Website Questions and answers
I need a website but I don’t know which package I need.
This depends a bit on what type of site you want, and if you’d like to update your site in the future:
If you’d like the best website you can get, and you don’t want to update content in the future:
You’d be looking at the enhanced site package (possibly with hosting and update and maintenance add ons) at an initial cost of between £400 and £500 (or as little as £300 if you’re based in South East Cornwall). Ongoing monthly costs would then be between £10 and £60, depending on whether you’d want me to make regular updates or not.
This is generally the package I’d recommend if you want the full works, and the site will be fully optimised for both perfomance and search engine visilbility.
If you’d like the best website you can get, and you want to update content in the future, and you’re good with computers:
You’d be looking at the enhanced site package (possibly with hosting and update and maintenance add ons) at an initial cost of between £300 and £400 (or as little as £225 if you’re based in South East Cornwall). Ongoing monthly costs would then be £10.
These types of sites are fully optimised for both perfomance and search engine visilbility.
If you’d like the best website you can get, and you want to update content in the future, and you’re not very good with computers:
The “being able to want to update and not being very computery” means I’m going to have to set you up with an easy website builder type service, so you’d be looking at the straightforward site package at between £200 and £300 (or as little as £150 if you’re based in South East Cornwall). This is a one off cost, and I’d make the initial site for you, and you can add to that in the future if you want.
Due to the easy site builder aspect, performance optimisation is a bit more minimal, and there’s limited search engine optimisation (SEO) that can be undertaken. All the SEO basics are covered, and the sites I’ve made like this have done better than expected in search engine results, so it’s not bad, it’s just not quite full throttle.
If you’d like a good website, with a few pages, but your budget is limited:
You’d be looking at the straightforward site package at between £200 and £300 (or as little as £150 if you’re based in South East Cornwall). This is a one off cost, and if you’d like updates made in the future, you can pay a small amount per update or for a number of updates, if you’d like me to do these for you.
Again, all the SEO basics are covered, although there’s some limitations with this compared to the enhanced site package. The sites I’ve made like this have done better than expected in search engine results, but they’re not quite the full works due to limitations of the site builder.
If you’d like a very simple website and just want to be found easily online:
You’d be looking a the online business card package at £100 (£75 if you’re based in South East Cornwall) as a one off cost. This is ideal for tradesmen, sole traders, or very small companies with limited budgets that simply want to be found in search engines. This is a single page site with all your contacct details a breif overview of pricing and products and services. Any social media and / or Google places will be integrated by default.
Basic search engine optimisation is included by default.
How do I get started with your website design services?
You get in touch, tell me what you’d like in a website, and I ask you some questions about what type of site you’d like and how much ownership and control you’d like. I use your answers to work out the type of website design service you need or want, then I give you a price, and if you like the sound of things, we get started by working out the domain you’d like to use.
What’s a domain?
When it comes to website design, everything starts with the domain.
A domain is your own unique website address. The part after the www. in a browser’s address bar is a domain. The part of an email address after the @ sign is a domain.
There’s more to this than a domain, though. It’s effectively the ‘top of the tree’ as far as your site and online presence is concerned. I’ll be able to help you choose a domain that’s good for you and your business, unless you already know what you want. You can find more information about this on this page on my blog.
Why do you charge what you charge for website design and website services?
It’s a question of time and money. Making a website takes up my time. The more complex your site is, the more it costs, as it takes me more time. Just to set you up with the ability to make your own site also takes time, albeit less. So it costs less.
There are also quite a few things that need to be done just to be found in search engines (such as google and bing) and that takes time too.
A website is more than just what a human sees when they look at a site, it’s also what search engines read when working out how to position your site in search engine results. Making the site appear good to both is key to having a good website, and different types of work are needed for each.
I don’t charge an unreasonable amount for what I do, I try and keep my pricing low to make websites more accessible to businesses of a smaller size or with a limited budget. I try to provide a service that’s affordable and provides you with the website you want. I’ll also be willing to beat any quote you’ve been given for having a website designed from anyone else.
Why don’t you charge as much as other people for website design?
I think that having a website should be an affordable option for any business, big or small. Having a website designed and created shouldn’t be a financial obstacle for any business.
Charging someone a lot for a website that’s overly complicated doesn’t sit well with me. I’d much rather provide a site that suits the needs of the business, rather than the needs of the website creator.
They key objectives to website design are getting your business found online, and presenting a quality site to your potential customers. The cheaper pricing I offer doesn’t compromise either. It’s all about acheiving these objectives in a way that both suits you, and that suits your finances.
Can you just design my whole website for me?
I can. That’s right, I can make all the content, and get it online if you just want “I give you money I get a website without lifting a finger” type affair. All I’d need to be able to do this are your contact details and some idea what your company offers.
If you’d like me to do the whole of the website design, but you’d like to be able to provide text and images and maybe more, I can work like this too. This is my preferred option when it comes to website design, as between us, you’ll get the site that you had in mind, and I’ll get it online to conform to the requirements of search engines, to allow you or your business to be found easily online.
I’d usually suggest using photos that are unique to your business, such as yourself, maybe your offices, or your work vehicle(s). Photos of the products you provide or work that you’ve carried out in the past (if you provide a service) will also give visitors a clear idea of what your business provides. Visitors will also appreciate text that sounds more personal, and ‘by the business’ rather than generic marketing blurb.
I’ll always be happy to provide you with what you want, and if you have any idea of text I’ll help you refine what you want to say (if you’d like me to), and I will edit your images for you, should you provide me with any.
As well as offering website design in full, I can also only do just the set up part for you, if you’re looking to make a website yourself but don’t know how to get started. I can also (if you want) cover all the “search engine friendly” work once you’ve made the site itself, if you’d prefer to operate in this way but aren’t familiar with this side of website design.
I’m very flexible in what I can offer to help you get your business found online.
Can you do just some of the website design for me?
I can indeed.
If you want to focus on creating content but need someone to do the initial set up, or maybe just ongoing maintenance that covers updates and security, I can do either or both for you.
I’m quite flexible with what I offer, and aim to provide you with a website that suits you.
I can do just the parts that you don’t want to or know how to if you like the idea of making your own website. All you’d need to do is give me an idea of what you’d like to be able to do, or how much you’d like to do, and I can get things set up accordingly. I can also make a site you’ve created SEO friendly to gain improved ranking in search engine results.
You can get the site you want, and make as much or as little of it as you want, and then I can do all the other things that need doing to make sure that your website can be easily found online.
How long will it take for you to design and create a website?
This completely depends on what type of site you’d like, but roughly speaking, at the most we’re usually looking at:
- Online Business Card – Usually less than a week. If you provide a couple of pictures and some idea of the text you’d like on your site it could even be as little as a couple of days.
- Straight Forward Site – Usually somewhere between a week to two weeks. Again, providing content cuts down the time if takes to make a site.
- Enhanced Site – These are usually more complicated to set up, so take longer. There’s also more variation in the functionality of this type of site, so timescales can also vary. In most cases, somewhere between two to four weeks.
When you tell me about the type of site you’d like, the more concise you are the less time it takes to make. If I have to revise a site multiple times to get it to something you like, this will take longer. If this kind of things takes a really long time, I might have to charge more, simply to cover the time I put in to your site.
I don’t work slowly. I have made sites with over 50 pages in a weekend in the past. I’m also not going to eek out a project for any reason.
That didn’t take long, can I pay less?
Hmmm, tricky one. I tend to steer clear of operating in this manner, simply to make things fair. Imagine two electricians comparing websites that I made them, and one says “I got mine for £200” and the other thinks “I got charged £300 for mine”, that’s not going to go down well is it?
There is also the fact that it might have looked like it didn’t take me long, but I might have not slept for the last two nights.
I try to keep pricing as low and as static I can, and based on the end result, and I’m not a fan of overcharging people.
Why would I pay you when I can make my own with some ‘easy website builder’ type service?
You can do that if you like and if you’re that way inclined, and I think “good for you” about people taking for this approach.
My blog covers a lot of how you can make a website yourself using WordPress and a cPanel hosting platform hosting account. This isn’t for everyone, though, and there’s also an awful lot that you’ll need to do, but didn’t expect that you’d have to.
That’s where I come in. I’m here to help cover all the parts you don’t know how (or want to work out how) to do, or to do the whole thing. I’m also here to help people that have given this kind of thing a go, got a site up and running, then found that there’s a whole load of other stuff they need to do, but can’t.
Even when you’re using an “easy website design” type company, there are things that you’ll find out as you start developing a site, some of which might not be too much fun, and the costs can start to add up over time (you can see what I’m taking about on this page of my blog). An example of this would be that you make a site this way, then want your own website address. In addition to making the site you’d have to:
- Buy a domain
- Upgrade your ‘easy website builder’ account to a monthly chargeable account to be able to use the domain you’ve bought for the address of your site
- Point your domain to ‘easy website builder’ company using DNS records
And that’s just one of the pitfalls. What you get with me is both experience, and an idea of what can be used to provide you with a site you need that can be run in the way you want. Yes, you can actually talk to me, rather than reading help articles.
None of your website design packages mention what I want my site to do, why?
Things can get very variable with regard to what people want when it somes to website design.
The website design packages that I offer are quite standardised so might not specifically mention exactly what you would like your website to do or display.
If there’s some specific functionality or feature that you’d like on a site that isn’t mentioned in my website design packages, the chances are that I’ll be able to provide you with what you’re looking for, even though it’s not explicitly mentioned. Please feel free to ask.
I don’t say I’ll make you a website that I can’t, or that I won’t do well.
I may well be able to provide you with the website that you want, but we’d probably have to have a conversation about it, to work out what that is and how much it will cost. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
Do you do emails as well?
I do indeed. Although I’ve really just talked about websites and how much they cost I can also provide you with mailboxes. It’s possible that these will have an additional cost (although not a huge amount) depending on how they’re operated.
Do you do website hosting as well?
Yes, I do. I work for a hosting provider, so arranging some hosting for your site isn’t a big ask for me.
A website has to be hosted somewhere, and this somewhere does cost to run, so there are costs when it comes to me hosting a site for you if it’s one of the enhanced sites that I offer. This is due to this type of site needing a greater amount of resources (kind of like it running on a more powerful computer).
The hosting that I provide is reasonably priced, and includes some facilities that improve the peformance of the site itself, such as object caching and the Litespeed web server.
Whether you’ll need a hosting service is really dictated by the type of website you’d like. I can help you work out what you’ll need to be able to run the website that you want, in the way that you want to.
I’ve already got a website, can you…?
Probably, yes. It depends a bit what you want doing, but generally speaking I can help you sort most things out. I also offer services that include (but aren’t limited to) the following for people that already have websites:
- SEO optimisation (get found in search engines easily).
- Performance optimisation (decreasing page load times, adhering to things like Google’s page speed audits – if you run your site through https://pagespeed.web.dev and fail any audits, I can address this for you).
- Website redesign and overhaul services if your site is looking or feeling a bit old and tired.
- Integration services (this might be something along the lines of making booking calendars available on websites).
- Website maintenance packages (ongoing patching, updates and security maintenance)
- Website repair services for people who have websites that are broken or aren’t working as the should.
- Provide advice (in a lot of cases I’ll give this for free, I can be reached using the contact form on this page).
I’ve got more website questions, how can I ask them?
You can use the contact form on the contact page of this site to ask me a question. I’ll add it to this FAQ if it’s a common enough query.
