OT: How much should a good web site design cost?

[BumbleBeeDave]

I have a personal web site for my free lance business that I put together over 4 years ago after puzzling my way through Adobe Dreamweaver. I still retain enough knowledge of that to update something when it needs it, but I recognize the limits of my skills, and now that I want to seriously update and expand it, I'm starting pretty much at zero as far as finding a good web developer locally to do what I need and get some reasonable cost estimates.

So what's the going rate these days for somebody competent, if not really good, to update my site? Here's what I'm looking at doing . . .

--Update looks and feel, keeping it graphically simple and letting the photography shine, since that's my strong suit.

--Structure that allows me to update it simply with a common site builder app that's easier to use than Dreamweaver. I've used both proprietary content management systems at my job and another based on Drupal. These are far easier to use than Dreamweaver, particularly for simply adding things like an extra page with another writing sample, or posting a new photo gallery after I put it together with the HTML gallery tools in Photoshop. I do not want to have to wade into cascading style sheets, Flash programming, or other really technical aspects.

--Recommendations for what content management app to use. I really don't even know what's out there at this point.

--Reasonable cost . . . But what IS "reasonable cost" these days?

Suggestions welcome, and thanks!

BBD

[GeekBoy]

My advice: use Wordpress ($0), with a good looking theme ($20-$65). Looks for a photography/portfolio specific theme.

Covers all your requests. Cost will vary a lot depending on your location, how much "hand holding" you need, how much customization, etc. Base prices start at $650 or so for a knowledgeable amateur, $1200 for a full time pro.

Feel free to post here or PM with questions, this is my industry.

[Tin Turtle]

He's right. Wordpress can be made to look very cool. I use BlogEngine.NET but that is because I'm a .Net guy.

[fkelly]

In the Albany NY area we are using Drupal now after 10 years with a different CMS. We have a contractor/consultant managing the site for our local bike club with 600 - 800 members after years when I did it free. With all this there are + and -'s but contact me PM or email and we can discuss.

[bewheels]

I would second (or is it third) GeekBoy's assessment.
This is without knowing what you are trying to do with the site...do you want to sell things through it? Allow people to comment (and maintain those comments), allow people to set up accounts, etc.

[bloody sunday]

my brother in law has a company, based out of British Columbia - he's starting out, so his rates are pretty low/competitive. here's his site:
http://cloggedcap.ca/

[Kirk007]

+2 on Word Press. Dropal is very powerful but in my experience more complex than what you are looking for. We used it for my last NGO and most everyone who had to work with it were less than enamored (except the outside designer who built it).

[BumbleBeeDave]

I would second (or is it third) GeekBoy's assessment.
This is without knowing what you are trying to do with the site...do you want to sell things through it? Allow people to comment (and maintain those comments), allow people to set up accounts, etc.

I have a separate third party site I link to for sales. Also not really wanting to have a comment area, as that requires more maintenance than I'd like.

This is basically a site with my portfolio accessible via one page, a description of services on another, a page with linked galleries that I could edit/add/delete fairly easily, and a "contact me" page with a link to send an email.

I'll investigate Wordpress and see what it looks like. Our CMS at work is based on Drupal, and I like the framework of having an established page format and then being able to plug in new things. But given all the problems we've had with it, if the developers for a multi-billion dollar corporation can't get it right, then I'm not exactly thrilled about trying to configure the software to do what I want. If Wordpress allows me to use master pages/CSS without the headaches then maybe that's the ticket.

I just want to get this online fast and it might be worth the coin for me to pay somebody if they can get it done quickly.

BBD

[fkelly]

You might also look at something like wix where the site building software is "hosted" and you don't have to maintain it. With any CMS such as Drupal, Wordpress, etc. you have to download the software then install it on the hosting service. Or the hosting service will have an automated installer but still you will have a copy of all the CMS software and a copy of the database associated with it and you will have to maintain that, including doing regular updates.

[dekindy]

Didn't Ahneida Ride go through this exercise last year.

[pro12tc]

My wife and I left the WordPress world in favor of SquareSpace.com

It's so nice not having to worry about technical issues, themes breaking, wordpress updates, getting hacked, etc. etc.

SquareSpace has really nice templates and photo galleries optimized for photographers. You can be up and running in minutes with a professional site.

[dekindy]

Is portability still an issue? Who owns the website design and whether you can switch providers and take the content with you?

[jmoore]

Budget $50/hour or so. The quotes I've got for a retrofit of my site start at $600. It goes up from there based on complexity.


I will state the obvious here: what seems to you is "not that complex", i.e. a gallery on the site or minor navigation changes, could be extremely complex when someone gets into the configuration and code.


My site is in Wordpress. I'm going to be implementing a custom responsive theme for the new site. The premium themes that are available are not all they are cracked up to be and rarely live up to the "it's an easy configuration to make it to whatever you want" claims. If you are technically savvy to some extent, you can make them work. Use one of the free themes and give it a shot to see what you are getting into.

[tele]

Dave

Here at my school we just got a recommendation of a site called Weebly that can be free to start websites/blogs. I quickly looked up a review and it looked pretty good but I have no technical 'puter experience so good luck!

[BumbleBeeDave]

I will state the obvious here: what seems to you is "not that complex", i.e. a gallery on the site or minor navigation changes, could be extremely complex when someone gets into the configuration and code.

. . . you are saying start from scratch in Wordpress with one of the themes and go from there.

I'll be the first to admit that my original site, while it works, is not going to be clean code. I got it to work, but probalby not in quite the same elegant ways as if I were an experienced designer.

BBD

[ColonelJLloyd]

I am in the process of starting a new business. I spoke with a friend who is a web developer, but will not be doing the work for me. He said I should budget $2,000-2,500 for the design and ~$4,000 for the development. This is in addition to the style guide/branding that will need to be done before the web design.

[jmoore]

. . . you are saying start from scratch in Wordpress with one of the themes and go from there.

BBD

Yes, this is what I'm saying.


Google "best free Wordpress themes" and select one of those. There are themes in every category, so if you can narrow your search to "portfolio" or "business" or "blog", then that will help. Install WP and download a theme and see what it takes to get it to work. There is definitely a learning curve but it can be done. With that, you won't be out any $$ and it might steer you in one direction or another.