Typical conversation I have with friends that have had a website ‘created by a friend’ that nearly always end up in disaster and costs their business time and money.
[Friend] I have another big problem, 2 times I started with website design companies to create my website and everytime its ended in an expensive mess. Do you know someone who can really help me in setting up a site and help with SEO? If you have a good option for a website let me know.
[Website Designers] If you didn’t know I own / run Delicious Webdesign and IDC Guide is just a personal company project so my primary job role is website design / SEO
Obviously we can help you with whatever you want / need on your website and the SEO, I spent a few minutes reviewing it and although it looks ‘nice’ there is loads of things to improve / fix to make it really work well giving it the best chance to look excellent, function correctly and rank appropriately in the search engines.
Is the website in a fully developed state as you have requested by your website designer or have you got more requests to be completed to the site?
[Friend / Website Owner] My website is a problem since the last 2 years, there was a virus in the site and had to change it all, a guy from where I live who made some sites took the job all paid and 6 months later something bad came out, I had many private problems and just let it go for a while.
Now the main company website was done by a girl that works in IT and made some nice stuff what i saw but now she finished but many pages and the text are not fitting in the page when you look on phones, tablets or mini laptops. Again a disaster, paid half up front and now she does not even answer my emails.
So I like the lay out of the website, but it has a lot of little mistakes,I will need someone to solve the format problems etc, or just put it all again in another format. Then later of course the SEO as you know a lot from to see your othert sites that I know rank really well, you do a great job with that. Anyway I need to get back on the map and need a nice website that I am not embarassed about.
[Website Designers] That website looks good at first view but really it should be a CMS – WordPress (you control the content) / Responsive (works perfectly on all devices) / Modern / Search engine friendly design.
We can fix any problems but probably it’s a good time to review everything and give you some options as it may be better / easier to redesign it from scratch (but using the current good ‘look’) you really need to have a news section on it also so you can update it with latest ‘news’ (excellent for search engines and for website visitors to see what you have been up to) Do you have ftp access / domain registration access?
[Friend / Website Owner] Yes I have that if she did not change it. But anyway the domain name i have on my godaddy account reseller / hosting account. Do I really need to start it from scratch again, this will be the third time, what will be the costs on all that?
[Website Designers] By taking your existing website we can make it better with a series of agreed improvements but long term its best to have it redesigned and updatable by yourself and fully responsive and to have the Content Magagement System updated automatically (managed by us).
As a guide I estimate that to fix it in its current form the minimum that we need to do would be:
1, Create 13 new pages (Services)
2, Create 9 New pages (Projects)
3, Create 4 New pages (Team Members)
4, Add some text content to front page
5, Allocate each page (33 pages) with their own Relevant and Search Friendly Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions
6, Each page in points 1,2 and 3 would need to have an image embedded within the text
7, Change each image to have the correct aspect ratio (so they are not stretched)
8, Add relevant introduction text and headings on each page (some have neither)
This is the very minimum required and I could also suggest these other points:
1, General HTML coding fixes (mouseover text now makes text disappear)
2, Fix / update front page contact form (with anti-spam measures)
3, Images alignment fixes (about us page)
4, Optimise all images – rename them to be ‘relevant’ / resize them so they are not so large (one is 262kb but can be reduced to about 20kb)
5, Complete text on Team Members page
6, Create Multiple Photo Galleries (Services / Students / Courses / Facilities)
Even if these were done you would still be left with a ‘static’ website that will eventually start to not display correctly on some browsers as they evolve and you wouldn’t be able to update it yourself and wouldn’t be able to add news posts / photos.
If you were to create this correctly from scratch you would get a world class / responsive / CMS website that looks better / works perfectly and includes all the updates listed above as well as giving you a news section that you can use to upload unlimited posts (in their own categories) / The site would be SEO friendly and I estimate you would increase your visitor numbers between 20% – 200% within 12 months.
Depending on exact requirements you have / want I estimate this will cost something around the £2,000 mark (price correct as of 2014) depending on if you want us to create new / fresh content and how many galleries (with photos) you want / need
If this was my business and my business website this is exactly what I would do. I know that the improvements would make it better and bring in more visitors and should give you a return on your investment within 12 months.
[Friend / Website Client] Ok lets go for the full redesign, I am now your client as I agree completely with you I do need a new website as the existing one is not suitable and representative of my business, can i make an agreement with a 50% deposit then regular monthly payments so each months I would like to pay £300. Clearly I need to start over again and can not pay the complete amount to start the website but it is exactly what i need to get on the map again.I paid approximately £1000 to start the last one as a downpayment and since she put the site on of course i did not get even 1 email so imagine how screwed I am. Really appreciate that you have been good enough to point out the failings of the current website and are willing to take me on as a client.