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i hope this is not a slam against my 'son' doing my website ...
if i'd had $5000 or even $1000 to pay someone to put together a site at the time, i wouldn't have asked him to take on the task.
our own websites are maybe as much a part of us as our b&b's, and we can get pretty defensive about them.
but i'm shocked at the price of some professional websites with broken links and repeated admonitions to 'check back later for updates' that never come. that's why i want to remind the original poster to view the web developer's portfolio and visit the websites. hopefully he can also speak with some clients to see how responsive the developer is when there are issues and questions and problems and changes. and how much will any changes cost?
there are lots of websites out there - everyone here probably visits 100's each week. some are pretty mom and pop/basic - some are little more than a web page. i have nothing against those little sites if they are up to date. i just prefer the more sophisticated sites..
No slam from me, seashanty.
Catlady, it's not unrealistic and as I've said, I have the experience to back it up.
If people here have been paying over $1000, and even $1000 being on the very high end, they're being snookered.
.
Snookered? Please show me a B&B site you did with 10 or more pages and great photos that you got paid for and charged less than $1000. Then show me the stats for the past 30 days.
There have been people coming through this forum that built their site for free using only blogger. There are others who got an inexpensive one using Vistaprint. There are others that used some autosetup autodeveloped service out of India. Technically they all got sites for under $500. Does that mean that someone who paid $800 got snookered? Or did the under $500 crowd get snookered because they have an invisible site, or one that people pass on because somehting just doesn't look quite right.
 
we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money.
 
we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money..
mollysmom said:
we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money.
That is the magic word...INVESTMENT.
The returns are a hundred-fold.
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we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money..
mollysmom said:
we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money.
That is the magic word...INVESTMENT.
The returns are a hundred-fold.
thumbs_up.gif
thumbs_up.gif

.
Joe Bloggs said:
mollysmom said:
we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money.
That is the magic word...INVESTMENT.
The returns are a hundred-fold.
thumbs_up.gif
thumbs_up.gif
we had spoken with other innkeepers who had used the same designers as us and they all said they saw immediate results. the day our site went live (around noon time) we received 5 reservations before that evening. each one commenting about our site. now, i'm not saying we have the ultimate best sight in the world or that our site is superior over others sites. i'm just saying that for us,personally, the response was pretty much instant and we continue to receive comments like you wouldn't believe. people would comment on our previous site but nothing like they do about the one we have know. every time a guest comments, it just reassures us that we made the right decision to go with a professional designer who specializes in the inn/b&b world.
 
i won't try to put a dollar value on someone's time as a web developer and the product they produce. there is so much to it ... as you all know.
but especially just starting out, lots of folks don't have $1000 - $5000 to get a site up and running. so they do what they can with what they have. i would not tell them to do nothing! surely there is merit in a basic website. hopefully they will improve their site when they can.
 
i hope this is not a slam against my 'son' doing my website ...
if i'd had $5000 or even $1000 to pay someone to put together a site at the time, i wouldn't have asked him to take on the task.
our own websites are maybe as much a part of us as our b&b's, and we can get pretty defensive about them.
but i'm shocked at the price of some professional websites with broken links and repeated admonitions to 'check back later for updates' that never come. that's why i want to remind the original poster to view the web developer's portfolio and visit the websites. hopefully he can also speak with some clients to see how responsive the developer is when there are issues and questions and problems and changes. and how much will any changes cost?
there are lots of websites out there - everyone here probably visits 100's each week. some are pretty mom and pop/basic - some are little more than a web page. i have nothing against those little sites if they are up to date. i just prefer the more sophisticated sites..
No slam from me, seashanty.
Catlady, it's not unrealistic and as I've said, I have the experience to back it up.
If people here have been paying over $1000, and even $1000 being on the very high end, they're being snookered.
.
Snookered? Please show me a B&B site you did with 10 or more pages and great photos that you got paid for and charged less than $1000. Then show me the stats for the past 30 days.
There have been people coming through this forum that built their site for free using only blogger. There are others who got an inexpensive one using Vistaprint. There are others that used some autosetup autodeveloped service out of India. Technically they all got sites for under $500. Does that mean that someone who paid $800 got snookered? Or did the under $500 crowd get snookered because they have an invisible site, or one that people pass on because somehting just doesn't look quite right.
.
I'm not going to lay my credentials on the line for you swirt because honestly there's no reason. I'm not here for business or to attract any.
I realize you do work for inns and have a business to keep afloat by charging what you do, and more power to you for that.
I receive on average over 25K hits per day, 1700 unique visitors per day and just over 1000 first time visitors per day. My server serves just under a million pages per month. I know a thing or two about sites, design and different approaches to take to appeal to the masses ;)
 
i hope this is not a slam against my 'son' doing my website ...
if i'd had $5000 or even $1000 to pay someone to put together a site at the time, i wouldn't have asked him to take on the task.
our own websites are maybe as much a part of us as our b&b's, and we can get pretty defensive about them.
but i'm shocked at the price of some professional websites with broken links and repeated admonitions to 'check back later for updates' that never come. that's why i want to remind the original poster to view the web developer's portfolio and visit the websites. hopefully he can also speak with some clients to see how responsive the developer is when there are issues and questions and problems and changes. and how much will any changes cost?
there are lots of websites out there - everyone here probably visits 100's each week. some are pretty mom and pop/basic - some are little more than a web page. i have nothing against those little sites if they are up to date. i just prefer the more sophisticated sites..
No slam from me, seashanty.
Catlady, it's not unrealistic and as I've said, I have the experience to back it up.
If people here have been paying over $1000, and even $1000 being on the very high end, they're being snookered.
.
Snookered? Please show me a B&B site you did with 10 or more pages and great photos that you got paid for and charged less than $1000. Then show me the stats for the past 30 days.
There have been people coming through this forum that built their site for free using only blogger. There are others who got an inexpensive one using Vistaprint. There are others that used some autosetup autodeveloped service out of India. Technically they all got sites for under $500. Does that mean that someone who paid $800 got snookered? Or did the under $500 crowd get snookered because they have an invisible site, or one that people pass on because somehting just doesn't look quite right.
.
I'm not going to lay my credentials on the line for you swirt because honestly there's no reason. I'm not here for business or to attract any.
I realize you do work for inns and have a business to keep afloat by charging what you do, and more power to you for that.
I receive on average over 25K hits per day, 1700 unique visitors per day and just over 1000 first time visitors per day. My server serves just under a million pages per month. I know a thing or two about sites, design and different approaches to take to appeal to the masses ;)
.
Mr. Design, if indeed there are design companies that can do a quality site in the $1,000 range which includes professional photos, can you share a few of them or their websites with us? I'm asking because it's obvious that we're not aware of anyone who does a low cost quality site for our industry. I'm not asking so we can slam them, we're all here to share with each other and if there's another option please inform us.
 
we paid over $1000 for our site and we don't feel as though we were snookered at all. Our business has increased, we were not doing badly before, but we the comments we get from people making reservations and even if it is just an inquiry, is amazing. our designers were great to work with, respond immediately when we contact them, their professional photography is great. we feel we made a wise investment and positive move for our business. sometimes ya gotta spend money to make money..
I went through your website and it is really great. I can believe that you got instantly business from there.
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i hope this is not a slam against my 'son' doing my website ...
if i'd had $5000 or even $1000 to pay someone to put together a site at the time, i wouldn't have asked him to take on the task.
our own websites are maybe as much a part of us as our b&b's, and we can get pretty defensive about them.
but i'm shocked at the price of some professional websites with broken links and repeated admonitions to 'check back later for updates' that never come. that's why i want to remind the original poster to view the web developer's portfolio and visit the websites. hopefully he can also speak with some clients to see how responsive the developer is when there are issues and questions and problems and changes. and how much will any changes cost?
there are lots of websites out there - everyone here probably visits 100's each week. some are pretty mom and pop/basic - some are little more than a web page. i have nothing against those little sites if they are up to date. i just prefer the more sophisticated sites..
OH no..please not a slam towards anyone.
 
i won't try to put a dollar value on someone's time as a web developer and the product they produce. there is so much to it ... as you all know.
but especially just starting out, lots of folks don't have $1000 - $5000 to get a site up and running. so they do what they can with what they have. i would not tell them to do nothing! surely there is merit in a basic website. hopefully they will improve their site when they can..
I agree with you for the small B & B's ...for me as a 3 room B & B...I could never afford that. You do what you have to do:)
 
we afforded ours by scrimping & saving. we are not a large inn, we are a small 5 room inn. we certainly did not have a large sum of money to invest in a site right off the bat. we did know that we definately wanted a nice one so we started saving right from the beginning. if we wanted to go out to dinner opr something we thought we would put it in the website fund instead. we have thought of it as one of our "big" purchases. we do a majority of the updates (avail. calendar, photos, text) ourselves since we have adobe contribute software that we purchased for $100.00 when our previous site was created.
 
This is what I think, if there is a resource for a well done website designer for innkeepers for under $1000 then it is WRONG for someone to be on this forum and not spill their beans! SPILL EM.
How can you talk about it and not share who or where these people are? That is the whole point of this thread - so many saying they cannot afford $5-10k and other saying they can get it for under $1k. Spill em. Spill them beans.
 
This is what I think, if there is a resource for a well done website designer for innkeepers for under $1000 then it is WRONG for someone to be on this forum and not spill their beans! SPILL EM.
How can you talk about it and not share who or where these people are? That is the whole point of this thread - so many saying they cannot afford $5-10k and other saying they can get it for under $1k. Spill em. Spill them beans..
Try this for a starting place:
http://www.guru.com/emp/index.aspx
It'll give you thousands of different names, links to their sites, min. budgets, etc.
This one came up on the first page and stuck out to me. $400 min. budget, http://www.84colors.com/3.html
Just look around and see what's what. You'll do fine with a budget of $1000. Communicate your needs with whomever you choose and everything will be fine.
 
i won't try to put a dollar value on someone's time as a web developer and the product they produce. there is so much to it ... as you all know.
but especially just starting out, lots of folks don't have $1000 - $5000 to get a site up and running. so they do what they can with what they have. i would not tell them to do nothing! surely there is merit in a basic website. hopefully they will improve their site when they can..
but especially just starting out, lots of folks don't have $1000 - $5000 to get a site up and running. so they do what they can with what they have. i would not tell them to do nothing! surely there is merit in a basic website. hopefully they will improve their site when they can.
I agree with you. In my Aspiring Seminars I do recommend to get a professional to do your web site instead of Cousin Ernie but the main reason is that Cousin Ernie has no investment in getting it done in addition to the amateur angle. I also hedge that with unless Cousin Ernie is a pro.
That said getting a web site up, having a web presence is vital. If there is a way to do it, even a template fill in the blanks it should be done to get known. My first 5 years I had only my logo - no pictures because I had none. One caller asked about it and I told him no pictures were to me, better than bad pictures. I started in 1996 but today photos are a must.
In my not very humble opinion although a great web site is optimum - ANY web site is better than NO web site.
 
i hope this is not a slam against my 'son' doing my website ...
if i'd had $5000 or even $1000 to pay someone to put together a site at the time, i wouldn't have asked him to take on the task.
our own websites are maybe as much a part of us as our b&b's, and we can get pretty defensive about them.
but i'm shocked at the price of some professional websites with broken links and repeated admonitions to 'check back later for updates' that never come. that's why i want to remind the original poster to view the web developer's portfolio and visit the websites. hopefully he can also speak with some clients to see how responsive the developer is when there are issues and questions and problems and changes. and how much will any changes cost?
there are lots of websites out there - everyone here probably visits 100's each week. some are pretty mom and pop/basic - some are little more than a web page. i have nothing against those little sites if they are up to date. i just prefer the more sophisticated sites..
No slam from me, seashanty.
Catlady, it's not unrealistic and as I've said, I have the experience to back it up.
If people here have been paying over $1000, and even $1000 being on the very high end, they're being snookered.
.
Snookered? Please show me a B&B site you did with 10 or more pages and great photos that you got paid for and charged less than $1000. Then show me the stats for the past 30 days.
There have been people coming through this forum that built their site for free using only blogger. There are others who got an inexpensive one using Vistaprint. There are others that used some autosetup autodeveloped service out of India. Technically they all got sites for under $500. Does that mean that someone who paid $800 got snookered? Or did the under $500 crowd get snookered because they have an invisible site, or one that people pass on because somehting just doesn't look quite right.
.
I'm not going to lay my credentials on the line for you swirt because honestly there's no reason. I'm not here for business or to attract any.
I realize you do work for inns and have a business to keep afloat by charging what you do, and more power to you for that.
I receive on average over 25K hits per day, 1700 unique visitors per day and just over 1000 first time visitors per day. My server serves just under a million pages per month. I know a thing or two about sites, design and different approaches to take to appeal to the masses ;)
.
Mr.Design said:
I receive on average over 25K hits per day, 1700 unique visitors per day and just over 1000 first time visitors per day. My server serves just under a million pages per month. I know a thing or two about sites, design and different approaches to take to appeal to the masses ;)
This is not a B&B website you are referencing with these numbers is it? I am also willing to bet this is not a site you did for under $1000...since you reference it as "I receive" I take that to mean this is a your site that you've put a lot of your time into. Would it be safe to say you've put more than 40hours into this uber-successful site of yours?
 
SeeBen21 said:
The website has to be built from scratch on as well as SEO optimize, professional pictures and integrated Blog.
What do you think I have to invest for a professional website?
I would look at the websites that you like and check at the bottom for the designer.
I believe you can save money if you have all the copy for the pages done for the designer.
I would also stay away from too much fancy stuff - no music, no stuff moving around.
I also believe the simpler the better. There are many fancy websites I see that are so complicated I can't find anything and can't tell where the B&B is located or a phone number.
Starting out you can keep your cost down by keeping it simple and adding later.
And, as the others say, own your website domaine, and make it so that you can go in and update any of the copy you want.
Riki
 
i hope this is not a slam against my 'son' doing my website ...
if i'd had $5000 or even $1000 to pay someone to put together a site at the time, i wouldn't have asked him to take on the task.
our own websites are maybe as much a part of us as our b&b's, and we can get pretty defensive about them.
but i'm shocked at the price of some professional websites with broken links and repeated admonitions to 'check back later for updates' that never come. that's why i want to remind the original poster to view the web developer's portfolio and visit the websites. hopefully he can also speak with some clients to see how responsive the developer is when there are issues and questions and problems and changes. and how much will any changes cost?
there are lots of websites out there - everyone here probably visits 100's each week. some are pretty mom and pop/basic - some are little more than a web page. i have nothing against those little sites if they are up to date. i just prefer the more sophisticated sites..
No slam from me, seashanty.
Catlady, it's not unrealistic and as I've said, I have the experience to back it up.
If people here have been paying over $1000, and even $1000 being on the very high end, they're being snookered.
.
Snookered? Please show me a B&B site you did with 10 or more pages and great photos that you got paid for and charged less than $1000. Then show me the stats for the past 30 days.
There have been people coming through this forum that built their site for free using only blogger. There are others who got an inexpensive one using Vistaprint. There are others that used some autosetup autodeveloped service out of India. Technically they all got sites for under $500. Does that mean that someone who paid $800 got snookered? Or did the under $500 crowd get snookered because they have an invisible site, or one that people pass on because somehting just doesn't look quite right.
.
I'm not going to lay my credentials on the line for you swirt because honestly there's no reason. I'm not here for business or to attract any.
I realize you do work for inns and have a business to keep afloat by charging what you do, and more power to you for that.
I receive on average over 25K hits per day, 1700 unique visitors per day and just over 1000 first time visitors per day. My server serves just under a million pages per month. I know a thing or two about sites, design and different approaches to take to appeal to the masses ;)
.
Mr.Design said:
I receive on average over 25K hits per day, 1700 unique visitors per day and just over 1000 first time visitors per day. My server serves just under a million pages per month. I know a thing or two about sites, design and different approaches to take to appeal to the masses ;)
This is not a B&B website you are referencing with these numbers is it? I am also willing to bet this is not a site you did for under $1000...since you reference it as "I receive" I take that to mean this is a your site that you've put a lot of your time into. Would it be safe to say you've put more than 40hours into this uber-successful site of yours?
.
You're correct, it is not a B&B site. It is a personal site of mine... over 40 hours? Yes, I've had it for 5 years now; however, creation time and holding time are vastly different.
 
This is what I think, if there is a resource for a well done website designer for innkeepers for under $1000 then it is WRONG for someone to be on this forum and not spill their beans! SPILL EM.
How can you talk about it and not share who or where these people are? That is the whole point of this thread - so many saying they cannot afford $5-10k and other saying they can get it for under $1k. Spill em. Spill them beans..
that would come under resources ... wouldn't it?
i hope no one is going to ask that any of our members who are web designers/develpers give examples of websites in the forum here .... surely you need permission of the person for whom you created the website because that would be advertising off their backs ... and in a forum where the site would be critiqued or criticized ... i'd likely not give such permission.
 
This is what I think, if there is a resource for a well done website designer for innkeepers for under $1000 then it is WRONG for someone to be on this forum and not spill their beans! SPILL EM.
How can you talk about it and not share who or where these people are? That is the whole point of this thread - so many saying they cannot afford $5-10k and other saying they can get it for under $1k. Spill em. Spill them beans..
Try this for a starting place:
http://www.guru.com/emp/index.aspx
It'll give you thousands of different names, links to their sites, min. budgets, etc.
This one came up on the first page and stuck out to me. $400 min. budget, http://www.84colors.com/3.html
Just look around and see what's what. You'll do fine with a budget of $1000. Communicate your needs with whomever you choose and everything will be fine.
.
Guru has a nice feature where you can see the results and the ballpark for the final costs
guru search for B & B sites
People can judge for themselves whether they can spot the differences between the sub-$1000 and the $1000 plus sites. And then compare them to a multi-thousand site by pros that speciailize in our industry.
...this one came up on the first page and stuck out to me. $400 min. budget, ...
Just because they have a minimum budget doesn't mean that is anything close to the actual budget. A $400 minimum budget just means, don't bother me with a small rinky-dink request.
(Added:got interupted here) The designer you identify as liking the looks of has an hourly rate of $50 per hour (same as mine). So in order for that person to turn out a site for under $1000 they would have do it in 20 hours. There is no way, no matter how talented they are that they will develop a competitive B&B site in 2 and a half days worth of work. And looking at her work (its quite attractive, I am pretty sure she would agree.) Even if she took 5 days it would still be a $2000 site....my bet is she would need more time than that to do the level of quality shown in her portfolio.
 
This is what I think, if there is a resource for a well done website designer for innkeepers for under $1000 then it is WRONG for someone to be on this forum and not spill their beans! SPILL EM.
How can you talk about it and not share who or where these people are? That is the whole point of this thread - so many saying they cannot afford $5-10k and other saying they can get it for under $1k. Spill em. Spill them beans..
that would come under resources ... wouldn't it?
i hope no one is going to ask that any of our members who are web designers/develpers give examples of websites in the forum here .... surely you need permission of the person for whom you created the website because that would be advertising off their backs ... and in a forum where the site would be critiqued or criticized ... i'd likely not give such permission.
.
seashanty said:
that would come under resources ... wouldn't it?
i hope no one is going to ask that any of our members who are web designers/develpers give examples of websites in the forum here .... surely you need permission of the person for whom you created the website because that would be advertising off their backs ... and in a forum where the site would be critiqued or criticized ... i'd likely not give such permission.
I certainly hope they do! This is a chance to give some examples and get some extra business, we are asking about it, they did not find us simply to promote themselves.
If it is in their portfolio like Acorn offers, then they obv have given permission. No one is going to critique or criticize websites, the discussion is about high cost. http://www.acorn-is.com/
 
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