LeadMarket.com | Getting a $20,000 website for $5,000

Often small business owners call an established marketing agency only to get sticker shock when they here about the price of a website (often $15,000 or more). On the lower end are vendors that can be found on Craigslist or similar sites who can build a website for you for anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 – depending on the functionality you need. They will basically claim to know everything technical (PHP, Coldfusion, My SQL, Oracle, etc.) as well as everything marketing (Search Engine rankings, affiliate networks, etc.) in order to get your business. Some of them have referencable customers and decent looking websites – but because they do not have a track record of handling larger clients, they charge smaller fees. Also, none of their clients are swimming in online revenues because of their websites either, something to think about should you not want to take chances that you’ll be their first ‘winner.’

For small businesses that just can’t afford to spend the kind of cash that an Agency requires, have an SEM (Search Engine Marketing) professional work with an Agency or established design firm to cut down costs and build the website you need to achieve your business objectives. Or, try to approach the Agency from the perspective that, “Hey, I’m going to be such a head-ache free client that you won’t lose money on me – even if you’re only making $5,000. And I’ll offer great client testimonials.”

For example, if you’re a local service oriented company offering WIDGETS, think primarily “What’s my end objective?” and then:

Understand that Agencies have to pay a staff of talented engineers and graphic designers, so be realistic of their and your time management. If they give you 3 different versions of a logo, choose one and give it one more revision. But that’s it! I’ve seen small business owners take 20 hours of an Agency’s time trying to figure out the logo. Again, think ‘what’s my objective?’ If it’s to make money by getting more customers – just look at Twitter.com. They didn’t spend much time on their logo – it didn’t prevent them from being the next FaceBook and being worth potentially $1B+. Google happens to change their logo almost daily. Is your objective to make money with your website or to be emotionally satisfied with your logo on day1?

Your SEO Engineer is someone that can take the bulk of the creative and design layout for you. He or she should have designed profitable websites before as well as know your industry vertical, so he/she can optimally design architecture, layout, CTA’s, etc. Agencies charge for this, so having your SEO person work with them will cut down costs significantly.

Of course we all want to be selling WIDGETS as well as GIDGETS and FIDGETS as well. But let’s not put the cart ahead of the horse as they say.. We’re working with a limited budget and limited resources – again think ‘what’s my objective?’ Focus on building a website that will reach objective 1 - if all that’s needed to do that is a basic 12 page website (one homepage, two landing page, two forms pages, a secure shopping page, and 6 supporting pages) then build it out and start the process of SEO and Internet lead generation ASAP. Why try to be Master of the Universe starting right out of the gate?

Be real. Agencies typically turn away small business customers because the reality of the matter is that they LOSE money on a $5,000 website. And they have experienced a common theme that all Agencies share – that a $5,000 website customer will expect as much or more than a $20,000 website customer. So why not show the Agency that you’re willing to be the easiest client that they’ve ever had by making the process easy for them? Websites are not static (not the successful ones anyway) so trust their experience over yours and let them build your online property for you. Don’t hassle or micro-manage them with endless change requests. At the end of the day, your bill will go up and it won’t make you a dime more in online sales.

You want what? Some small business owners want a database and a complex algorithm that will crawl such databases to create a social network that blah blah blah. Here’s a reality check – have you heard of Ruby on Rails? No? OK, someone that goes to a vendor promising them all of this for under $200,000 is about to get ripped off. That could be you and your hard earned money.

Wrap it Up. Come up with a basic website that will get you to your first stage of growth in Internet based revenues. You can take those positive cash-flows and re-invest them into building your website out as time progresses. The most important thing is that you got an experienced Agency to build your business, they’ll be around for the long haul, and you got it at a steal because you didn’t commit the same mistakes on the client side that both aggravate Agencies and force them to greatly increase their costs.

Getting the Most Out of a $5,000 Website I Want a $20,000 Website for $5,000. Yesterday.

Getting the Most Out of a $5,000 Website
I Want a $20,000 Website for $5,000. Yesterday.