Stop overpaying for Website services. Read on to find out how to make sure you get a return on your investment.
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It’s been a long time since I first heard about the World Wide Web. I was told about it by a man who sold me a Macintosh Quadra in 1995. He made the sale by telling me I would be able to use my Mac as a phone and talk to other computer users around the world and this fit right in with my love at the time for HAM Radio, I was sold.
Not long afterwards I discovered my love for the technical side of the Web when I read about HTML version 3.0 in some PC magazine and I have been building, optimising, marketing and hosting websites on and off ever since.
In that time regardless of whether I’m running an online business, helping others build and run theirs or even when I was taking time off, I would meet website owners who would excitedly tell me about their shiny new sites. More often than not, early on they would be great stories and of course I would go and have a look and sure enough they had ended up with a functional, well designed piece of online real estate that served the intended purpose and cost a fair price.
Over the years though, as the Internet started to gain popularity, more and more businesses needed a commercial website and with that came more “Webmasters”. Yes, that’s what they were called. There was a time before the Internet exploded when it felt like everyone that was online knew how to create an HTML web page. These days of course, most people that use the Internet (all 5.35 billion of us as of time of writing), don’t.
A whole industry, worth approximately 70 Billion USD in 2024, has appeared to service these websites creating and marketing needs and with it has come a swag of Web Design businesses that are in it for themselves, rather than you, the client.
Now to the point of my long winded introduction to the Website development “scam” industry.
There’s no such thing as just a website. You don’t just need a “Website”. You need an online billboard or you need an online lead generation tool. A “Website” alone will do nothing without quality Search Engine Results Page optimization (SEO), quality digital marketing, quality off-line marketing and a host of other important factors including but not limited to quality hosting and coding standards.
When I say to a client that their project is probably more suited to an online billboard what I mean to say is that their club, team or community information page doesn’t need to spend a lot of money necessarily on SEO and Marketing. These types of websites tend to gain traction organically by word of mouth and social media etc etc. Not to mention the fact that most projects that only require a billboard type of setup are usually not for profits so cost can be a big factor.
On the other hand, an online lead generation tool is a different beast altogether. If you run a business selling services or products you need the whole package, especially if you operate in a competitive market. You will need SEO and digital markeing, blazing fast hosting and every other tool you have available to you. You need to generate maximum leads. And with a quality online lead generation tool your leads will turn into sales that will pay for more leads and so on.
Often, outside of my work, I’ll meet people that perhaps run a small antique business, are in charge of creating their football clubs website or maybe they have decided to start selling their home made candles on the Internet or need an online presence to market their photography business and I will quite often see two major problems. They are caused by either greedy or stupid Website designers. Or both.
The two major website creation scams:
Getting charged the price of an online lead generation tool when you only need and receive a website
This would be the most common type of website development rip off that I see. This issue has become more wide spread in the last few years as the popularity of websites like Themeforest.com has taken off with web development agencies.
Basically you can go and buy a fully functional, hand crafted website for about $50USD. These sites or theme templates are sold multiple times and that is why they are offered so cheaply. For example the biggest seller ever on Themeforest is a WordPress theme called Avada which has made nearly 1 million sales in the last 5 years! At $69US per sale I will let you do the math.
For the same price you can buy any of literally thousands of WordPress themes that with the click of a button can be installed on your server. WordPress is a Blog or Content Management System which is free to download and is used by nearly HALF of all the 2 Billion Websites online in 2024. There are absolutely situations where this might be the best option for your online project. There are both pros and cons to this type of setup but the details are outside the scope of this article. I will go into this further in another article soon.
If you get a Website like this your are just buying a Website. And that’s fine if that is all that you are paying for, maybe $500 including the theme and a few basic customisations. Believe it or not people are being charged and are paying $10000 or more for sites like this. Don’t fall into this trap. Get quotes off multiple developers and do your homework!
The bottom line: A premade Website on it’s own with a few customisations for branding purposes should cost you $1000 max. Less depending on how you want it set up. Don’t pay $10000!
For-Profits that actually need an online lead generation tool and only receive a pre-made $50 WordPress Website
Unfortunately I see this all the time as well. Regardless of whether you pay $500 or $20000 for this product you are getting ripped off.
If you run a business and want to put it online you will need more than just a website. As I mentioned earlier you need the whole suite of tools available to an experienced website specialist to make your project a success. You can buy the prettiest website in the world, but it will serve nothing but to cost you money if nobody ever sees it or its user friendliness, design or content is not at it’s best.
As an Internet Consultant, my most important role is helping strangers I meet, friends of mine and also of course, potential clients of mine navigate the ins and outs of owning their own piece of real estate on the Internet.
The most rewarding service I can provide is making people aware of the traps and scams.
Don’t pay stupid amounts of money for just a website, especially one your website designer simply purchased online for $50.
Check around, get multiple quotes before you part with your hard earned cash.
Ask the questions.
Find out what you are getting in return for your money.
Stop overpaying for website services.
Most website design or development agencies are honest and perfectly capable of delivering great quality work at a fair price so you don’t have to be overpaying for website services.
Just beware of the scammer!
Got any questions about this article? I’m happy to answer any questions you may have. If you are local to Dunedin or I’m in your town (I get around the place a bit) we could catch up and discuss over coffee:)
