Friday, June 14, 2013

FINDING A DESIGNER & HOSTING

FINDING A DESIGNER & HOSTING

Are you looking for a web designer to do your small business web site?

Before you sign with anyone - DO YOUR HOMEWORK! I cannot stress this enough.

I recently received a referral from another business person. I called the local business
immediately, but they informed me that they had already hired a designer. I was gracious and thanked them for at least speaking with me.

I was curious to find out what the other "designer" was charging them (for the small 2 - 3 page site). When they informed me that they would be paying OVER $85.00 a month, I almost dropped the phone in SHOCK! YIKES!!

Why would ANY web site designer charge a small business this kind of money in today's economy for 2-3 pages? And, why would ANY business pay that kind of money per month? They said they had contacted other designers, but this was the least expensive. Over $1000.00 for the year is NOT inexpensive - it is a ripoff!

Years ago, when I was doing corporate web sites with 15 to 25 pages, I would possibly have charged $2000 to $3000 for many, many weeks of work. But, with today's available software, a web site page can now be designed in a few hours.

You also should do your homework when finding a hosting service. There are so many companies out there now that "pull the wool over" people and make them think they have to buy all this other stuff. DON'T fall into their traps!! Especially those companies that tell you that you can do your own web site by just dragging and dropping info/images in place. Unless you know what you are doing, you can mess up an entire page by using these so-called content management programs. Beside that, hundreds of other people may have used the same template so your site looks just like all of theirs.

Besides all this they charge anywhere from $25.00 a month and up!! Hosting companies I send my clients to only charge $8.00 a month to host a web site and also do "add-on" domains for free. So instead of getting ripped off for over $300.00 a year, you could be saving $200 by using a local hosting service.