Hi All!

Been a long time since I have been here - had some real serious health issues this past year-and I am finally getting myself back into normal life!

Does anyone do website design - setting up and hosting a basic website for a small business or personal. I have been having some requests for this-and it is a service I offer now - but want to know if anyone else does this and what is your price point?

Looking forward to tackling 2011 as healthy as ever!!!

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Bridget Janiak
www.OrganizedVirtualAssistance.com

I do offer it, but we really aren't supposed to talk about rates on the forum.

What I can tell you is that I offer package rates instead of per hour depending on what the client needs/wants. This means wordpress sites costs x amount, joomla costs x amount, and basic code costs x amount. Then additions (like extra content adding shopping carts ect) have a similar set price.

If they just want basic maintenance how ever, I charge hourly. Also to update content is different rate than updating and changing code.

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Amanda Mock
My Virtual Little Helper

Hi Bridget - Welcome back! Glad your health issues are behind you.

I don't do websites, but because I'm into internet marketing I have had occasion to price out these services with those that do and I've found that bare bones - just the basic 5 pages usually run in the neighborhood of $600 - $800...and then depending on additional features such as shopping carts, opt-in forms, additional graphics, SEO maximization, etc. can push the price up to $2500.00. This is still for a site that has minimal coding. Get into a site where you are doing a ton of coding and I've had prices quoted to me for as much as $5000.00.

The key thing that seems to be the norm is to figure out how much money you want to make per month or per year. Determine what you would like to base it all on hourly, determine how long it takes you to do a website and your skill level (i.e. can you market yourself as an expert with a large portfolio or do you need to get some sites under your belt first and build a portfolio) and then back into your hourly rate. For instance, if you think that a basic 5 page site will take you 5 hours and your rate is $75/hour then $425 and add 10% buffer and round. So in this example - $475.00.

You will for sure need to figure out who your direct competition is with your target market and where you plan to work (i.e. local or nationwide/worldwide) and go from there. Some companies do list their prices on their websites.

HTH at least a little bit.

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Pam Blackman - The Process Coach
Get more done in less time by streamlining!

I provide webhosting and website design. It's part of my core VA practice and probably provides about 1/3 of my income. Pricing is difficult to share - even if we were allowed to share it, simply because we all work in different regions (currencies), different skillsets and experiences.

What is probably best is you research in your local area to see what people are doing and charging and then assess if you can run your business on similar rates.

I used to work with Frontpage and Dreamweaver mainly but no longer do Frontpage and Dreamweaver less and less. Wordpress is the most popular for what I do so that clients can have login access to update as they please, without having to wait for the 'webmaster' to do it all for them.

I do website design as a service, as I have been doing websites since 1996 when sites were basic HTML coding by hand! (Yes, I am that old!).

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Behind the Desk Solutions - Carrie

Thanks for the input ladies! I have been working with Homestead (have a business account with them). I don't have a lot of experience with HTML code - have only worked with WYSIWYG - is Wordpress or Joomla difficult to maneuver? I have a set fee to start up the website and charge by the hour for updating (Love Freshbooks!) and wanted to keep my price point affordable since it won't be a website that will be too involved as I have other more lucrative services to offer. Can anyone give me the link to a website they created with Wordpress or Joomla?

Thanks again!

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Bridget Janiak
www.OrganizedVirtualAssistance.com

My website is created with joomla and this client site is as well - http://www.caribbeaninternationalfashionweek.com/ . Countless clients with wordpress as a format too.

As far as joomla and wordpress go, joomla is slightly more complex and powerful, Wordpress is easier but still can be powerful. Either one can be as simple or complex as you wish. You could use templates or create custom ones.

Since HTML isn't a strong point of yours I will assume the same of your PHP ability. With that being the case possibly focus yourself on setting up templates and configuring the addons.

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Amanda Mock
My Virtual Little Helper

Wordpress is easy to use - and can be added to as your html knowledge grows. But don't let that stop you trying it out!

Hi, I'm just formulating my plan for creating wordpress websites and blogs with a couple of different packages. blog only, blog/website with 5 pages with plugins and widgets set up. Also a separate package of prepaid "maintenance hours" that can be used to add additional items as their site grows and/or maintain their site for them.

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Linda Faust
www.lmfva.com