Website Builder / Developer

[Banksy]

Has anyone got a good recommendation for someone to custom build a website? With an indication on reasonable rates and ongoing update costs etc.

Much appreciated -CHeers!

[indizine]

Without knowing your full custom website spec nobody can give a cost. Likewise for ongoing updates, without knowing what will be updated, how often, etc, can't be priced in advance.

 

Now on the point of custom, do you mean just a custom front end theme, or are you wanting a custom back end system, content management system, etc? And will you want to own this custom website outright? If so, you will need a big budget.

 

With regards "rates" they do differ and that depends on who you use. A high spec city centre agency will charge more than I do, and a student who wants your work for pocket money will charge less than I do. Value for money should be considered and factor in response rates, understanding your whole project, completion times, customer service levels, response rates and attitudes to problems (regardless how the problem arose). Do they tell you your hosting is your problem and tell you to swing, they built your website, got your money and are gone, or perhaps they are always running late, take days to get back to you, and so on.

 

All these can suddenly cost you more money when you opted for the cheaper website quote. Then again, expensive isn't always the best. Look at their tiny print terms, do you really own that website? Will you get the ownership and login access that you thought you paid for? Will they tie you into paying silly money for the most minor changes curing development, or contract you sneekily into paying for things later you didn't quite understand at the time you coughed up a couple or few grand for your custom made website?

 

Or maybe you thought you needed a custom build and they happily took you down that expensive road.....and forgot to tell you that Santa left a little present called Joomla or Wordpress.....for a fraction of the cost.

 

Just be careful, as I get messages on here form time to time from people who are being unprofessionally dealt with, shall we say.

 

I had a spec sent through today that shouts "££thousands££" as it stands, but by the time I get to the bottom of it, encourage what will be the best to have and what will probably not be as useful as they might think, and may turn out to be very expensive for a low return, we'll get that down to a couple of grand and I will say "add on what you need to get going, find out what your customers want, and add to it slowly over time, the right things that will pay to have them". Otherwise, you are building a fancy website that will be a white elephant. People want useful and simple not fancy and frustrating.

[Banksy]

Thanks for the response - we are using a low cost version at the moment that we manage but would like to outsource to free up time for more strategic work and new projects.

Simple and quality is exactly what we are after....custom front end - slick, simple, something that delivers images / videos in a slick manner, possibly a webshop too.

We think its possible to do for under £1k excluding additional future updates... and makes sense to have an interface so that we can change content easily.

[greensheffi]

Hi

I can personally recommend Renata at http://www.hodki.co.uk she has recently done both my websites one from scratch and one re-vamp of an old site you can see both at http://www.rodeobullhireinsheffield.info and http://www.fun2bounce.net

I am very happy with both service and finished products.

All the best

Calum

[Ryan Fleming]

Hi I can Recommend 2J Design who designed my website (Se below links) Also a new marketing company i have taken on who also have done a great job WSI Power on the web, If you require any contact details let me know.

[sharpend]

Bansky - is that you from STC/10-10-10 ?

 

PM me - I go to track on Tuesdays (in a slower group than the Banksy I know...)