Making Website for my Dad's Business - Need Help

[Apengo]

So I could consider myself a fair web designer. My website, for a high school FBLA competition, got 9th place in my state. However, I've honestly only taken 1 class on Web Design in high school so there's a lot of things that I don't know about, mostly about the hosting involved in it.

Now my dad wants me to make him a website for his storage unit business and there are a few things that I was wondering about...

• What hosting website would you recommend?
• How much, on average, is it going to cost per month/year to get hosting that lets me upload everything and work with my own coding and graphics?
• Is SEO for a local business a lost cause?
• Is there anything I would want to make sure to do or to avoid when making a semi-professional website?
• Any other additional details about hosting the website that you can give me.
• Also, he's probably going to want to pay me for doing this for him... What do you think would be a good price to tell him?

I'll most likely have some other questions that I think of that I'll be posting later.

Thank you for your time.

 

[Hoogle]

mmmm family and friends mixed with financial business how do you put a price on that.

Also how do you expect us to quote your web design ability without knowing what your standard is like.

I know people that consider themselves professional web designers and just pull of basic html and charge a couple of hundred dollars for it. When all it was was a 30 min site to be made by someone who knew what they were doing.

And then there is the format

Html templates can be bought from template sites for around $30 -$200 (max I would say) so you just populate them.

I will populate a HTML website for somebody for around $500 for a basic site 3 contant pages and 1 contact page with a contact form and a .PHP catch script.
+ $50 per additional page

Unique website designed specifically for that client I will charge $700 for HTML with css styling depending on site maybe add other things like joomla, java script drupal etc

And then there is moving on to more semi pro sites which include combinations of html,html5 Css Styling and XML with maybe a flash navigation bar all animated with a flash slide show or animation these sites I can get away with charging $1000+

And then there are specialist sites and where the money is at the fully interactive flash sites if you do them well then there is no reason not to be doing your starting prices at $1500

Then of course you need to discuss are you uploading there site for them and managing it as you will need to have a maintenance standard rate etc again depending on your quality of work and what you can get.

plus extras
Html Email template for example so they can send newsletters to there customers anywhere from $50 - $200 then how many do they want I often do 12 1 for each monthly newsletter so Usually just round it down usually an extra $800

So now for the business end of website packages you have already quoted $2000+ easily

Logo design despite what you see online freelance jobs costs anywhere between $200 -$1000

You usually get to do the stationary for the business as well so add another $300 -$1000 for business cards letterheads etc

So cost wise how do you rank yourself as a Graphic\Web designer but more importantly how do other people rank you and will they pay. You are only worth what your client is willing to pay. If you are good you will get more clients from word of mouth

And then there is SEO manipulating it gets harder as places like Google also have a premium service where you pay them to come at the top of search engines so if your site is to well optimised they penalise you and will actually block your site if you have over manipulated to play games with spiders.

Stick with key words optimisation use headings that are in HTML format that relate to your business not images as the spiders will pick up actual type. And then cleverly name your pictures and use good id tags for the pics and any other external media as spiders will look for them as well

Seo optimisation is a good $500 on top

So as you can see a full package could safely cost your client anything

depending on your client you can get away with places like 000webhost which is free hosting and you can transfer the domain to them however they dont tend to come on top of search engines when you optimise them to the max as hosting companies that charge usually pay towards the larger search engines to appear at the top of searches.

However this does not mean you have to pay $50 a month hosting but yet cheaper 1s usually fill your sites up with adds.

Google focuses on local searches first so if you have a .com and live in the uk then you will actually score less on search engine scoring rather rather than if you had a .co.uk domain

If you are based in the UK and your hosting company is in the USA then you will score lower than local hosting.

How much do you charge if your good at it and can pll of what your client wants then pretty much anything you want to charge.

However if you are capable of doing websites that look like they were made in 1995 trust me and think they are good then you will not get anything for your efforts.

 

[Hoogle]

Maybe post a link to some websites you have designed and built from scratch maybe your own personal 1. Personal websites are very good to see your design ability. It is not about making the loudest most animated site that makes a good site.

 

[Apengo]

Thank you for your post Hoogle, I got some good information out of it but I think you misread some of my intentions. I probably should have been more clear and that's my bad.

I wasn't too concerned at all about the pricing of the whole thing as I would just be doing this as a hobby type of thing in my free time and as a favor for just my dad, he is the only owner and worker of the business. I am also only still in high school. The amount that he would pay me would just be a "Hey thanks for doing this for me, here's some extra cash for your time." kind of thing. I am going to be trying to keep the website itself as professional as I can do, but when it comes to the whole, freelance client expert professionalism and knowledge type of thing, I am not going to be too worried because I am just making this for my dad.

I was more concerned how the hosting bit of it would work as I've never actually hosted anything before. For example, I've seen websites like host gator offering hosting for only $4 per month, but what do I actually get with that? Can I be using that for a business website? Can I upload my own graphics and .html files to it? Do I get access to some sort of FTP web server? And what is the difference between that and VPS, Reseller, and Dedicated Server hosting? Those are just some questions and any additional information would be nice.

As for SEO, I guess that is what it is. I don't think my dads going to be spending any substantial amount of money for that. My main concern is, after doing all the basic SEO things (Title, meta, ect.), if I type "Jackson, Wisconsin Cedar Creek Storage Units" into Google, is the website going to pop up at all?

If you were wondering, http://old.huhs.org/activities/fbla/2012/index.html is the site that I made for FBLA. (Keep in mind that it's only a high school competition and my knowledge and experience in web design and graphics have since grown)

 

[Hoogle]

Yes sorry totally different levels that site is not bad for HTML just I wouldnt of had such a bright background pulling your attention away from the content.

Ok hosting
hosting reseller plans

This is where you usually get cheap hosting however your hosting company gets to put advertisement on your site They often also come with some sort of online shop where you can sell hosting packages from your shop for the company you are hosting from and you get commission on the sales.

Honestly from the souns of what you want your site to be this is not going to be worth anything to you

Dedicated server hosting yet again not worth anything to you these are for places like this forum where you need your own computer or multiple computers to run your site you are talking more than 100 people visiting your site at what time and filling in information for this kind of hosting.

every hosting company offers ftp client software either for free or at a cost the truth is the better ftp software is a program called filezilla it is free and just a simple google search and you will have it.

Seo optimisation if someone types in that specific company name then yes it should come up if your site was called john smith for example probably not. you may even find if you google that name now it will probably come up now as it has been said in your post.


My advice is create an account at 000webhost and create your domain you will probably be able to get your company name or initials for free but instead of wwww.cedarcreekstorage.com you will get wwww.cedarcreekstorage.zqn.com but that is the free option or you can register a proper domain for about $10 on fast host or similar. Be carefull though there are companies that if you buy them for less than $5 you will get there big advertising banner across your site, However this legally has to be clear and highlighted to you before you click purchase. go for a reputable company like fast host to get your domain and then delete the named servers in your account and add the 1s 000webhost will give you so your domain will be pointed towards your hosting company.

Download file zilla or if you have dreamweaver then you already have an ftp manager built in ( I dont like it filezilla is the best in my eyes)

You really do not need to spend any money doing it other than buying your premium domain if you want it.

and then as you dabble with websites more you can improve your skill and then maybe you will need to look at more advanced features.

000webhost will offer you support for php mail forms so if you want to add a built in contact for so it automatically sends that message to any email account then it will do it.

However if you want an online sales site which I am doubting then you will need to pay someone to do it properly in my opinion and you will want better hosting.

 

[Apengo]

This is exactly the information I was looking for. :mrgreen:

I think that answers most of my questions, and if I have anymore while I'm doing this I'll just post them here.

Thanks for your time.