Responsive web site for small business

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kotuku4

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#179290 3-Sep-2015 09:59

Hi Looking into revised website for small business based in Blenheim.

Current site is brochure style (information only, who we are, what we provide, how to find us, vacancy's etc), has logos, text and photos, about 5 pages.

Wanting a new responsive site, old page designer is no longer operating. We have a third party managing domain and hosting.

I phoned a local designer to get an idea of costs, ball park $4400. I thought that that was realistic for a good professional site, but those that pay the bills were a bit shocked. Although experience shows, the first cheap website done years ago was rubbish, latter redesigned at greater cost.

Any comment or suggestions?

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#1378811 3-Sep-2015 10:06

Came across his the other day

http://www.coffeecup.com/responsive-layout-maker-pro/

No idea if its any good.

kotuku4

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#1378835 3-Sep-2015 10:27

tchart: Came across his the other day

http://www.coffeecup.com/responsive-layout-maker-pro/

No idea if its any good.

Yes I saw that site too, I like coffee cup, have used a free version and filezilla to do a website for a sports club.

I would like buy the software and have a play, I think it would work. However, it is different when it is a professional business website.
And how would I charge for it, what if I could not provide the goods. Better to pay for experienced web designer in my view.

wasabi2k

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#1378844 3-Sep-2015 10:29

Something like SquareSpace/Weebly not appropriate?

freitasm

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#1378845 3-Sep-2015 10:30

Design - and most importantly user experience - can make or break a website. Software is just a small part of it.

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chiefie

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#1378861 3-Sep-2015 10:34

Have you seen/check Microsoft Sway?

It's niche-nifty https://sway.com/

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kotuku4

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#1379059 3-Sep-2015 13:39

Thanks I will play with Sway.

Also Coffeecup Responsive designer has a 21 day free trail.

mattwnz

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#1379069 3-Sep-2015 13:47

$4k sounds a lot for justa brochure website. But it depends on what the requirements are, and often when someone says a small brochure website they then say, it also needs some database linking up to the site, or membership areas etc. WHoever you use, make sure you own 100% of the site, and it can be hosted with anyone, so is transferable between hosts.

Quic Broadband

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timmmay

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#1379144 3-Sep-2015 14:49

Wordpress with an appropriate them. I do that kind of website for around $1500 depending on requirements as a side job - but that doesn't include design work, it just includes installation of theme you choose, loading of content you supply.

Ragnor

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#1379783 4-Sep-2015 14:29

This blog post by Lance Wiggs is still relevant imo
http://lancewiggs.com/2012/05/10/buyers-and-sellers-guide-to-web-design-and-development-firms/

mattwnz

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#1379814 4-Sep-2015 15:05

The problem with wordpress is that hackers love to trying hacking it so you need to keep on top of security. Also themes and plugins can break after wordpress updates, and themes can become outdated. So not sure if it is the best solution if all that is needed is a simple brochure website as the costs to keep it all upto date, in terms of a developers hourly rate may not add up compared to a simple website builder. Although horses for courses.

I should add that I was just contacted by someone wanting me to take over their website, as the web development company has been taken over by another and they don't like the new company. However their website is a proprietary system with the backend owned by the web development company, so it isn't something I can take over.They would need to rebuilt it. You don't usually have this problem if you use something like wordpress or something else open source. Concrete5 is supposed to be a simple WYSIWYG CMS wher you edit the pages on the actual site pages, unlike wordpress.

muppet

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#1379818 4-Sep-2015 15:11

mattwnz: The problem with wordpress is that hackers love to trying hacking it so you need to keep on top of security. Also themes and plugins can break after wordpress updates, and themes can become outdated. So not sure if it is the best solution if all that is needed is a simple brochure website as the costs to keep it all upto date, in terms of a developers hourly rate may not add up compared to a simple website builder. Although horses for courses.

If you stick modsecurity in front a wordpress install, it will stop 99% of the bog standard automated attacks. Not to mention most of the automated spam robots etc.

A determined hacker might still find their way past, but you'll make your site immune to nearly all automated attacks.

Audiophiles are such twits! They buy such pointless stuff: Gold plated cables, $2000 power cords. Idiots.

OOOHHHH HYPERFIBRE!

mattwnz

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#1379819 4-Sep-2015 15:15

muppet:
mattwnz: The problem with wordpress is that hackers love to trying hacking it so you need to keep on top of security. Also themes and plugins can break after wordpress updates, and themes can become outdated. So not sure if it is the best solution if all that is needed is a simple brochure website as the costs to keep it all upto date, in terms of a developers hourly rate may not add up compared to a simple website builder. Although horses for courses.

If you stick modsecurity in front a wordpress install, it will stop 99% of the bog standard automated attacks. Not to mention most of the automated spam robots etc.

A determined hacker might still find their way past, but you'll make your site immune to nearly all automated attacks.

Although they can still attempt to hack it and use up a lot of bandwidth in the process. The way to help with that is to setup a plugin to block the IPs after a number of unsuccessful logins. But out the box wordpress needs a lot of plugins to really make it usable, when it shoud really have all that out of the box.

muppet

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#1379822 4-Sep-2015 15:20

mattwnz: Although they can still attempt to hack it and use up a lot of bandwidth in the process. The way to help with that is to setup a plugin to block the IPs after a number of unsuccessful logins. But out the box wordpress needs a lot of plugins to really make it usable, when it shoud really have all that out of the box.

True, but don't deal with that a PHP layer!

Use fail2ban and it keep an eye on the apache error log. Your bot/hacker makes too many attempts that trigger modsecurity and an iptables rule goes in.

It's just been pointed out to me offline that of course most people use a hosted PHP solution, so modsecurity isn't an option there. That popping noise? That's me pulling my head back in.

Audiophiles are such twits! They buy such pointless stuff: Gold plated cables, $2000 power cords. Idiots.

OOOHHHH HYPERFIBRE!

timmmay

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#1379824 4-Sep-2015 15:25

You can use plugins for Wordpress that automate backups (to a remote site) and keep Wordpress and plugins up to date. I don't do auto updated without automated offsite backups. mod_security is a great tool, but you need a VPS typically. Some host might run it.

kotuku4

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#2243135 22-May-2019 14:26

Ok looking at simple web site again, this time at my cost for a non profit community group.

Bit of text and info, few photos, link to givealittle page, and perhaps a couple of other website links.

Have registered a domain through Discount domains and note they do basic hosting from $99 dollars per year. Has anyone used them for hosting? other options?

Looking at trail version of coffeecup responsive site designer, have used html only previously.

I would like to use free software or buy and have full ownership and control, don't want to pay ongoing fees.

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