who do i hire to make a websites for my design company ??

[sixftsix]

is it better to hire a professional for 1500 dollars or try to find someone on-line at a reduced price.

thank you

 

[rbulsara]

A professional will always provide much better results but it costs as well. It is not to say that ones offering services on internet are not professionals.

It also depends on what your needs are. How jazzy you want it to be? Who is your target audience? How much you want or can to spend, etc. You are the only judge of that.

If you are somewhat good with computers, you can create a simple but still professional looking your own web pages using freely available templates and web page editing tools on the internet. It does not hurt to try it out first. You would be able to preview your web pages before it gets published on a web hosting site.

If you do not like the results, you will need a professional.




Rafiq Bulsara

http://www.srengineersct.com

 

[ajack1]

What do you want your web site to do? Do you want to sell over it or just offer information?

On line you will mostly find you get your words images etc put in a “template” and that is it. If you get someone in you will get far more input and probably design as well but obviously pay more.

Speaking from experience we had most of the graphic design done outside to tie in with flyers, letter headings logo etc then did the grunt work ourselves and got in someone to finalise it.

Depending on how a web site is created will vastly alter how high up it gets on Google etc, so we simple typed in web site design and spoke to the top four non paid companies as we figured if they can get their web site up there they stand a good chance of doing the same for us.

There is little benefit in having the prettiest web site in the world sitting on page 54 of Google when you type in relevant key words. How the web site is constructed is far more important than how it looks IMO; however you will obviously want to have it look great as well.

 

[TheTick]

Hire someone within driving distance so that you can work directly with him if necessary.

 

[sixftsix]

thank you all for your information
i really appreciate it

 

[MechEng2005]

I would think the quality of a website would be pretty ease to judge and they should have references. Look at what else they've done, ask to talk to previous clients to see how good the web designer is at support/updating, etc.

And as TheTick said, make sure it's somebody you can talk to face-to-face if necessary. There's no replacement for in-person contact, especially if there are issues that need to be addressed.

-- MechEng2005

 

[zdas04]

Take a look at my web site (in my signature). My out of pocket expense--zero. Time required to build and maintain it--about 20 hours to build it and and 12-16 hours/year to maintain it. Hits per day--200 to 600. Number of new clients who found me through my web page--13.

The templates available for free from someplace like Earthlink are amazingly powerful and reasonably easy to use.

I don't know how many "professional" web sites I've been to that were un-usable. Many professionals tend to put dark and busy backgrounds and slightly lighter text that is too small. Probably looks good on a 52 inch monitor, but smaller than that it looks like crap. If I have to struggle to read a page, I go on to something else.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is worth spending some time thinking about (there are hundreds of sites that talk about it) and much of the advice in SEO not only looks good to Googlebots, but also looks good to people.

At the end of the day, the key is value. If the only thing your site has is an arm-waving advertisement then few people will go there and even fewer will stay. I've got samples of work product that often provide a complete answer to the question the searcher is asking. Great. Maybe next time they'll come back and find part of an answer and hire me to fill in the blanks. Maybe not.

600 unique people spending an average of 45 seconds/visit on my site is a big exposure for a one-person company, I'm happy with my site. I don't think I would be as happy with what the "professionals" provide.

Good luck to you.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

"Life is nature's way of preserving meat" The Master on Dr. Who

 

[MacGyverS2000]

Take a look at my web site (in my signature). My out of pocket expense--zero. Time required to build and maintain it--about 20 hours to build it

And it shows ;-) (BTW, it's "consultancy"... you have an extra 't' in there.)

Seriously, though, the webpage is quite simplistic, and I doubt any reputable web designer would charge $1,500 for that, so you do get what you pay for (or at least you should). If you're handing the designer the text (which you should), David's page would take them 2-3 hours to put together at a cost of a few hundred $s. Do not pay them to determine what you do, pay them to do what they do best... page layout and graphic design (a skill I'm quite short of, unfortunately). Don't go overboard with a lot of flashy Flash animation unless the engineering behind it is a good match (and unless you're designing webpages for a living, it rarely is). Expect to give feedback throughout the design process, don't just blindly agree with whatever you're handed... it's your site, they should only offer constructive criticism, not absolutes.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[rbulsara]

Dan:

Mine shows too..as to what I spent!:-D

Rafiq Bulsara

http://www.srengineersct.com

 

[zdas04]

Dan,
It works for what I'm trying to do. Simplistic or not, the comments I've gotten on it have been universally positive. I guess you're not looking for what I'm selling.

Your web page is exactly what I don't like about "professional" web sites. The white and yellow lettering on black background is really hard for me to read, and after the home page, the font gets progressively smaller. The proliferation of new copies of Explorer is a pain too. I guess everyone has things they hate that others like or don't care about. The tech stuff looks interesting, but the high contrast just runs together in my horribly thick glasses.

Rafiq,
Did you do yours yourself or hire it done?

David

 

[MacGyverS2000]

David,

Good to know... 'cause mine's not professional. Like you, I did it myself I needed something to showcase my products, bt it was designed form the beginning to be a placeholder... I just never got around to putting anything proper in its place. As I said, I have no artistic talent. At this very moment I have some money in escrow waiting for a new logo to be designed. Slowly but surely I'll get the website up to professional standards.

Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com

 

[rbulsara]

David:
I did it myself. Let me know your feedback. I have had some positive feedback as well. Yours look fine to me too.

I am sure mine can be improved but it is OK for me for now.

Rafiq Bulsara

http://www.srengineersct.com

 

[zdas04]

I was just asking to give the OP a point of reference.

David

 

[ajack1]

What a web site looks like is personal taste, some like plain and simple some like flashy and full of bling, what is important is it all works is easy to navigate and as zdas04 says the SEO is well thought out.

200-600 hits per day is huge for such a specialised web site, however even with that sort of traffic it has still only generated 13 new customers, which seems low to me assuming that has been over a period of time.

 

[zdas04]

I've been in business for 6 years and have 28 clients. 13 found me from my web page (some of those found my web page through my signature here), 6 were contacts from my previous job, rest were word of mouth. 13 may not sound like much, but it is my largest group of clients. My business is not about large numbers of folks through the door, it is abuot solid, long-term relationships and repeat projects.

David

 

[sixftsix]

thank you for your valuable informatiom

 

[ajack1]

Zdas04 I did not mean that as a criticism, I have probably picked up around 13-15 new customers from the web as well but that is from around 5-10 new unique visits a day. I am happy with that, like you we offer a specialised service.

I totally agree about repeat business and long term relationships. What does totally amaze me is that for such a specialised service as you offer you get such amazing high numbers, even at 200 per day, the lowest number you say, over 6 years that is 438,000 unique visits, then 13 does seem a low return.

 

[rbulsara]

13 compared to what? My previous employer spent roughly $10,000 a year to attend a flashy conference twice a year. In last 9 1/2 years it yielded zero client from that particular effort, as far as I know. To be fair they had good base of repeat clients and good relationships.



Rafiq Bulsara

http://www.srengineersct.com

 

[zdas04]

It seemed high to me too, and it hasn't always been that high. I don't think I got 200 visits total in the first full year it was up. In 2008 traffic started out at 10-15/day and ended the year over 100/day. After February, 2009 it jumped up to 200-600 (average close to 250/day) and has stayed there. The thing that amazed me was the time/visit has gone up with the visitor count. Last year the average was 6 seconds, this year it is 45 seconds. I don't know what it means, either people are having trouble finding what they're looking for or they're reading it on line instead of downloading it.

I've looked at referrals and about 1/3 of the people on my site start at eng-tips.com and followed the link in my signature there. A small number type my url into their browser (no indication of where they got it), and the rest find me through a search engine. Drilling further, the searches mostly make sense (e.g., "CBM", "Low Pressure Operations", "pigging", "screw compressors", "air purge", "static testing", etc) and I'm finding that for those sorts of queries I'm usually on the first page of Google. The search that doesn't make sense to me is around 1/4 of the searches are for "MuleShoe Engineering". I don't have a clue why a dozen people a day around the world type that into their search engine. Unfortunately my web host statistics don't allow relating a query to a URL.

SixFtSix, as you can see from that ramble, once you have your site up (regardless of who developed it), there is a wealth of information available to see how it is playing in the 'burbs. It is a good idea to pay attention to the statistics and look for areas to strengthen your content (e.g., I noticed that I was getting hits on "Purging" and everything on my page about purging was weak so I put up some content that addressed that topic directly).


David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

http://www.muleshoe-eng.com

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

"Life is nature's way of preserving meat" The Master on Dr. Who

 

[NomLaser]

Just curious, but does your counter include webcrawlers (i think that is still the term) from google and such?