[Anthony Taylor]

Hi everyone,

I have just joined the forum and am in need of a little bit of budget advice on my first website for a new business project I am launching.

I work as an SEO Executive so while I am used to working with websites on a daily basis I lack the commercial awareness of how much I should realistically be paying for a new site.

I have established that I want to work with a reliable UK based Freelancer (in Leeds if possible) because A) I don't want to pay for the overheads of a design agency and B) My experience of outsourcing is that low prices don't always equate to a quality product.

In terms of functionality/features for the website I need the following;

Logo Design - This will need to be done from scratch.

Content Management System - I will be offering a small number of 'products' so the day to day content management is fairly minimal. Still, I want to be able to easily change nav items, images, content etc, but a large ecommerce site is not needed.

Product Catalogue

Integrated PayPal - I would really like to accept PayPal and credit cards but from my understanding taking the latter involves alot of additional expense and hassle (E-merchant ID etc)

Affiliate Marketing - I intend to work with Clix Galore to promote my business, so it will need to be able to plug into my site. There shouldn't be a problem using integrated PayPal but I might need a little help in this area.

Special Offers - As well as taking PayPal on the website, I need to be able to issue discount codes, i.e. 10% off your next order to tie in with my newsletter and direct mail advertising.

Newsletter (for use with Mailchimp) - A fairly simple design is needed here - header and footer from the website with a content area I should think.

Blog - Not entirely sure how I want this to work yet. I think I will use Wordpress and have embedded within the website if that makes sense, i.e. you click on blog on the navigation and it takes you to http://www.examplewebsite.com/blog rather than it jumping out to an external site.

Search Engine Friendly - The basics need to be there - ability to control meta data on every page, adding alt tags to images, friendly urls, i.e. /search-engine-friendly, robots.txt file, XML/GZIP sitemap etc.

Video - I'd like to be able to add 1-2 videos on the website.

In addition I also need;

Flyer Design (A5)
Business Card Design

That's all I can think of right now, there might be a few things I am missing but that's the gist of it.

So - any ideas on what I should expect to pay for a design and development of the above for a UK based freelancer?

Kind regards,
Anthony

PS - I'd like to stress at this stage I am not looking to hire as I have not finalised my business plan so this isn't a 'want to buy' ad just yet :-)

[socreative]

you can use Wordpress for this, there will be static pages with your videos, about info etc abd the blog section. Your ecommerce side of things can be done with Wordpress asweel as it is a simple shopping cart facility you require. I'd say the price for the site would be £500-1000

[Site Engine]

Originally Posted by socreative

you can use Wordpress for this, there will be static pages with your videos, about info etc abd the blog section. Your ecommerce side of things can be done with Wordpress asweel as it is a simple shopping cart facility you require. I'd say the price for the site would be £500-1000

In my experience WP E-commerce is buggy as hell. I've tried it a couple of times and it was a 'mare.

- Stephen

[Anthony Taylor]

Thanks for taking the time to reply gents. From my limited knowledge I did feel that that Wordpress wasn't the best format for this particular project, though i'm happy to look at examples of completed projects if they work well.

Any thoughts on a budget Site Engine?

[VLAHAKISA]

Why don't you pick say 3-5 freelancers that seem reliable/experienced with a good portfolio and gather quotes from them to get an overall idea of pricing range? Then make a decision.

For web development (building the web design and all it's functions) I recommend Web Development by Figure W.

I can offer logo design and front end web design prior to the build by a web development firm (design and build is a two step process).

You can view a portfolio of works at Logo Design, Print Design, Illustration and you may find the regularly updated blog at Truly Ace Graphic Design Blog an interesting read also.

Amanda