How easy is it to host your own website?

Cornucopia

That's not a great site, is it?

But worth £150? Probably.

You get what you pay for - if Developers/Designers are going to be paid a not unreasonable £15-20 per hour, then it doesn't long before the costs rack up into £1000s. And many small businesses are simply not in that market.

johnnyboyrebel

Cornucopia wrote: »

That's not a great site, is it?

But worth £150? Probably.

You get what you pay for - if Developers/Designers are going to be paid a not unreasonable £15-20 per hour, then it doesn't long before the costs rack up into £1000s. And many small businesses are simply not in that market.

I think it depends what kind of company you are and how ruthless you want to be. I have seen a couple of sites designed by a media company near me who charged anything between £1500 - £2500 for the sites. The sites themselves are static html so nothing fancy so the price is digusting. The problem is if people are willing to pay this they will carry on overcharging like this. I think people just need to wise up and realise this kind of money is too much for a basic website.

You are right in that an electrician/plumber/hair salon etc who want a basic site should not be paying more than £300 max but unfortunately they will

gb12345

Cornucopia wrote: »

That's not a great site, is it?

But worth £150? Probably.

But looking at Yell's prices http://marketing.yell.com/products/web-design/yellsites/, that site didn't cost £150.

The example site has over 5 pages, so it must be on their Yellsites Plus package, which costs £350 to set up with an ongoing charge of £35. So the owner of that site has currently paid £770 in the year it has been registered and will be paying £420 a year ongoing.

For the £35 a month they get a free rebuild every 3 years and unlimited amends.

Yell saw them coming.

booler

johnnyboyrebel wrote: »

You are right in that an electrician/plumber/hair salon etc who want a basic site should not be paying more than £300 max but unfortunately they will

Personally I think you guys are way off the mark. I have been doing this since 2001 and I can tell you that £150 for a website is nonsense. any self employed (and self respecting) website designer should be looking for £35 per hour at least.

We supply websites with design, consultancy and SEO included. We also offer the stability that means we will still be around two or three years from now when our clients need redesigns or amendments.

We do not have a queue of clients. We have to work at finding clients. We are not earning £35 per hour for every hour worked or anywhere near it so this is not an unreasonable rate.

We are also a properly constituted business that pays tax on our earnings, not like some random punters who take £150 for the job and run.

Cornucopia

I agree.

If it were properly/nicely done, we would charge more than that on a one-off fee basis (c. £500, probably). However, we wouldn't then charge monthly, as well.

Even then, we're taking a gamble on changes not being excessive, and being simple to do within our CMS system.

Once you start to put web development onto a professional footing, the costs mount up, and it is the customers who pay.

Ultimately, the market will define what is an acceptable cost, and if finding clients is difficult (which it is), then the cost of finding those clients has to be covered, too.

booler

Most properly designed and optimised websites will attract business for their owners. If I build a website for a self employed electrician and charge him £500 for it and he gets just three or four jobs from it in the first year he is going to get a full ROI. That has to be seen as good value.

Cornucopia

In theory.

In practice, this is a very immature market, and the issues we have been discussing here are part of the problem. Most small business would be (rightly) cautious about that kind of expenditure.

johnnyboyrebel

booler wrote: »

Personally I think you guys are way off the mark. I have been doing this since 2001 and I can tell you that £150 for a website is nonsense. any self employed (and self respecting) website designer should be looking for £35 per hour at least.

We supply websites with design, consultancy and SEO included. We also offer the stability that means we will still be around two or three years from now when our clients need redesigns or amendments.

We do not have a queue of clients. We have to work at finding clients. We are not earning £35 per hour for every hour worked or anywhere near it so this is not an unreasonable rate.

We are also a properly constituted business that pays tax on our earnings, not like some random punters who take £150 for the job and run.

But a basic website would only take me about half a day to create (ie. about £35 per hour) therefore my rates are about the same as yours. Sure for a more advanced site the costs would clearly be higher but for someone who is self employed and simply wants a basic online presence then we should create a website based on what they want. If they want to go advanced then great but ultimately if they simply just want a site, we can advise but they know what they want to pay. Therefore for a basic html site (which certainly shouldn't take days to create) the costs should not be nearing £500 as that is excessive.

Clearly I could have a minimum fee of £500 like any other designers, but:

1. I don't need to

2. It would be morally wrong.

This is no reflection on your business or what you charge as that is none of my business but personally I charge an amount that reflects the site design itself and, most importantly, simply the hours I need to put in.

johnnyboyrebel

booler wrote: »

We supply websites with design, consultancy and SEO included.

This is great as clearly you have a team to be able to manage ongoing support and SEO for clients but for me, I need to design then move onto the next one as there would not be enough hours in the day. Should I decide to start gathering a team for my business then I'm sure I too will offer the 'full package'.

Also, I am referring to the design alone whereby your services including SEO will inevitably bring more costs to the client.

booler

johnnyboyrebel wrote: »

But a basic website would only take me about half a day to create (ie. about £35 per hour) therefore my rates are about the same as yours.

It is impossible to (properly) take a website enquiry from its initial stages through to completion in a half day. It is also impossible to design a proper website from scratch in half a day. We do things right by our clients. We consult with them to ensure they get what they need and we have the testimonials to prove it.

johnnyboyrebel wrote: »

2. It would be morally wrong.

That is a really silly statement.