Paying good money to a good web designer for all she can do for you is one thing, but paying a lot of money for non-custom design and simple installation is another. The latter, don't do it.
Do Not Waste Time and Money on Static Websites
It is AMAZING that there are businesses and people who pay other people tens of thousands of dollars for setting up website. I guess if you make $5000 an HOUR, you can afford to pay someone to do it for you for that amount. When setting up a new website takes an hour, you should pay accordingly...
Of course putting a website in an hour, or less, means "standard" text pages and using existing design (like WordPress Themes for example), so all extra functionality and new web design take time, but you can start adding content from day 1 (or minute 1 actually) and whenever you want you can change whatever you want without breaking other parts.
Setting up a website and designing a website is not the same thing. Using ready-made templates (which is fine) should not cost the same as fully customized and tailored website.
Even So-Called Professionals or IT Specialists Get It Wrong!
It is equally amazing to me how unaware non-techsavvy public is about building websites. If they need a web page for themselves or their business, they run into "HTML" and "FrontPage" and such, and they don't look further. They think that's how it's done. They are stuck in the 1990s.
But not only that, but there are IT Professionals out there that are using or would use FrontPage to build a web page if they would need to.
Just test this, ask the techsavvy persons you usually turn to when you have a tech related question: "I need to create homepage or web page, how can I do it?" - If anyone says something about HTML or FrontPage, you know that they don't know what they should know (about this).
If you ask a professional web page designer or service the same question and they suggest static web page, run away. If they mention WordPress, or "content management", you know they're on top of their game.
Yes, a static HTML design can look good and yes, FrontPage can create beautiful web pages (backed with competent graphical design), but what happens when you need to change something? You will waste HOURS for a job that would take seconds or couple of minutes in WordPress.
I truly hope you're not thinking anything like "I don't change anything after I set it up once", because then your thinking, business model and everything related needs to be worked on, but I won't go into that in this article, I just say that if your website has anything to do with making money, you gotta (SPLIT-)TEST, TWEAK and CHANGE things before you can "forget it".
If You've Paid Thousands of Dollars for Getting Your Website Up, You Got SCAMMED!
Yes, there are websites which have a huge backend systems, databased, security and lot of servers - that costs money, of course. But I've heard stories where someone has paid several thousands for a simple website for a business with more and less just text and images, no custom design or anything, just the setup and ready-made (free) template.
And so many just don't know that you can do a whole lot with just WordPress plugins that many businesses are building from ground up. Waste of time and money I say..
I've heard that people have paid over $5000 or even TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars for a web page that they (or someone else) would've set up with WordPress in an hour. And they don't even know they were scammed. That makes me sad.
Do Not Pay Too Much For Your Website
If you know someone who needs to create their first website, again for themselves or for their business, tell them that you don't have to pay thousands of dollars for a website.
Tell them to get great hosting for a great price (personally, I like and recommend DreamHost, thus the link) instead of getting ripped by these "we host the site that we build" deals that end up costing a fortune..
Tell them about the free tools like WordPress and educate them what setting up a website really costs.
Pay for the consultation. Pay for the web strategy. Pay for the design. Don't pay too much for simple setup. But that doesn't mean you should be setting up your website yourself, just that you know what you're paying for and don't overpay for something relatively simple.
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