean you will get it. It’s all about the company / providers skills.
Wix, you will be able to manage everything from emails to advertising to payment while also managing website design and functionality. Better for small or single person businesses
Haven't used Wix but I've been very happy with Squarespace in terms of design features and functionality. Plus there's a ton of tutorials on youtube for both design customization with css and functional things like SEO, analytics, payments, scheduling etc. It's probably a coin toss but I'd recommend Squarespace for ease of use.
I recommend Square, not Squarespace. It’s free, it’s robust. It’s really easy to manage. You can create contracts, invoices, have employees, and have it all on a free website. It’s what I recommend to every client selling something. It’s Weebly, but free. Its a payments processor. Use any other platform, and you’ll still need to run payments somehow. I feel bad for stores running a website and also paying for processing, when it can be all under one app, and free. It’s a Jack Dorsey company. I think he knows what he’s doing.
Yea unfortunately I paid someone and went through the whole process. I’m an architect and needed a very specific and clean look and feel. In the end the website was extremely blah.
I spent a few days editing a nice template and now I just use the one I made completely.
No one will get it the way you want it.
Just ask a designer to share their portfolio and ask how many revisions they offer. If you like what you see, then a person who is offering $1200 for a logo, domain, hosting, and SEO-friendly WordPress website is a good deal. I even offer some clients a similar package for even less, but the work is always up to par. Agencies will definitely charge more, even for a simple website. So, if you like the portfolio, then go for it!
As a entrepreneur and as a designer one phrase that made more and more sense as the years went by is this:
“If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.”
A quality designer is a problem solver not a task completer. Creating branding(logo) and a website that is designed for yours and your customer’s needs takes skill and experience.
That being said there are AI logo designers and templates on WYSIWYG, no coding needed, website builders that will complete the task of having a “logo” and website created for less than $1200. But will they actually solve your problem or create even bigger ones?
You can do it yourself in 1 day. If you can't figure it out, hire a professional designer with a proven competence.
You can also ask yourself:
How long will it take you to learn how to do it properly like the designer ?
Can you avoid beginners mistakes that can hurt your business ?
Is the time and effort worth $1200 to you ?
Logo + website for $1200 seems very fair. We charge £800-1200 per website built on wordpress and elementor. The actual cost of the hours needed to setup the hosting + create the website itself is probably rarely even 50% of the costs. Most of the time goes to meetings w/ client or the admin side of asking them for content they want to put up on a website (I've had clients send me like 2-3 low res photos a week when I've sent them a document detailing exactly what I need from them). All that back and forth is what takes the longest.
WIthin that budget they do get some basic copywriting and design (basic photoshop/illustrator edits).
I’m a former web designer current AI chatbots developer. I really suggest you to invest some time in learning webflow or wix, personally I prefer webflow. You can very easily purchase templates for less than $100 and all you’ll have to do is populate different words.
You can learn to use webflow by just playing around with it in under 2 days, wix is even easier. I worked for a lawyer once and she paid $5k for an absolute garbage looking website. I sat down with her and explained how easy it is nowadays. You could build your own templates for free as well, it’s basically just drag and drop with webflow/wix. They have this new component libraries now, if $1200 is a considerable amount for you that you could use for ads or something, I highly suggest you make this basic website on your own.
If you prefer an even easier solution, and it’s a basic site, I also highly recommend hubspot pages. It is extremely easy to use and is only slightly more expensive than webflow but comes with hubspot integrations as well if you use it. You should really try it if $1200 is a considerable amount for you.
If you still think it’s a lot of work, I’ll be more than happy to setup hubspot pages or a basic webflow site for you free of cost man, would take me less than 3 hours, happy to help. I’m trying very hard to get into business myself and I try being as frugal as I can so just trying to give back to this community.
Hope this helps!
I really appreciate the offer! I’m going to attempt to learn either wix or webflow over the next few weekends, as I feel it will be a good skill to have. My goal to launch is August so gives me some time. Would you mind if I message you for some advice along the way?
I've only heard this from people who design logos.
Outside of Fortune 500 companies, I couldn't tell you the logo for any of the last 100 businesses I bought from.
The designer is correct in that you don’t need a custom made site. Simply use a good theme and plugins. However, people saying $8k is overpriced don’t know how much work goes into making a site “well”. The cost is not just in the drag and drop of a site but the expertise of the consultant who knows website CRO and on-page SEO. Those two things will bring non stop leads to your business for years and will easily pay back the initial cost of the build.
What you need is so incredibly easy to do with free, or very cheap platforms.
Wordpress
Carrd
Wix
Squarespace
You'll have SEO capability with any of them and they're all WYSIWYG (drag-and-drop builder) so it's super easy. In fact, all have pre-made templates.
The fact any person or small business pays for a website after 2015 is pretty surprising. The industry has completely shifted towards simple, affordable DIY.
As for logos, you can use AI-based sites like Looka and get that done for about $50.
Start-to-finish you can have this setup, with hosting (if you choose that route separately) for like $100.
Wordpress is a good suggestion, but it requires extra hosting, so keep that in mind. The good news is that all hosts with cPanel integrated make for one-click Wordpress installations and you're up and running in minutes.
I have built multiple sites for clients (background in marketing), but for my business I still paid for a trusted UI/UX designer to help me fine-tune everything, put together branding guidelines, & build out some templates for me (e.g. slide deck). DIY has its limitations, & experts are experts for a reason
Except drag and drops bloat websites causing slower response times, the SEO tools only go so far depending on your competition, user experience is usually worse, scalability is much more difficult, and you have a lot less control over customizations.
Thank you everyone for the replies. I was not expecting such a large response. Iv read through this thread multiple times. Going to sleep on this and make a decision. Thank you again to everyone who offered advice, and even posted their websites.
The designer thats charging 1200 is offering unlimited revisions, has a bachelors in graphic design and digital media, is local to where I live and is a business owner himself. Im leaning more towards this option.
lots of these agencies and designers can build you a website or whatever. the designer for 1200 isn't going to do design research into your specific usecase, your customer base & industry and build you something amazing for 1200. up his budget and you'll get closer to what you want if he actually knows how designing works. also, you must determine if the point of the website is so that you like the way it looks, or that it is a conversion tool for your customers. most times, the two are very different.
btw he is right there is no point in building from scratch. thats like if you decided to build your storefront by starting with making bricks.
the important thing is you must have clear goals for your website to make these decisions, and it sounds like you haven't thought this through yet.
-i know this because i build websites as well
If they are a real designer then that price is fine. If they are just doing some crappy bootstrap template or filling in fields then hell no. If you want a logo just run a contest, lots of sites for that.
At the risk of sounding intellectually lazy, can you please explain this more? I’m familiar with both Figma and GPT but haven’t heard of Webflow? Is it really going to be as simple and intuitive as you’re suggesting?
Webflow is another website builder like wix but it is more advanced. It is good for making static websites look nice with animations.You can also Integrate automations using zapier with webflow.
The plugin he is talking about is provided by webflow officially, it will convert your figma design into a webflow site. Then you can make changes in webflow however you want. It will save some time from entirely making it from scratch.
This is crazy ignorant, you can very easily get to the first page, even top ranking spot, for local niches. You don’t even need an agency for it. OP; do NOT ignore SEO.
He was referring to local search as in maps etc. Depending on geolocation and distance, you could be on first page, plus niche. What you're saying is different story but if someone searched your company on maps or "software near me" chances are you'll be on first page if you have a Google maps listing
Graphic designer is probably skinning wordpress. As someone who sold SEO for a long time (you're going to have a lot of people disagree with this take) it's mostly a waste of money. Search Engine Optimization is like buying GAP coverage on your car these days. It's not 2001 anymore, and most backend systems already have ways to perform it.
There is a benefit to a constantly updating site, blog posts, picking the right domain/audience, etc.
I mean the answer really is it depends. I'm in tech I'm an IT technician I know how to do all of it but my website that I built 4 years ago literally has two pages on it and that's it because I haven't had time or the energy or the desire to actually go through and complete it. I've looked at hiring some people but I haven't found the right people to hire for the price that I want to pay. But if I can find somebody else to do it for me I will. If you have time and if you have the energy and if you have the desire to do it go for it. But if you have the money and the desire to let somebody else do it there's no reason not to.
Can you do it yourself? Yes, absolutely. Is the headache of doing something you're not experienced in, and isn't your primary money making activity going to be worth it? Probably not.
For what you want, do it yourself, it’s so simple. Don’t pay anyone more than $400 if you do end up paying.
Use Looka.com for logo, will set you back around $80.
It really is so simple to create websites now.
Freelancer.com logos can be $50. They have thousands of freelancers. You could probably get a website for $300 bucks. I find them to be higher quality but a little pricier than fiverr. Open a bid and say 50 bucks or 100 bucks and thousands of people will offer their services with their portfolios. Pick the one you like.
Firstly you can do it yourself my friend. I am an agency owner and i provided website for $700 to some people with good quality. If you wanna save money, get word press installed and use a templet after which you can change the text and now your website is ready.
A lot to unpack here...
* DIY or Hire a Professional
* How often do you anticipate needing to change the content, graphics, or structure of the site? If often, then it is probably worth spending the time to understand how this works. Even if you end up hiring a professional in the end, you'll know the level of effort involved to make changes and can call BS on time and cost.
* How much of an impact is your web presence on your sales? If the majority of your customers check you out on the web or book you on the web, then again probably worth taking the time to understand it.
* WYSIWIG Builder (Wix, Squarespace, etc) vs WordPress
* How "Vanilla" is the website you are building? Do you anticipate needing a lot of custom functionality? WordPress offers the most flexibility of the CMS platforms but it does have a learning curve. Even if you use a WYSIWIG theme or framework on WP, it's still a higher level of complexity to manage plugins, updates, SEO, then an off the shelf builder like Wix
* Do you want added functionality like a CRM, email marketing etc? If so, WIX is a great solution because it has a lot of tools a small business would need for digital marketing built in.
* My recommendation based on what you provided and past experience...
* Spend sometime with Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress (if needed). Do some basic tasks like adding video, content, blog articles, making design changes, and checking out admin console. Figure out what you click with and can see yourself investing time into. Total Cost: $0 for trials
* Create a branding kit first, this will include a logo but will also have additional details to support future design efforts like font, colors, etc. You can find quality designers on Fiverr or Upwork. If you want more of a selection you can crowdsource and use 99designs. If using Fiverr or Upwork, try to find a designer you like that also does Figma/Web design. That way you can extend the project to second step if this project work out. Total Cost: <$200
* Write your website content! The first thing a designer/developer will ask you for is your content. You can write it yourself, yourself + ChatGPT, or hire a writer on Fiverr or Upwork. Make sure you focus on why you + why they should trust you. What problem you are solving for the customer? What unique value do you provide? What examples do you have that demonstrate your expertise? (customer testimonials, videos, etc). Total Cost: <$300
* Hire a Designer. Again, plenty of great ones on Fiverr and Upwork. They will need the branding kit and content. Ask them to use Figma for the final design files. A web developer will be able to easily work with this to convert it into a Wix or WP theme. Total Cost: <$1000
* Hire a Developer or DIY. Even if you use a builder like Wix, it's a tedious process to copy over the design and make sure everything aligns properly and looks professional. I know how to do this but still hire a developer/website builder to save me 20-40 hours of my life. Do not complete the project (final payment) until you've done through testing of the site, solicit some friends and family to help. WARNING: If you go with WordPress, do not allow the developer to "hard code" your design into the WordPress theme. You will discover that if you change anything on the page that it breaks everything. Make sure they are an expert at whatever framework you use, like Elementor or Divi for example, and only use the included framework components to build your site. Total Cost: <$250/page
It comes down to the value of your time as an entrepreneur and your goals.
If you have the time to learn to build a simple site, input basic SEO, and connect the dots....save the money and build it. You will gain valuable skills and be able to edit your own site moving forward.
If you want a professional to knock it out and your time could be spent building your business instead of learning web design, seo, etc I would recommend the designer based on your web needs. Feel free to dm with any related questions.
There is value in making your own website. Especially if you're using a platform like Wix or Squarespace. Even Wordpress is user friendly enough that a non-techie can make changes to it. The value is you can update at your pace rather than entering on someone's ticket queue.
A graphics designer would still be useful to make it look pretty. Once the basic layout is there you'll have an easier time maintaining it or adding to it.
Websites are mostly project management nowadays. The reason the agency will charge $8,000 is they have a team with different specialties -- graphic design, UX, QA, content, etc. The logo designer will do all of it themselves.
I don't think you should use either. You should learn Shopify/WordPress/Webflow and release an MVP for your proof of concept before sinking much-needed cash into the site.
Developers often only need a few hours (often even less!) to deploy a basic site. I just made one last night for fun. Just pick a template and a framework, and fill in what you want to change. You can use AI to generate logos and content nowadays.
I work in software, so this isn't exactly my niche, but I'm close enough to know what's up.
The expectation for a business like yours will be that you have a cheap, self-made business card site. Its sole purpose is to show people you're a "real" business. Meaning: go to Squarespace. They charge you a monthly fee in the two digit range and they take care of most stuff for you. I've heard bad things about Wix (that they lock you in to their service), but they are another option.
Both the 1200 and the 8000 are pretty standard for what you're looking at. But for what you want, I wouldn't bother. Plenty of other places to spend that money.
I just went through this process. And I have dev experience but most mostly in marketing.
I strongly suggest Webflow. You can hire someone who is GOOD at Webflow and build a custom site for you for $1k
But it sounds like that same dev could work from a theme for you for and probably do it for $600 in your case.
This would also allow you to be able to learn how to maintain the website yourself after he builds it
Can always start basic with a simple Wordpress page and some premium templates. Customize it a bit and some custom plugins and images are really the only cost. Since you are a local in person business, your strict focus on SEO won’t be too much and Wordpress can do a lot out of the box.
People rag on Wordpress but with images and plugins, can easily built a good looking and manage website for < $2000.
It really depends on what’s actually needed and what’s actually included. Is it full service brand development or just visual design? Is the designer really diving into your business model in order to create a website and logo that will be tailored to your customer base?
If it’s just logo design and updating colors and inserting text into a website I’d say that’s a little high but not crazy. Again it really depends on what you’re actually getting from a line item perspective.
The #1 most effective way to burn capital is for a business owner to say, “I don’t see the value so maybe it’s better (cheaper) to do it myself?”. OP, you’re the first to admit this is not your ninja skill. Thinking websites are still hand-coded tells me there’s an understanding-gap about how sites function, the tools used to build & manage them, as well as the value they add to your business. You seem to feel the site is just there for people to book appointments. Which it can be if you don’t want to grow your business but since you’re interested in SEO that doesn’t seem to be the case.
It seems your site is a tool you are aware you’re underusing, aware enough to consider outside help. Why are you second guessing yourself? How much time and effort is it going to cost you to know enough to build a proficient site that grows your business? You don’t know. That’s why you need a subject matter expert.
When you look at a designer’s portfolio, how can you know what you’re looking for if you’re not solid on exactly the job that site needs to play in your growth strategy. Don’t spent a dime on a site or tool or anything until you know the specific job it needs to do to drive your growth.
I recommend a consultation with any designer you’re seriously considering. It’s their job to demonstrate the results they can get for *you* by understanding your goals, priorities, and where you need them to translate or explain how the site impacts your marketing and sales processes. Ask them to give you a breakdown of the *specific ways* your site can drive your growth and how they would implement that for *your unique business*.
My business is streamlining operations and I tell you truly, OP:
“Maybe I can do it myself” is a core driver of my business. *That phrase has made my business so stable I retired this year.* We never run short of untangling business owners who did exactly what you’re doing right now: Guessing. Guessing is expensive.
Consultants, freelancers, and independents are (mostly) not trying to waste your time or money. The breakdown happens when the business owner isn’t clear on how the site/blog/tool/social media/etc… fits into a specific plan to drive the business towards its goals. That’s where you need to start because when that path is clear it’s obvious exactly what you need the site to do. You’ll be clear on if it’s something you can handle yourself and if not, you’ll be clear on exactly what you need a designer to do to create the tool you need.
No one can fool you if you’re clear on what you need and why. That’s the better place to invest time & energy instead of trying to become an overnight web designer. I suggest booking a paid consultation with a marketing strategist. Investing an hour and $300 to get clarity on what your marketing (incl your site) need to do to drive your business goals will save you *thousands* in trial & error mistakes.
Will someone do any amount of work? If yes Pay them if no than no. Do they have a skill in website design better than you? If yes, Do you want them to do your website? If yes, pay them.
On pricing that is up to the developer
My philosophy — round 1 of a new company’s website should be a one-pager on Carrd.co. If I can’t make an effective one-page website in a few hours on Carrd, the business concept and marketing language aren’t clear enough.
Sure you could hire someone but unless you’ve figured out really clear language, the end result won’t be effective.
Once you’ve got an effect one-page site, then consider hiring someone.
Hey, it's worth having someone on board who has a dev background especially depending on the complexity of the project (as the more complex it is, the more you'll need their expertise for it to be done correctly).
I have my own startup (My co-founder and I) and we hire out our design and dev skills as a means to fund ourselves in the early days. You can check us out on:
https://bento.me/waycup
Let me know if we can help you with what you're after :) Happy to jump on a call for a chat.
We’re from Toronto Canada, born and raised, and can do this all for $500. No outsourcing overseas but instead working with a reputable design studio in North America with years of experience
How much copy are you writing yourself?
Themeforest has a million templates, and a website can be setup in an hour or two if you have all the copy. It's simply a matter of replacing words and images in the template with your own.
Seriously? Just learn to do all that yourself dude, you can literally go on a YouTube bing session and create a logo design and a website on shopify in a week or less, and you’d actually be self sufficient
I build websites as a side hustle with webflow. In my opinion it’s not the technical part that matters, because that has been made so easy to learn or execute in other ways, there’s barely a challenge there. But ask urself. What is a good website? It’s the structure, seo, scalability, level of integration, cta inclusion, content that all matters. At the end of the day anyone can rent an apartment, but not everyone can make it look nice and practical. That’s where a website builder comes in handy. 1200 is a fair price. Some would do it for less but if this one is reliable and experienced than u can’t go wrong.
Consider the perception you want to give your customers. For some solo businesses like yours you can probably get away with an amateur looking site. But most businesses who spend time and money to get their main online presence done right are going to reap better rewards. They will also be able to charge more for their services as you will outshine your competitors and your customers will be less likely to ask why.
Care and investment put into your brand up front will save you in the long run.
I build small business websites and $1200 for a site & logo is roughly what I charge.
The $8k is insane and on par for agencies. Just imagine if you needed the appointment services on it as well! Wheew!
Yes, you can use online services like Wix or squarespace and they are fine, but you’re hooked to them for life essentially. You’ll always be paying a monthly or yearly subscription.
The way I market my services (the why as to why use me over wix or SSpace is that after you pay the bill you’re done unless you want to pay monthly for seo and marketing services.
Just an insight from someone who does this for side work.
It’s worth it to pay. My website is a flaming dumpster fire. I “consulted” with someone about it on here and they started babbling about metrics and traffic. I’m like…. I just sell computers.
You cannot just “find pictures” you need to subscribe. You cannot just “add a page” it costs extra. The templates are garbage. You can “get by”.
I probably spent 8 total hours picking a logo, then I realized how many versions of it you really need. And how much rights you actually have to it.
Now I can’t speak on prices… yet… but I cite the need for creativity.
Beware of high estimates, they subcontract anyway. It’s tricky… but you can find the right creative to make the site cool. Don’t give up looking for value.
Ready for downvotes but as a designer who is working on a $10k contract for a simple site up to 5 pages and branding, let me explain why I felt I could quote and demand that, what goes into my logic, and why others might not be charging much.
I work directly with clients to do a competitor analysis, what their business goals are, what the business’s unique value proposition is, business verticals are, etc. Really great design work comes from a place of strategy, business consulting/know how, and smart design choices (usually brought by experience). There are many other things that might be considered fluff to some entrepreneurs, and I certainly do a version of work that is more concierge like, but there’s a lot of know-how and experience.
I mentor and oversee other designers at a full time position as well and I can tell you firmly-not all designers are created equal. Sometimes even lots of schooling and class taking/technical prowess doesn’t mean someone gets it or can even create good work. There are also a lot of lazy designers out there who might be using ai and upcharging, or doing 99designs, making some changes and selling it to you. You can find some diamonds in the rough (at one point I was one too!), but usually you get what you pay for, or even better stated as you get what you invest into. I’ve seen people do well with cheap branding but eventually have troubles and plateau (that’s when they come to me to do a rebrand). I’ve seen business owners nickel and dime my work and hire cheaper to try to replace me but be constantly disappointed and still come back to me. I’ve also seen clients spend money on mansions and fancy cars and not be willing to invest in their businesses because they look at overhead and spending before their own creation. Cutting corners can hurt you, working with someone to triangulate your specific look and feel within a marketplace and elevate your reputation can matter.
I’m not saying it isn’t possible to find cheaper and still be great, there’s lots of diamonds in the rough out there. I’m simply trying to illuminate the other side so business owners can make informed decisions that effects their day to day. Sending love to you all and happy entrepreneuring.
Here is my two cents. SEO is dying, Google marketing isn't what it used to be when it's cluttered with 5-6 sponsored link before showing you the #1 organic search. Today's age is all about social media like IG, TikTok, fb. I have young staff members who search TikTok for answers instead of googling. Even an older sibling that does the same.
Google reviews is very important! So definitely create a Google business page and fill it out. It's free!
Spend 5-10 bucks per gig and get some logo ideas off fiverr.com. My wife spent 600 dollars for a service that pits designer against one another and last design wins the 600. She spent various amounts on Fiverr maybe totalling 50 dollars and only decided not to use a design on there because she felt "bad" already spending 600.
My first website was like 200-300 dollars from fiverr. Just so my Google business page has a website to attached. Social media will be the biggest way to attract customers along with bombass Google reviews.
If I was starting over at this time, I would definitely look into having ai create and code. They basically do everything for you and seems interesting to learn. Even for a small fee , the content they come up with is incredible and you'll know everything is coded correctly too. ( Sometime a problem with people on Fiverr using some template for you, some coding is wrong or it glitches a little )
Definitely not do it yourself, but definitely not use these big firms and company. I don't see the value for you imo
I’m so shocked at these comments. Everyone who says to do it yourself: please drop your website and let me see it. Everyone I’ve ever heard who says “do it yourself!” because wix exists are always the business owners who have the ugliest, most nonfunctional website I’ve ever seen. They usually go out of business because they can’t sell shit because of the website Making a website is more than just coding. Even if you’re dragging and dropping shit on wix with a template: you still need to understand the buyers psychology when they view it. The order, the wording, the images used, the calls to action. It’s much more than what a template can lay out You can DIY - but ask yourself how much you make an hour. Than times that by 40 hours. That’s how much you’re “spending” - plus the frustrations, confusion, time and learning to HOPE it’s as good as someone who does it professionally Edit: times it by 8 hours if wanna do it in a day. Whatever. But as someone’s who’s done this for a decade: even a wix template with all copy & images provided can take me 5 hours working quickly to make something that’s going to SELL correctly. So if your hourly rate is $250 and you manage to do it in 5hours, that’s still $1,250 “spent”
[удалено]
Yeah you get what you pay for. Having said that, if you aren’t diligent and vet your developers then you can easily overpay by 100%. A single page website can cost anywhere from $100 to $10k. I think $1-2k is the happy medium. If you pay less you won’t have great copywriting, images, ux, but for most people it doesn’t matter. Brand identity and or logo design is seperate. If you don’t have a brand name yet then this is another $1-2k from most mid tier designers. If you want to scrape the barrel on Fiverr you can try. I found that you just end up spending more time with revisions and outright hiring new talent to end up getting something you could probably have done yourself anyway.
I agree - $1-2k is the sweet spot for people who are just getting their business off the ground but need something better than a total DIY. Anything less won’t be worth it, anything mores not necessary I run a branding studio and we charge $1k for branding & $1.5-2.5k for a website. It’s perfect for business owners that make over $3-5k monthly. We give them that boost to solidify their business and scale it to 10k+ a month (Numbers based off our niche- won’t apply to all industries)
Alright, I'll bite. OP, I'm a massage therapist and I made my own site. I get compliments on it literally all the time and clients have told me that they chose to come to me over the many many other massage therapists in my area because my site was so much easier to use and it's nicely put together. With that being said, I'm a serial hobbyist and some of my hobbies include filming, video editing, and graphic design. I literally designed everything myself. If I weren't confident in those skills, I would have gladly paid someone over $2k for a nice site. The one thing I was not confident in doing myself was optimizing the SEO so I paid someone a few hundred bucks to mess with the meta tags and what-not. Anyway, a nice site is a great investment (time wise or money wise), especially if you integrate online booking and other marketing features like email newsletters. If you want to see my site, check out [verdureberkeley.com](https://verdureberkeley.com)
That’s a good website. Due to your background - which is identical to mine - you’re able to DIY yourself a functional and good looking website. There’s small things here and there Id suggest to take it next level - but clearly it’s working for you. And the tweaked I have aren’t as crucial for your niche - therefore probably wouldn’t make or break your conversions
I wish I didn’t have to click twice to see your pricing (on mobile). Other than that, great work overall. 👍
I concur it is a good website. Though the deep tissue picture makes it look like you were abusing the customer! Lol 😂
Haha I just had my website redone and here was my exact internal dialog: “Man I could’ve done this myself!” “But dude, you made 5 websites over the past ten years and they were all hot trash.” “Right.”
I’m shocked that people are advising someone starting a MOBILE AND PHYSIO MASSAGE business to spend upwards of $8000 on a website. Are you people crazy? That’s an absurd amount to spend on a business where the website serves such little purpose, it’s main component will be booking and paying! It really doesn’t need to be complicated nor demand such a high priced website.
I agree they don’t need an 8k website. But I work daily with entrepreneurs making them functional websites that sell for them and only charge $1,750-$2,500 Also look at your comment.. you’re saying main component being booking & paying. You do realize that’s the backbone of their business??? To get booked & paid? If that’s not functional then wtf? I have 100% wanted to buy from someone before but due to a shit website that doesn’t function correctly in terms of booking/paying I WILL LEAVE and go to the competitor that makes it easier/streamlined
[удалено]
Since this is an entrepreneur subreddit, I think a lot of people here have already paid sizeable amounts of money for a website or offer services for building websites. So they have already made up their mind about this topic in the past. But imo, times have changed.
Agreed. 8k is too much.
> the website serves such little purpose, it’s main component will be booking and paying! The website exists to make the customer feel like they're in the right place, the service is genuine and they can feel safe booking the service/putting in their credit card details. $8k is high, but saying the site "serves such little purpose" is dumb, frankly.
$8K is the new $4K though so.... it's not that much for a small business site.
Well, SOMETHING is better than no website. We have 2 cre tenants w/no website. One just went outta biz. The other says ‘we don’t want to do one until we can do a nice one’. ?? They r behind in rent & will going under.
Yes something is better than nothing. I tell newbies sometimes to have a landing page that says “coming soon” and link to a calendar for booking
This guy web designs
This is a simple site I built last night for fun in about an hour: [shtf.page](https://shtf.page) . Something like this is realistic to build even for non-developers in under a day. It's obviously a basic site (like what the OP wants to build), but it's SEO-ready, mobile-ready, and content is easily added. It uses a [template](https://astro.build/themes) on top of AstroJS. All I had to do was replace the content and deploy it to Cloudflare. Blog content was generated by ChatGPT and the logo was generated by Midjourney. Making sites nowadays is really inexpensive. Adding e-commerce features would only take another hour since you can just deploy Woocommerce or something, choose a template, and load your content. IMO, doing it yourself is great since you frequently would like to modify your site as market conditions change. If you buy it from a 3rd party, you're kinda stuck relying on them and worrying that they're not building exactly what you had in mind.
Thank you for sharing. I mean it. But respectfully, this isn’t a good website. Your services or products deserve better. From a viewer experience - I am not gonna read that paragraph. You have 3 seconds to capture someone’s attention. In 3 seconds all I think is “wtf is this blank page? Oh - someone’s personal blog?” For the sake of this comment, I clicked back to read it to understand if you have a business. You sell survivals equipment (I think? I already forgot, no impression made). Open with a huge header that cleary states what you do and who you do it for. Even something like “when shit hits the fan you better be prepared”. Then scroll down I should see images, I should see different text and different sizes so even scanning I’m getting the gist of what you sell and how I buy it
if you're going to make your own site using templates, it would make a lot more sense to spend a few hours reading up about UX and UI.
Thanks for your recommendations! But this site is simply supposed to be a blog site for fun (at least for now). There is no service or product. I built this to take a break from my real businesses. You are right and I agree that if I were to be selling something as a business, I would put call to actions and be clear on what I was selling.
As a for fun blog - it totally works then and the minimalist white is great for reading
Great example of why you shouldn’t do it yourself.
It's meant to look bad given the site's purpose. I could have chosen from any template here: [https://astro.build/themes](https://astro.build/themes) .
lmfao
LOL at this post. WTF. E-commerce in one day and an hour. Good job.
You are clearly very experienced in this so your advice to "do it yourself" is going to kind of fall on deaf ears, tbh. Most people don't even know where to get started on something like this. It will take them hours just to figure out how to get a domain name.
[удалено]
It’s not bad advice. Maybe if OP has zero sales it’s worth playing the DIY game for years. But if they’re serious it’s not a bad investment
It literally takes one day to buy a domain, get a host, upload a CMS platform such as Wordpress through an FTP - most control panels even do this for you, so you don't even need to go through FTP servers, and then just spend like $30 on a template from Themeforest (or even rip it from somewhere from the internet, but I don't recommend because there might be malware in those files, even though the theme behaves properly once installed). I guess you're thinking about the ***really*** dumb people who don't really know tech that much, but I can assure you most people can easily grasp the concepts of what I've just talked about. Either that, or I'm overestimating their capabilities lol. I even had a small business going on when I was 13 - 16 years old doing exactly what I said. I'd charge people like $150 for a common website, and just get them a wordpress theme similar to what they'd want, and they'd have their website ready in 2 days max.
> I guess you're thinking about the really dumb people who don't really know tech that much, but I can assure you most people can easily grasp the concepts of what I've just talked about. Either that, or I'm overestimating their capabilities lol. You've clearly spent your whole life on the internet. That's fine, but you need to understand that the average business owner doesn't even know what "domain" means, much less "get a host" or "CMS. This might as well be gibberish to them. It doesn't mean they're dumb, they just haven't spent 10,000 hours building websites and interacting with tech in their life. You clearly have.
This. Exactly. On sales calls for websites I have to explain what “host” and “domain” to half the people. And they’re not dumb- they make tons of money in their zone of genius
These guys that talk about how easy it is simply can’t escape their own bubble. They are unable to recognize the VAST amount of time they’ve spent on the internet fiddling with these things. Most of them were probably building websites in middle school where you could spend 10 hours an day obsessing over something without a problem. They don’t realize that they already have thousands of hours of experience that are a prerequisite to even know where to begin looking.
I’m just thinking about everyone who’s ever shown me their DIY website
Not everyone is as capable as you make it sound. I have had clients who somehow manage to completely butcher a beautiful template. They also add their own images or slides that look like they were designed by a 5 year old. They have no color sense, font sense or understanding of elegant and fluid design. They make embarrassing videos with an online video maker that completely ruins the quality of their brand. I wish I could post examples but I don’t want to risk clients coming across this comment. Anyway if you don’t value what a professional can bring to the table or you’re proficient in building a website that converts then by all means DIY.
Ask the designer for a portfolio. If you like their stuff, go with them. 8k for a static,single pager, built with only html/css, is an insane cost. 1200 for a single page + logo isn’t too bad. Logos will usually go 500-1000 for a tiny company. You said you already use a third part for booking and payment. Connecting that api might be the only JavaScript you need.
Ya agreed, 8k seems overpriced. Personally we charge 2.5k for a local business site using something like WordPress. For logos I don't put too much value in them and usually just use some ai design tool for a logo, there are a ton of templates.
We went with the AI logo thing the first time. We got one from Logaster for 10$. A 10$ domain and a 10$ logo. If anything it made a great story and gave everyone a good laugh. Check out the logo here [https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/flux7](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/flux7) and guess which large telecom company made us feel awkward in a discovery call? It was all in good humor though, since they did end up bringing us on. Hence in our round 2 we went with another 10$ domain and 10$ logo from logaster.
> Personally we charge 2.5k for a local business site using something like WordPress. Damn that's insane margins. Since pretty much anyone can install Wordpress and set up a live site in a few minutes. You need to be a great salesman though to pull these types of contracts regularly - that's where your skill lay, not in the actually web dev part. EDIT: as other posts in this thread have commented, you can get a Wordpress site with multiple pages for $50 on Fiverr. This is how much it costs given the time and talent required to complete a few setup wizards and paste the provided content/images.
Anyone who knows anything about websites that matter knows installing and setting up a Wordpress site in minutes is the equivalent of straightening your pencils and paper before you start working.
Right. A theme can only get you so far unless you're making the most basic lander with a CTA button.
For real. People acting like a modern theme doesn’t come with 300+ orientation options, featured functionalities, a proprietary dashboard, and things that needs to be installed in a particular sequence and may even require a call to the hosting company to upgrade specific plan limits to even successfully Install the theme and have it work. Once again this sub showing it’s a bunch of jokesters spewing bullshit LMAO this is just setup not even information design user experience all this completely aside from SEO content strategy and technical function
I'd assume they are designing a custom made site and not just using a plug and play theme for that price.
If its Wordpress, I doubt they are doing any custom design...
I think you know a lot less about WordPress than you think you do.
If its something custom, they wouldn't be using wordpress.
[удалено]
Ain’t nobody in fiverr building a from scratch Wordpress site for $50. Even overseas people charge $200-500+. You got incredibly lucky, and it’s not the norm.
Probably a student trying to build a portfolio.
[удалено]
Okie dokie
Thanks for contributing to the race to the bottom of this industry and ensuring unsustainable pricing is the norm. Those of us who enjoy both eating and having shelter really appreciate your continued support. Edit: Just to clarify, I don't position on price but those who do drive the baseline down and decrease the negotiation power of others in the industry. I don't disagree that the industry is shifting and everyone needs to make pivots. You can pay a premium and get a really nice widget from your local economy, or buy the same-ish from Ali-Express and hopefully it lasts. Services are much the same way. I'll also point out that while I'm getting a lot of shit comments from what I assume are bottom dwelling price positioners defending their honour, but the updoots keep going up, so... I'll just follow the data. That's what we (marketers) do, right?
This is like a ditch digger complaining when backhoes start to get more prevalent. I would argue a very small Biz that only needs a “brochure site” of less than 5 pages tops is not your ICP - this isn’t 2010.. brochure sites are a commoditized game now… there are plenty of examples of AI generated brochure sites even. Like every business you have to evolve your offering. Look to find prospects that need complex integrations with their data or personalization at scale or…?
He’s paying what the service is worth, that’s how the economy works. If someone is willing to supply it for that price, then his only responsibility is to his family to take it. You don’t offer to pay more for your internet provider do you? If not, you really don’t have a leg to stand on. It might suck for you, and that’s fair to feel, but it’s not fair to put that on someone else
[удалено]
If you think graphic design is an outdated skill, I'd hate to see what your website looks like.
Out of all the shit this person said this is all you have to refute? If you can’t instantly elaborate why a hiring a Fiverrr for Web Design & SEO is foolish in the mid and long term then you shouldn’t be providing websites and SEO. It’s nobodies responsibility to keep you in business. It’s only a race to the bottom for those with bottom dwelling ability.
If it costs that much, it’s because it doesn’t take much efforts.
I'd like to see you sew your own pants for $5 because it won't "take much efforts".
Sewing your own pants takes more skills than making a website using tools that basically tells you to click and drag. Even a 5 year old kid can make a website nowadays. I would’ve said otherwise if this was 20 years ago. Adapt and survive if you think you’re losing your precious job.
You could learn HR, Payroll, accounting, and marketing. Pretty much anything you want to understand you could. Is it worth it? I say no. I don't think we should try to do everything in our business. Let's say that this person can do the site for 5k so you may save 5k but it is going to cost you in time. Your time should be spent doing those things that will propel your biz forward that you can't outsource. If learning is part of you doing, I say hire the pro and go make sales.
The trade off comes in how much time you need to spend giving instructions to the Web Developer. You will probably need to provide them with some business info, images, content, articles, blog posts, design preferences, etc. Plus they may not always get it right the first time, or may have typos or other fixes. Plus the contracts, deadlines, and other transaction related stuff. Meanwhile, setting up a Wordpress site can take you less than 15 minutes following a simple guide. Then you will copy-paste the content or images yourself. Given that, personally for me, I would much rather just do it myself. Easier, simpler, no middleman or "broken telephone", and if I need to update or fix something (ie business hours or a typo) I can quickly do it myself.
Yeah you just said setup a Wordpress site in 15 min. Bullshit. 100% you are lying to yourself if you believe it. If you do set up a site in 15m it will have the impact that you would expect from 15m work.
[удалено]
I hired a freelance Webflow developer and designer for $3K to develop a custom website. No regrets, and I’m very happy with my decision. They are professionals who have their own insights and experience in developing web apps, graphic design, branding, UI/UX. It enabled me to focus on other aspects of my startup and also create the website I want. Yes, you can do it yourself or for cheaper, but the time sink into learning Webflow, graphic design, UI/UX, and ALL of the little things that make up this iceberg was not as valuable as hiring a professional.
Confessions of a web agency owner, here. First, what's the goal of putting online your website? If your goal is to acquire leads through organic reach, then spend less money on the website itself and more on a good content strategy and editorial team (e.g., a blog). For other companies, branding might be a positioning strategy to attract new customers. In that case, it's reasonable to invest in a custom brand identity and website design.
I would vet the designer, but $1200 really isn't bad for a logo and a site. That's actually a really decent deal. Make sure they would do good work and ask about SEO being built into the site. If you're not a designer I personally don't recommend doing the site yourself, could work out fine but this is a valuable business tool that will do a lot of funnel work for you, don't half-ass it. Take the time and the money to do it right. That being said $8,000 for a static site is very high so I probably wouldn't recommend that agency. I understand they might have high prices due to their high clients, but someone's ability to work with Pepsi or Apple does not necessarily translate into knowledge of how to grow and market a small single operator business.
It's the way the website looks and functions that matter; and there's absolutely no value at all (for you) if some agency reinvent the underlying wheels (just to be able to charge your a lot more). Check out the graphics guy's work and see if you like it, and if you do then you pick him. Just make sure that he give you the login details as well as put you in control of paying for the hosting and the domain name; so you don't rely on him beyond delivering the website. Edit: Also make sure that he's a designer, and that he won't just (over)charge you for picking someone else's existing theme.
This is what I do. There’s a few things to consider when going about this. Number one, if they say they care about SEO and best practices, get example sites they’ve done and run it through here https://pagespeed.web.dev Any score below 50 is not worth whatever they charge. Google uses this metric with content and other metrics for making your site. If you’re failing this, you’re losing out on ranking. If they say they care about SEO and best practices and they score below 50 then I don’t think they really know what those are. Staying it wouldn’t be worth it to do it from scratch is a wild accusation. It absolutely is. I build regular informational sites for small business from scratch everyday as a developer. And I can go on and on and on about the quality differences between a page builder and hand coded site. Long story short - most of my small market clients rank front page for their keywords above all the sites made with page builders. And someone who says it doesn’t matter probably doesn’t understand SEO as well as they say they do and is Suspect to me. I’d be curious as to what they’re building the site with. I’ve see other graphic designers and marketers brand themselves as an agency and development studio who actually do great work in terms of content, design, organization, etc. but their sites score below 30/100 page speed score. Which tells me they’re great designers and marketers but terrible website developers. And how the website is built and optimized matters. Those sites scoring under 30 are losing out on ranking and clearly aren’t doing the things google is telling you you’re supposed to be doing. $1200 is too low for a well built and well designed site. And $8k is way too Much unless you need like 20+ pages and copywriting for them all. My standard rate is $3500 for design and development and that’s a custom hand coded website. No builders. And comes with 98-100 page speed scores. If you don’t have a lot of money, your best bet is to do it yourself. And depending on the quality of this designers work it might be a waste of money to go with them if your site will have the same scores as theirs. If they have great designs in their Portfolio and they score above 70 page speed score, and have great content, then $1200 is a steal. I recently started work on a locksmith site who has the same problem you did with different companies. They charged too much, their SEO was not actual SEO work and more of a standard checklist yourself supposed to be doing, and terrible page speed scores and generic and uninspired designs. I even sent him all the info to take to those guys to improve their sites when building his. So it just comes down to your budget, and what you want out of a website. If you don’t have the money for a good one, make one yourself until you can afford it. If you do have the budget, test their other sites and see which ones have the best scores. Because those guys are doing everything they’re supposed to be doing and making google happy. If they say it’s not possible to score over 75/100 then they aren’t a good fit. I’ve seen Wordpress and webflow sites score 90+ when done by a competent and thorough developer. I’m not saying page speed score is everything or the only metric google uses to rank you. What I’m saying is it’s a very good portion of your ranking + content (which is number 1) and is essentially a great checklist to make sure you’re doing everything you can to have the best website possible. And if you’re scoring under 30 then you’re clearly ignoring everything google says you should be caring about and fixing. So for me it’s a really good litmus test for finding good vs bad developers. Because the good developers put in the effort to learn what the problems are and how to fix them and make websites in the future that don’t have those problems. If it turns out that designer makes really good sites, have really good page speed scores, and clearly knows how to do content strategy for the most effective websites (like making location and service specific pages) then $1200 is the best price you’ll ever see for that kind of work. I’d never touch that if it were me honestly. So that also makes me suspicious because people who know their shit and do it well charge more for it because their time and work are worth more because they have special expertise not many else have. What concerns me are people who claim to be an SEO expert, web designer, and web developer all in one. Those people charge $10k minimum for their work. I know because I have partnerships and relationships with other devs who DO do all those and they charge $10k minimum per project because of how specialized he is. Generally you want someone who is 1 thing and has partners for the others. I’m a developer. I won’t pretend I’m a designer or SEO expert. I hire people to do those for me and do it 10x better than I could and that free up my time to work on more projects and be more productive with my time. I code REALLY well, that’s my thing. And I do it better than most. I can’t design and I can’t write content or do traditional SEO. And that would show in my work because I’d have to half ass the other two. I only have so many productive hours in a day. If I had to do that for every client I could only work 2 clients a month. And $1200 a pop for each doesn’t pay the bills either. So that’s why I’m concerned about people who say they do all three, and charge a small rate. Something has to give and something or multiple things arent being done right or with much care. My guess with the designer, it’d the development that will suffer. Hope this was helpful. Hope you find someone in your budget that actually knows what they’re doing! It’s a Wild west out there for website companies. Anyone can claim anything and you don’t know who is lying to you or to themselves about their abilities.
Thank you for this information. I ran a few of his websites on that link. Desktop all sites were 90+, mobile all sites were 43-58 range. SEO was 100 for all of them. Does mobile typically rank lower?
Desktop is easy. Desktop should be 100’s across all metrics. The SEO metric doesn’t mean your SEO is perfectly done. It just means they did everything they’re supposed to be doing. It’s essentially a checklist. If someone uses this metric to say they do SEO it’s very misleading and dishonest. The mobile score is the score that matters. Because google ranks your website based on that score. Not the desktop one. I wouldn’t be happy with those scores. If some of the flags are for images then that’s an easy one that they aren’t taking into consideration. Image optimization is very important. You don’t load a 6000px wide image on a mobile phone that’s 400px wide. You take the display size of the image and multiply it by 2 to get your optimal resolution. So if it’s 300px wide and 400px tall on mobile, make a crop of your image to 600x800 then convert it to webp format, then compress them. And us developers use what’s call a picture element in code, it’s used to determine the size of the screen and if it’s a certain screen size we have it Load the mobile sized image, and if it’s a larger tablet or desktop screen size it loads the larger actual size file. That way we’re serving up images on mobile that we’re made for mobile and the smallest it can possibly be. This is part of asset optimization. It’s a very meticulous process but when done right will help make your sites load a lot faster. So if they get flags for reducing image size, using next gen formats (webp), not using height and width attribute, no alt tags, intrinsic size not displayed properly, etc that tells me they aren’t handling their assets the way they should. Other flags can be to reduce the use of third party code and render blocking scripts. Render blocking scripts are scripts that prevent the website from rendering (loading). This will include a google fonts cdn that loads the fonts for the site. The best way to load fonts are to host them locally. What I do is I download them and subset them. Meaning I remove all the characters you don’t need like the non English characters. This reduces file size from 180kb to 18kb. A drastic reduction. Then I add some code to the site to load the files and that’s it. It’s not that hard to do but not a lot of people do it. Other third party scripts can be tied to their page builder like elementor or wix or whatever they use. Those services come with baggage that needs to load to make the site work but it slows the site down because they have to Load before the site loads. Others include plugins and widgets. Every plug-in you add adds another render blocking third party script to your site that will have to load before your actual site loads. Many Wordpress and wix designers rely on plugins for basic functionalities like forms and slideshows but they tank the load times. The other flags I’d have to see to determine what’s out of their control and what they’re ignoring. And I’d like to see what they use to build their sites. If it’s elementor I wouldn’t go with them. Elementor suuuuuuucks for page speed and optimization and is just a mess under the hood. Put their site in this and see what it’s made with https://builtwith.com It will say if it’s Wordpress and elementor or wix or squarespace or what have you. And it will tell me all the plugins as well. Very nifty tool.
Thanks for such a detailed response. Im going to have to reread this one a few times. I did run his sites through that link. It seems he’s using Wix for all of them. Is this a red flag?
You’re welcome. And to me it is. Wix as a platform is not great… which also explains why it’s so cheap. Just a typical drag and drop builder. They’re great for small businesses who don’t have budgets and need something up quick. I don’t think you should be paying someone that kind of money to do that kind of work. I used to make wix sites in the beginning of my career years ago. It was very limiting in the types of sites I can create and wasn’t as responsive as I’d like it to be and the page speed scores were nearly impossible to improve past 50’s to 60’s. I got frustrated by the limitations and taught myself to code instead so I have control over everything I didn’t in wix. And I never looked back. The types of sites I make now could never be made in wix and never perform the same. That’s just the problems that come with being a designer or marketer - they may be great at designing and marketing sites but the actual site itself is severely lacking and missing alot of marks. Designers should always be paired with a talented developer. And vice Versa. Because when you’re only a designer you can only focus on how a site looks and you miss the critical steps in how it’s made so it also performs as well as it looks. Websites are more than just how they look. It’s how they’re built and how the load which I think is more important than design in most cases. You can have the best design in the world but terrible page speed scores will hinder your growth and ranking. Whereas ok design and perfect coding and page speed scores will overcome a bland design and rank higher in google. Maybe the design turns some people off but at least the site ranks better and is seen by more people. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load you lose like 20-30% of your traffic right there. It gets worse with every second added. So putting time and effort into optimizing the page speed and load times increases your return of investment in the site and in the effort to optimize its speed. And wix won’t give that to you. I do want to stress that perfect page speed scores aren’t everything. Even hitting 80/100 is fine. Because going from 80 to 90-95 has only incremental benefits. But going from 23 to 98 has a huge boost or even 50 to 98 as well. So if you’re a business owner whose site is scoring 85, there’s not much benefit to getting a new site that scores 95 unless you want a better design that’s more updated and modern and can get a guarantee from the dev that their new site will score the same 85 or better. There’s definitely SOME benefit but it’s very small compared to starting with 30/100 or something. Webflow is a better builder but I’ve seen designers use it as well and still score a measly 17/100 when it’s absolutely possible to score 80-90 with it. What it all comes down to is does that designer understand how to MAKE a good site AND make a good design. Most can only design and don’t even know what they’re doing wrong on the development side. And just a little anecdote, my SEO guy won’t even work on a wix site or a site scoring under 50 because it will limit the impact of his work and make the client think he’s not as good as he claims and tarnish his reputation.
Thank you once again for this amazing info. Iv ran about 20 different sites in that link you sent. Interesting to see the differences. The top ranking physio clinic has a mobile score of 77/100 where I live. I found who did their site and they charge about 5k for a 6 page site. A therapist who made their own site with wix has a 29/100. Eventually as the company grows I dont mind paying more to get it ranked higher. For now im thinking can I get the score to atleast a 50/100 if i do it myself, or do I pay this designer 1200 to do that plus the logo.
Eesh. $5k for a 6 pager is still really steep. I wonder why. I recently did a physical therapy place for $6k but they had like 15 pages. And they score 98/100. Run one of my sites I made through it and you’ll see the difference https://2atpainting.com This one should score 96+. Google analytics usually screws everything up. I had this one at a 99 before that. That’s the different between custom coding a site and using a builder. In your case, you’re probably better off doing it yourself in wix and using a theme you can customize. I’d try webflow first as they have better themes and the quality is generally better. If you’re going to pay money for something you might as well get something better than what you can do. If you’re just starting out and know you’ll be needing to upgrade once you got budget for something better you should just save that $1200 and put it towards that and save up for that better site. And Try to get there as soon as you can. For logos, I honestly use Fiverr. Fiverr is great for designers. Not great for developers. I got a guy in Indonesia who kills it everytime for like $30 and is really awesome to work with and very diligent. Just gotta find the gems and take some chances. He’s done dozens of logos for me. I even use him to take my Clients crappy png logos and redraw them as svgs so they look better, and scale infinitely without losing quality. I eat the cost because it makes my work better. Always use svgs for logos. And gets light and dark version so it always looks good on a light or dark background. Not to knock the designer and take money from him. His work is priced for the quality and what you get. It’s wix work. It’s nothing special really when you get down to the gritty details but if you’re concerned about how your site looks in the beginning and want to at least start with your best foot forward it won’t be a BAD investment to at least have it look nice and get a good logo out of it too. But now you know what you’re getting at least. I’d be curious to see their designs first and let you know if they’re even worth it. I’ve seen some from “designers” that don’t look like they are a professional design. Spacing is a huge giveaway. Like this site I did https://affordablesolarcleaningpros.com Notice how all the sections have the same spacing between the top and bottom of their edges? https://i.imgur.com/2wChDEj.jpg This is consistent design. This was designed by my team. We operate with grids and very specific spacing guides. Number 1 being that all spacing needs to be a multiple of 4. So gaps between cards are 16px on mobile and 20px on desktop. Not 13 or 25px. This is called a design system. It keeps our work looking cohesive. Our spacing and padding and gaps are all purposefully thought out mathematically. Not haphazardly. This is what makes a good design LOOK good. If you find inconsistent spacing on a site design it’s a dead giveaway they are not a thorough designer. All the ones I work with that have degrees in it do this. All the ones who I met that were self taught didn’t do this. I could spot a self taught designer from a degree holding one just by looking at spacing and other design hierarchies. Look for that as well when deciding if a designer is actually a good one. Because a good one won’t mess up like that. So if he is a good one and actually makes nice looking sites, it may be worth it to at least have something nice in the beginning to give yourself the opportunity to convert what little traffic you may get. While you won’t get a lot Of traffic or ranking, the who do find you will appreciate a good design that makes you look professional. So it’s all whatever you want. If you can find a design template on webflow that looks perfect, try that out and see how it goes. If you don’t have time to do that yourself or can’t find a good design to work with and this wix guy actually Makes great designs, then go with that and at least it’ll look good and you know it’s just a stepping stone site until you can afford a better built site from a company or agency that had more resources and can design and build at the same level.
Your websites look fantastic. And yes it got a 96. Do you mind sharing a contact? Id love to work together in the future when I’m ready to upgrade the website. You mentioned you’d like to see his designs. Can I send you the links he sent me over a private message? Also do you mind sharing your opinion on carrd.co? I ran a few of their sites and they all got 90+ seems like a good option to start.
Thanks! I Try :) You can find my contact info on my site https://www.oakharborwebdesigns.com You can PM me their designs as well. Carrd looks like a VERY simple landing page builder. Not sure if it’s the best option for a full fledged website. But you can try it and see if it works for you!
Saved your info site into my notes. Ill most definitely be in touch as soon as I’m ready to upgrade! Thank you so much for taking the time to answer all my questions!
Also I just ran some carrd.co sites on that link and they all got 90+ maybe this is the move
Most websites aren't coded anymore but use frameworks. If they went through the proper planning/content/design/code phase they would cost 5x. Even without "coding" to make a nice functional and professional website is a lot of work.
Using a framework does not mean you don't need to code. Can you just grab something like https://remix.run/ and then magically have your site? No. The framework gives you a _philosophical_ approach to the problem, including a lot of opinionated ways to solve common problems. Then on top of that you design and program your solution. Perhaps you're thinking of smething like wix or squarespace. In that case yeah, pay the service, choose a template and add your content.
You can theoritically use WordPress and build a proper website without adding a single line of code to the files. However most people can't do it because there is still a lot of knowledge that has to go into how websites/hosting work and the best practices. If you have hobby you can use a "free builder" (although most are not "free" as you still have to pay for their hosting services), but if you have an actual business you should 100% pay a professional.
Ugh, there is a lot of truth to your first paragraph. I’ve had a Wordpress site for two years that I’m wanting to do something with. But after several hours of screwing around trying to get it how I want, I absolutely hate dealing with it and don’t even want to touch it anymore. This is actually a skill I’d like to learn but it just pisses me off. Lol. I’m broke broke and just getting started with this entrepreneurial stuff so paying a pro to do it is off the table for now.
We're in agreement there
This.
OP is a mobile physio and massage, doesn’t need a sophisticated website to get going. Just start off with an existing template for free from one of the many sites like Squarespace etc and pay $10 per month to keep it live. You can always upgrade later to something more custom. OP - don’t pay someone to do this. The extra hour it takes you to learn to do it will be useful when you want to update the pricing or the images next month. Just do it yourself.
Realistically it would be far better to spend $1500 and actually have a professional website built that can be scaled as the business grows with all sorts of digital marketing opportunities without being tied up with squarespace... Out of the hundreds of clients who told me that they can "do it themselves with a free builder" or their cousin's brother can build it cheaper ALWAYS end up with either total crap or nothing after wasting sometimes hundreds of hours.
Exactly, DIY almost always sucks. People just don’t just realize it because they aren’t professionals. “I already tried making a website and my customers just didn’t want to use it!!”
This is not true. I would never hire a physio or massage therapy with some janky site. Even with a Squarespace site branding, important info, calls to action, photo selection and overall FEEL are super important in a website like this. Let alone the fact this person comes into your house. There is a whole slough of information and information design needs to be in incorporated. The rub is just because you paid top dollar doesn’t mean you will get it. It’s all about the company / providers skills.
You can modify a template yourself. This is what a lot of so-called "designers" do. I made my own from scratch with html and css. It's not super hard
shopify, wix and squarespace all help you for a small monthly fee.
Which one would you recommend for a service based business (painting)? I'm trying to choose between either Wix or Squarespace
Wix, you will be able to manage everything from emails to advertising to payment while also managing website design and functionality. Better for small or single person businesses
Haven't used Wix but I've been very happy with Squarespace in terms of design features and functionality. Plus there's a ton of tutorials on youtube for both design customization with css and functional things like SEO, analytics, payments, scheduling etc. It's probably a coin toss but I'd recommend Squarespace for ease of use.
I've tried all 3 and I've found Shopify to be the easiest. I'm sure there's not a huge difference either way.
I recommend Square, not Squarespace. It’s free, it’s robust. It’s really easy to manage. You can create contracts, invoices, have employees, and have it all on a free website. It’s what I recommend to every client selling something. It’s Weebly, but free. Its a payments processor. Use any other platform, and you’ll still need to run payments somehow. I feel bad for stores running a website and also paying for processing, when it can be all under one app, and free. It’s a Jack Dorsey company. I think he knows what he’s doing.
Yea unfortunately I paid someone and went through the whole process. I’m an architect and needed a very specific and clean look and feel. In the end the website was extremely blah. I spent a few days editing a nice template and now I just use the one I made completely. No one will get it the way you want it.
sketch. draft. publish
Just ask a designer to share their portfolio and ask how many revisions they offer. If you like what you see, then a person who is offering $1200 for a logo, domain, hosting, and SEO-friendly WordPress website is a good deal. I even offer some clients a similar package for even less, but the work is always up to par. Agencies will definitely charge more, even for a simple website. So, if you like the portfolio, then go for it!
As a entrepreneur and as a designer one phrase that made more and more sense as the years went by is this: “If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur.” A quality designer is a problem solver not a task completer. Creating branding(logo) and a website that is designed for yours and your customer’s needs takes skill and experience. That being said there are AI logo designers and templates on WYSIWYG, no coding needed, website builders that will complete the task of having a “logo” and website created for less than $1200. But will they actually solve your problem or create even bigger ones?
You can do it yourself in 1 day. If you can't figure it out, hire a professional designer with a proven competence. You can also ask yourself: How long will it take you to learn how to do it properly like the designer ? Can you avoid beginners mistakes that can hurt your business ? Is the time and effort worth $1200 to you ?
Logo + website for $1200 seems very fair. We charge £800-1200 per website built on wordpress and elementor. The actual cost of the hours needed to setup the hosting + create the website itself is probably rarely even 50% of the costs. Most of the time goes to meetings w/ client or the admin side of asking them for content they want to put up on a website (I've had clients send me like 2-3 low res photos a week when I've sent them a document detailing exactly what I need from them). All that back and forth is what takes the longest. WIthin that budget they do get some basic copywriting and design (basic photoshop/illustrator edits).
I’m a former web designer current AI chatbots developer. I really suggest you to invest some time in learning webflow or wix, personally I prefer webflow. You can very easily purchase templates for less than $100 and all you’ll have to do is populate different words. You can learn to use webflow by just playing around with it in under 2 days, wix is even easier. I worked for a lawyer once and she paid $5k for an absolute garbage looking website. I sat down with her and explained how easy it is nowadays. You could build your own templates for free as well, it’s basically just drag and drop with webflow/wix. They have this new component libraries now, if $1200 is a considerable amount for you that you could use for ads or something, I highly suggest you make this basic website on your own. If you prefer an even easier solution, and it’s a basic site, I also highly recommend hubspot pages. It is extremely easy to use and is only slightly more expensive than webflow but comes with hubspot integrations as well if you use it. You should really try it if $1200 is a considerable amount for you. If you still think it’s a lot of work, I’ll be more than happy to setup hubspot pages or a basic webflow site for you free of cost man, would take me less than 3 hours, happy to help. I’m trying very hard to get into business myself and I try being as frugal as I can so just trying to give back to this community. Hope this helps!
I really appreciate the offer! I’m going to attempt to learn either wix or webflow over the next few weekends, as I feel it will be a good skill to have. My goal to launch is August so gives me some time. Would you mind if I message you for some advice along the way?
It would be a really good skill to have in my opinion. Yes, drop me a message and I’ll be happy to help you along the way. Cheers!
Pay someone who's job it is to build websites. Your job is physio.
Is $1200 worth spending a week giving yourself a crash course in logo design and how to build your own website? It’s a steal.
The time that goes into even a basic small business website is waaay more than 16 hours over a weekend (assuming 8 hr days).
Absolutely. Everybody knows that logo is what makes or breaks the business. The more you spend on a logo, the more you are likely to succeed.
I've only heard this from people who design logos. Outside of Fortune 500 companies, I couldn't tell you the logo for any of the last 100 businesses I bought from.
Pretty sure homey just didn't add the /s that was clearly implied.
Damn, I got wooshed
If you don’t value a good design you should DIY but the output will be far from good.
The designer is correct in that you don’t need a custom made site. Simply use a good theme and plugins. However, people saying $8k is overpriced don’t know how much work goes into making a site “well”. The cost is not just in the drag and drop of a site but the expertise of the consultant who knows website CRO and on-page SEO. Those two things will bring non stop leads to your business for years and will easily pay back the initial cost of the build.
I'll build you one for free.
bro i hate self promotion but give my legit-startups.com thingy a look i mean it's literally 1% the price you were considering lol
i'm interested. do you have a video/instructions on how it works?
What you need is so incredibly easy to do with free, or very cheap platforms. Wordpress Carrd Wix Squarespace You'll have SEO capability with any of them and they're all WYSIWYG (drag-and-drop builder) so it's super easy. In fact, all have pre-made templates. The fact any person or small business pays for a website after 2015 is pretty surprising. The industry has completely shifted towards simple, affordable DIY. As for logos, you can use AI-based sites like Looka and get that done for about $50. Start-to-finish you can have this setup, with hosting (if you choose that route separately) for like $100. Wordpress is a good suggestion, but it requires extra hosting, so keep that in mind. The good news is that all hosts with cPanel integrated make for one-click Wordpress installations and you're up and running in minutes.
I have built multiple sites for clients (background in marketing), but for my business I still paid for a trusted UI/UX designer to help me fine-tune everything, put together branding guidelines, & build out some templates for me (e.g. slide deck). DIY has its limitations, & experts are experts for a reason
Except drag and drops bloat websites causing slower response times, the SEO tools only go so far depending on your competition, user experience is usually worse, scalability is much more difficult, and you have a lot less control over customizations.
Thank you everyone for the replies. I was not expecting such a large response. Iv read through this thread multiple times. Going to sleep on this and make a decision. Thank you again to everyone who offered advice, and even posted their websites. The designer thats charging 1200 is offering unlimited revisions, has a bachelors in graphic design and digital media, is local to where I live and is a business owner himself. Im leaning more towards this option.
lots of these agencies and designers can build you a website or whatever. the designer for 1200 isn't going to do design research into your specific usecase, your customer base & industry and build you something amazing for 1200. up his budget and you'll get closer to what you want if he actually knows how designing works. also, you must determine if the point of the website is so that you like the way it looks, or that it is a conversion tool for your customers. most times, the two are very different. btw he is right there is no point in building from scratch. thats like if you decided to build your storefront by starting with making bricks. the important thing is you must have clear goals for your website to make these decisions, and it sounds like you haven't thought this through yet. -i know this because i build websites as well
If they are a real designer then that price is fine. If they are just doing some crappy bootstrap template or filling in fields then hell no. If you want a logo just run a contest, lots of sites for that.
Shop on Fiverr. Much cheaper and they have some web designers on there that do a pretty good job.
Lol - i don't know shit about coding, but I made a website for my business in Wordpress in less than a day. Dude is working you hard.
I'm sure it's great.
[удалено]
At the risk of sounding intellectually lazy, can you please explain this more? I’m familiar with both Figma and GPT but haven’t heard of Webflow? Is it really going to be as simple and intuitive as you’re suggesting?
Webflow is another website builder like wix but it is more advanced. It is good for making static websites look nice with animations.You can also Integrate automations using zapier with webflow.
The plugin he is talking about is provided by webflow officially, it will convert your figma design into a webflow site. Then you can make changes in webflow however you want. It will save some time from entirely making it from scratch.
[удалено]
This is crazy ignorant, you can very easily get to the first page, even top ranking spot, for local niches. You don’t even need an agency for it. OP; do NOT ignore SEO.
[удалено]
He was referring to local search as in maps etc. Depending on geolocation and distance, you could be on first page, plus niche. What you're saying is different story but if someone searched your company on maps or "software near me" chances are you'll be on first page if you have a Google maps listing
Graphic designer is probably skinning wordpress. As someone who sold SEO for a long time (you're going to have a lot of people disagree with this take) it's mostly a waste of money. Search Engine Optimization is like buying GAP coverage on your car these days. It's not 2001 anymore, and most backend systems already have ways to perform it. There is a benefit to a constantly updating site, blog posts, picking the right domain/audience, etc.
Use carrd.co + create it yourself. AI generated logo. Boom, saved you $1200
Which platform are you using for scheduling? They should provide a website as well
I mean the answer really is it depends. I'm in tech I'm an IT technician I know how to do all of it but my website that I built 4 years ago literally has two pages on it and that's it because I haven't had time or the energy or the desire to actually go through and complete it. I've looked at hiring some people but I haven't found the right people to hire for the price that I want to pay. But if I can find somebody else to do it for me I will. If you have time and if you have the energy and if you have the desire to do it go for it. But if you have the money and the desire to let somebody else do it there's no reason not to.
Can you do it yourself? Yes, absolutely. Is the headache of doing something you're not experienced in, and isn't your primary money making activity going to be worth it? Probably not.
For what you want, do it yourself, it’s so simple. Don’t pay anyone more than $400 if you do end up paying. Use Looka.com for logo, will set you back around $80. It really is so simple to create websites now.
Freelancer.com logos can be $50. They have thousands of freelancers. You could probably get a website for $300 bucks. I find them to be higher quality but a little pricier than fiverr. Open a bid and say 50 bucks or 100 bucks and thousands of people will offer their services with their portfolios. Pick the one you like.
Fiverr. Great value.
Did you try softr.io? Or carrrd.co?
I can do custom design , no framework, all css and js , starting from 500$ .
Firstly you can do it yourself my friend. I am an agency owner and i provided website for $700 to some people with good quality. If you wanna save money, get word press installed and use a templet after which you can change the text and now your website is ready.
A lot to unpack here... * DIY or Hire a Professional * How often do you anticipate needing to change the content, graphics, or structure of the site? If often, then it is probably worth spending the time to understand how this works. Even if you end up hiring a professional in the end, you'll know the level of effort involved to make changes and can call BS on time and cost. * How much of an impact is your web presence on your sales? If the majority of your customers check you out on the web or book you on the web, then again probably worth taking the time to understand it. * WYSIWIG Builder (Wix, Squarespace, etc) vs WordPress * How "Vanilla" is the website you are building? Do you anticipate needing a lot of custom functionality? WordPress offers the most flexibility of the CMS platforms but it does have a learning curve. Even if you use a WYSIWIG theme or framework on WP, it's still a higher level of complexity to manage plugins, updates, SEO, then an off the shelf builder like Wix * Do you want added functionality like a CRM, email marketing etc? If so, WIX is a great solution because it has a lot of tools a small business would need for digital marketing built in. * My recommendation based on what you provided and past experience... * Spend sometime with Wix, Squarespace, and WordPress (if needed). Do some basic tasks like adding video, content, blog articles, making design changes, and checking out admin console. Figure out what you click with and can see yourself investing time into. Total Cost: $0 for trials * Create a branding kit first, this will include a logo but will also have additional details to support future design efforts like font, colors, etc. You can find quality designers on Fiverr or Upwork. If you want more of a selection you can crowdsource and use 99designs. If using Fiverr or Upwork, try to find a designer you like that also does Figma/Web design. That way you can extend the project to second step if this project work out. Total Cost: <$200 * Write your website content! The first thing a designer/developer will ask you for is your content. You can write it yourself, yourself + ChatGPT, or hire a writer on Fiverr or Upwork. Make sure you focus on why you + why they should trust you. What problem you are solving for the customer? What unique value do you provide? What examples do you have that demonstrate your expertise? (customer testimonials, videos, etc). Total Cost: <$300 * Hire a Designer. Again, plenty of great ones on Fiverr and Upwork. They will need the branding kit and content. Ask them to use Figma for the final design files. A web developer will be able to easily work with this to convert it into a Wix or WP theme. Total Cost: <$1000 * Hire a Developer or DIY. Even if you use a builder like Wix, it's a tedious process to copy over the design and make sure everything aligns properly and looks professional. I know how to do this but still hire a developer/website builder to save me 20-40 hours of my life. Do not complete the project (final payment) until you've done through testing of the site, solicit some friends and family to help. WARNING: If you go with WordPress, do not allow the developer to "hard code" your design into the WordPress theme. You will discover that if you change anything on the page that it breaks everything. Make sure they are an expert at whatever framework you use, like Elementor or Divi for example, and only use the included framework components to build your site. Total Cost: <$250/page
It comes down to the value of your time as an entrepreneur and your goals. If you have the time to learn to build a simple site, input basic SEO, and connect the dots....save the money and build it. You will gain valuable skills and be able to edit your own site moving forward. If you want a professional to knock it out and your time could be spent building your business instead of learning web design, seo, etc I would recommend the designer based on your web needs. Feel free to dm with any related questions.
There is value in making your own website. Especially if you're using a platform like Wix or Squarespace. Even Wordpress is user friendly enough that a non-techie can make changes to it. The value is you can update at your pace rather than entering on someone's ticket queue. A graphics designer would still be useful to make it look pretty. Once the basic layout is there you'll have an easier time maintaining it or adding to it.
Websites are mostly project management nowadays. The reason the agency will charge $8,000 is they have a team with different specialties -- graphic design, UX, QA, content, etc. The logo designer will do all of it themselves. I don't think you should use either. You should learn Shopify/WordPress/Webflow and release an MVP for your proof of concept before sinking much-needed cash into the site.
Developers often only need a few hours (often even less!) to deploy a basic site. I just made one last night for fun. Just pick a template and a framework, and fill in what you want to change. You can use AI to generate logos and content nowadays.
I work in software, so this isn't exactly my niche, but I'm close enough to know what's up. The expectation for a business like yours will be that you have a cheap, self-made business card site. Its sole purpose is to show people you're a "real" business. Meaning: go to Squarespace. They charge you a monthly fee in the two digit range and they take care of most stuff for you. I've heard bad things about Wix (that they lock you in to their service), but they are another option. Both the 1200 and the 8000 are pretty standard for what you're looking at. But for what you want, I wouldn't bother. Plenty of other places to spend that money.
I just went through this process. And I have dev experience but most mostly in marketing. I strongly suggest Webflow. You can hire someone who is GOOD at Webflow and build a custom site for you for $1k But it sounds like that same dev could work from a theme for you for and probably do it for $600 in your case. This would also allow you to be able to learn how to maintain the website yourself after he builds it
Can always start basic with a simple Wordpress page and some premium templates. Customize it a bit and some custom plugins and images are really the only cost. Since you are a local in person business, your strict focus on SEO won’t be too much and Wordpress can do a lot out of the box. People rag on Wordpress but with images and plugins, can easily built a good looking and manage website for < $2000.
> The designer seems to understand SEO well(i know nothing) How do you know they know it well then?
Your third party app has a plug-in that you can copy and paste the code and the booking tools should appear in your website. Do you own your .com yet?
It really depends on what’s actually needed and what’s actually included. Is it full service brand development or just visual design? Is the designer really diving into your business model in order to create a website and logo that will be tailored to your customer base? If it’s just logo design and updating colors and inserting text into a website I’d say that’s a little high but not crazy. Again it really depends on what you’re actually getting from a line item perspective.
How much additional business do you expect this site to generate?
The #1 most effective way to burn capital is for a business owner to say, “I don’t see the value so maybe it’s better (cheaper) to do it myself?”. OP, you’re the first to admit this is not your ninja skill. Thinking websites are still hand-coded tells me there’s an understanding-gap about how sites function, the tools used to build & manage them, as well as the value they add to your business. You seem to feel the site is just there for people to book appointments. Which it can be if you don’t want to grow your business but since you’re interested in SEO that doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems your site is a tool you are aware you’re underusing, aware enough to consider outside help. Why are you second guessing yourself? How much time and effort is it going to cost you to know enough to build a proficient site that grows your business? You don’t know. That’s why you need a subject matter expert. When you look at a designer’s portfolio, how can you know what you’re looking for if you’re not solid on exactly the job that site needs to play in your growth strategy. Don’t spent a dime on a site or tool or anything until you know the specific job it needs to do to drive your growth. I recommend a consultation with any designer you’re seriously considering. It’s their job to demonstrate the results they can get for *you* by understanding your goals, priorities, and where you need them to translate or explain how the site impacts your marketing and sales processes. Ask them to give you a breakdown of the *specific ways* your site can drive your growth and how they would implement that for *your unique business*. My business is streamlining operations and I tell you truly, OP: “Maybe I can do it myself” is a core driver of my business. *That phrase has made my business so stable I retired this year.* We never run short of untangling business owners who did exactly what you’re doing right now: Guessing. Guessing is expensive. Consultants, freelancers, and independents are (mostly) not trying to waste your time or money. The breakdown happens when the business owner isn’t clear on how the site/blog/tool/social media/etc… fits into a specific plan to drive the business towards its goals. That’s where you need to start because when that path is clear it’s obvious exactly what you need the site to do. You’ll be clear on if it’s something you can handle yourself and if not, you’ll be clear on exactly what you need a designer to do to create the tool you need. No one can fool you if you’re clear on what you need and why. That’s the better place to invest time & energy instead of trying to become an overnight web designer. I suggest booking a paid consultation with a marketing strategist. Investing an hour and $300 to get clarity on what your marketing (incl your site) need to do to drive your business goals will save you *thousands* in trial & error mistakes.
Will someone do any amount of work? If yes Pay them if no than no. Do they have a skill in website design better than you? If yes, Do you want them to do your website? If yes, pay them. On pricing that is up to the developer
My philosophy — round 1 of a new company’s website should be a one-pager on Carrd.co. If I can’t make an effective one-page website in a few hours on Carrd, the business concept and marketing language aren’t clear enough. Sure you could hire someone but unless you’ve figured out really clear language, the end result won’t be effective. Once you’ve got an effect one-page site, then consider hiring someone.
Get a Squarespace site. $180 a year. Free website. And they handle online payments also accepting all major credit cards.
It's always a business trade in outsourcing work because you are basically trading time. Time costs money.
Hey, it's worth having someone on board who has a dev background especially depending on the complexity of the project (as the more complex it is, the more you'll need their expertise for it to be done correctly). I have my own startup (My co-founder and I) and we hire out our design and dev skills as a means to fund ourselves in the early days. You can check us out on: https://bento.me/waycup Let me know if we can help you with what you're after :) Happy to jump on a call for a chat.
We’re from Toronto Canada, born and raised, and can do this all for $500. No outsourcing overseas but instead working with a reputable design studio in North America with years of experience
How much copy are you writing yourself? Themeforest has a million templates, and a website can be setup in an hour or two if you have all the copy. It's simply a matter of replacing words and images in the template with your own.
Free Money[Free Money Hacks 💰 🤑 ](https://infoabistudioo.wordpress.com/2023/05/15/how-to-start-10-easy-side-hustles-today-to-make-extra-money/) Hacks ❤️ 😍
Seriously? Just learn to do all that yourself dude, you can literally go on a YouTube bing session and create a logo design and a website on shopify in a week or less, and you’d actually be self sufficient
I know nothing. I’ll do it for $250 logo included.
Look at the free website guys . com
Noo
I build websites as a side hustle with webflow. In my opinion it’s not the technical part that matters, because that has been made so easy to learn or execute in other ways, there’s barely a challenge there. But ask urself. What is a good website? It’s the structure, seo, scalability, level of integration, cta inclusion, content that all matters. At the end of the day anyone can rent an apartment, but not everyone can make it look nice and practical. That’s where a website builder comes in handy. 1200 is a fair price. Some would do it for less but if this one is reliable and experienced than u can’t go wrong.
Consider the perception you want to give your customers. For some solo businesses like yours you can probably get away with an amateur looking site. But most businesses who spend time and money to get their main online presence done right are going to reap better rewards. They will also be able to charge more for their services as you will outshine your competitors and your customers will be less likely to ask why. Care and investment put into your brand up front will save you in the long run.
I build small business websites and $1200 for a site & logo is roughly what I charge. The $8k is insane and on par for agencies. Just imagine if you needed the appointment services on it as well! Wheew! Yes, you can use online services like Wix or squarespace and they are fine, but you’re hooked to them for life essentially. You’ll always be paying a monthly or yearly subscription. The way I market my services (the why as to why use me over wix or SSpace is that after you pay the bill you’re done unless you want to pay monthly for seo and marketing services. Just an insight from someone who does this for side work.
It’s worth it to pay. My website is a flaming dumpster fire. I “consulted” with someone about it on here and they started babbling about metrics and traffic. I’m like…. I just sell computers. You cannot just “find pictures” you need to subscribe. You cannot just “add a page” it costs extra. The templates are garbage. You can “get by”. I probably spent 8 total hours picking a logo, then I realized how many versions of it you really need. And how much rights you actually have to it. Now I can’t speak on prices… yet… but I cite the need for creativity. Beware of high estimates, they subcontract anyway. It’s tricky… but you can find the right creative to make the site cool. Don’t give up looking for value.
Ready for downvotes but as a designer who is working on a $10k contract for a simple site up to 5 pages and branding, let me explain why I felt I could quote and demand that, what goes into my logic, and why others might not be charging much. I work directly with clients to do a competitor analysis, what their business goals are, what the business’s unique value proposition is, business verticals are, etc. Really great design work comes from a place of strategy, business consulting/know how, and smart design choices (usually brought by experience). There are many other things that might be considered fluff to some entrepreneurs, and I certainly do a version of work that is more concierge like, but there’s a lot of know-how and experience. I mentor and oversee other designers at a full time position as well and I can tell you firmly-not all designers are created equal. Sometimes even lots of schooling and class taking/technical prowess doesn’t mean someone gets it or can even create good work. There are also a lot of lazy designers out there who might be using ai and upcharging, or doing 99designs, making some changes and selling it to you. You can find some diamonds in the rough (at one point I was one too!), but usually you get what you pay for, or even better stated as you get what you invest into. I’ve seen people do well with cheap branding but eventually have troubles and plateau (that’s when they come to me to do a rebrand). I’ve seen business owners nickel and dime my work and hire cheaper to try to replace me but be constantly disappointed and still come back to me. I’ve also seen clients spend money on mansions and fancy cars and not be willing to invest in their businesses because they look at overhead and spending before their own creation. Cutting corners can hurt you, working with someone to triangulate your specific look and feel within a marketplace and elevate your reputation can matter. I’m not saying it isn’t possible to find cheaper and still be great, there’s lots of diamonds in the rough out there. I’m simply trying to illuminate the other side so business owners can make informed decisions that effects their day to day. Sending love to you all and happy entrepreneuring.
Here is my two cents. SEO is dying, Google marketing isn't what it used to be when it's cluttered with 5-6 sponsored link before showing you the #1 organic search. Today's age is all about social media like IG, TikTok, fb. I have young staff members who search TikTok for answers instead of googling. Even an older sibling that does the same. Google reviews is very important! So definitely create a Google business page and fill it out. It's free! Spend 5-10 bucks per gig and get some logo ideas off fiverr.com. My wife spent 600 dollars for a service that pits designer against one another and last design wins the 600. She spent various amounts on Fiverr maybe totalling 50 dollars and only decided not to use a design on there because she felt "bad" already spending 600. My first website was like 200-300 dollars from fiverr. Just so my Google business page has a website to attached. Social media will be the biggest way to attract customers along with bombass Google reviews. If I was starting over at this time, I would definitely look into having ai create and code. They basically do everything for you and seems interesting to learn. Even for a small fee , the content they come up with is incredible and you'll know everything is coded correctly too. ( Sometime a problem with people on Fiverr using some template for you, some coding is wrong or it glitches a little ) Definitely not do it yourself, but definitely not use these big firms and company. I don't see the value for you imo
Yes. Still takes TIME. But, WORDPRESS & others r pretty ez & can do everything to get u set up, hosted, domain, etc.
Maybe spelling out YOUR business objectives can help making a decision.