A friend of mine, a finish carpenter once told me people either buy a price or buy a job. If they are shopping for price, then they pick the lowest price available. They will not look to see which is a better end product. Big mistake, oh yeah.
I can tell you, that that is so true in my industry. The problem is you can’t compare apples to apples with websites. People come to you and ask for a price for a website with very little specifics. You can’t really give them a true price, maybe just some basic costs per page or by the hour until you have the specs.
I ran into this recently with a current client. He asked me what it would cost to build him a new website. Now the site he was describing was 20 to 30 webpages. I gave a price I thought was fair. But then he found someone online who said they could build him a website for a quarter of the price. I asked him whether or not they asked for specifics as to how many pages the site was going to be, whether it included a content management system, etc. No, as it turns out they asked for very few specifics and came up with a price. The problem is that when he goes to actually build the site, he’s going to find out they were (more than likely) talking about a introductory site with three or four pages. And yes, they can do the other pages but it’ll be an additional charge per page. And oh yeah, when they find out he wants a CMS, it will be considerably more as well.
Unfortunately, as is typically the case, when you shop for price, you get what you pay for. He will either have a substandard website, or he will pay through the nose to get what he wants.
So what do I advise? When you decide to build a website, write down a list of requirements for your site. Then go out and ask reputable web firms for an estimate. If the firms you get an estimate from all have the requirements you desire, they can give you an accurate price. Then you can make an educated decision as to what will be the best product at a reasonable price. You can have the product you want at the price that works for your company. The result will be a great website you can be proud of and that will serve your company well.
“You never get a second chance to make a first impression”
Some credit Oscar Wilde with this quote. Others point to Will Rodgers. No matter who said it first, this is as true today as it ever was. I would say it is even more important. Why? Because in the days of Messrs. Wilde and Rodgers, most first impressions were face to face. Today most first impressions happen via your website. And if the impression is bad, visitors are gone in a flash.
For example: I was visiting with a potential new client last week. They told me they had met a potential new client who had told them they checked out their website before coming in. They cringed at the thought. Their website wasn’t horrible by any means. But it was so out of date. They had information from 2010 on there listed as news. Fortunately their business is based more on referrals, and their skill sets. So the new client still came in. The problem is that there is no telling how many people didn’t call or come in as they were turned off by their website.
Though in this case, they probably didn’t lose a new client, it got them thinking. So they brought me in to take a look at their site. With a couple hours work each month over the next quarter we will get them up to date and also secure their website from potential attacks. You’ve heard me talk about all the virtues of WordPress. But there are downsides as well. One of those is potential hacker attacks. You need to keep your WordPress version up to date as well as all your plug-ins. Then you need to have a good security plug-in.
Bottom Line: Every website we review doesn’t need to be blown up and redone. You don’t always have to spend thousands of dollars. With one of our support plans we can incrementally improve your website to get it up to snuff. From that point we will help you keep your site up to date 24/7/365.
