This is decision a lot of website owners have after a period of time or after they re-evaluate their current website after comparing it with their competitors. The Website Design Industry rarely stands still and there is always something new to consider and add to a website and new ways to enhance the website to make it rank more highly, so its worth getting a review of your website by a professional (or a selection of professionals) on a yearly basis.
Here is a conversation I recently had that demonstrates the ‘silly cheap prices’ and crazy expectations that some people have in regards to their website. If something is too cheap to be believed then there is always a problem. You may ‘think’ you are saving money but you are actually going to cost yourself money long term in lost business opportunities and the extra time it takes you to get it righ.
[Website Owner] We currently have a website with a few problems as listed below, I have already had ‘offers’ from some companies and the main suggestion seems to uplift the current information onto new site which will then replace the existing one this will improve the poor images (and make it more mobile friendly) and I have the best offer so far of £125.
I am happy to go down this route but there is also a suggestion of hosting and SEO work to hold and improve Google listings from £39 plus vat a month. I quote prices not for you to try and beat them (I know cheapest is not usually the best) but to give you an idea of where we are at currently and if you are going to be way off the mark we will not waste each other’s time. Hope to hear from you soon with a rough price and timescale.
Details of current website
Main website is working ok-ish but in messing around with it some things have suffered as I list below.
The website Designer has the headers correct when viewed in chrome but not on other pages where it does not show some text which can be seen when mouse drags over text to left of prices.
On all headers in internet explorer the drop down menu under instructor training actually appears left of page
I would like to include a payment page but again some text does not show up. I have a merchant account where I can take payments but not integrated into the website as yet.
Lastly I am told the meta tags are not set up correctly for Google to access (possible site map also required) so needs to be tweaked. If it proves too difficult to do then a new website will be considered .
[Delicious Webdesign] I fear that anyone quoting £125 to redesign your site is either naive or incompetent. As you stated we would be ‘wasting our time’ if you expected a premium service for such a cheap and unrealistic price. Your website, after a 10 minute review, has lots and lots of problems and coupled with a redesign we couldnt even consider a redesign and SEO for anywhere near that price. Your site is very good in terms of ‘content’ and would actually love to take on a drive instruction company as we havent got one on our portfolio yet, We think we could increase your visitor numbers hugely with a redesign and SEO but we are an established company with a long track record of success to charge ‘industry rates’
Take a look at our package options and take a look at our SEO package on the website Both are ‘flexible’ and easily tailored to your requirement but fear you may be expecting a website design company to work only a few hundred pounds, if in any doubt at some of our SEO credentials by previous results
To address your final point about ‘ it proves too difficult to do then a new website will be considered ‘ as your website is coded very poorly in ‘tables’ using inline CSS then a redesign is really the only way to correctly move forward. Had a client the other talk about their old website and the choice between ‘fixing’ and redesigning and the way I described it to them is that they now have a very old car that is going to cost them lots in repairs for years to come unless they upgrade now, updating and fixing websites is fine but after a certain time there needs to be a decision when its not ‘economically viable’ to continue ‘fixing’ it.
