Need a website, should I do it myself or outsource?

[_Master_Shake]

Hi guys, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Read TMF a few months ago.

I need a website built, not for me, but for my dads painting and remodeling company. Yes, this is one of those untapped "goldmines" as my dad is old school and doesn't really do much online advertising. Unfortunately, most of his clientele is older and starting to sell their homes and move into condos/retirement homes. There's no question that he needs a heavy online presence to bring in new, younger clients. Most of my dads work for the past 20 years has been through word of mouth and referrals.

So now the question is, do I try to learn code or use some of those cheesy templates from websites like wix.com to build it? I don't have many hours each day to work on something like this and it would probably take me way longer that I'd like. I have no problem paying someone to put something nice, clean, and simple together and maybe help with some SEO (I feel old as hell not having any experience in this, being only 28 lmao). Hopefully maybe some guys like Fox chime in. Maybe someone here is interested, or should I post on a site like Upwork or Freelancer?

 

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[DillanE]

Hi guys, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Read TMF a few months ago.

I need a website built, not for me, but for my dads painting and remodeling company. Yes, this is one of those untapped "goldmines" as my dad is old school and doesn't really do much online advertising. Unfortunately, most of his clientele is older and starting to sell their homes and move into condos/retirement homes. There's no question that he needs a heavy online presence to bring in new, younger clients. Most of my dads work for the past 20 years has been through word of mouth and referrals.

So now the question is, do I try to learn code or use some of those cheesy templates from websites like wix.com to build it? I don't have many hours each day to work on something like this and it would probably take me way longer that I'd like. I have no problem paying someone to put something nice, clean, and simple together and maybe help with some SEO (I feel old as hell not having any experience in this, being only 28 lmao). Hopefully maybe some guys like Fox chime in. Maybe someone here is interested, or should I post on a site like Upwork or Freelancer?

I have some experience if you would like me to look at it for you. Message if interested.

Dillan

 

[Charnell]

You may knock those "cheesy templates", but for something like a local business (especially one that's not online), that could be all they need. I wouldn't use Wix though, especially if you're looking at SEO as an option after it's created.

I'm sure if you put a listing on Upwork or Freelancer, you would end up with one of those cheesy templates anyway.

Assuming you have nothing,
Domain name - $20
Hosting - $10/month
Wordpress them - $60
Those numbers are highballed like crazy.

What exactly do you need the website to do? Information page, a contact page, pricing page...?

Honestly, if you just need something simple I can hop on Skype this weekend and walk you through the steps to setting it up, assuming you're not doing any sort of payment processing online and only using it to attract leads.

 

[Roli]

Hi guys, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Read TMF a few months ago.

I need a website built, not for me, but for my dads painting and remodeling company. Yes, this is one of those untapped "goldmines" as my dad is old school and doesn't really do much online advertising. Unfortunately, most of his clientele is older and starting to sell their homes and move into condos/retirement homes. There's no question that he needs a heavy online presence to bring in new, younger clients. Most of my dads work for the past 20 years has been through word of mouth and referrals.

So now the question is, do I try to learn code or use some of those cheesy templates from websites like wix.com to build it? I don't have many hours each day to work on something like this and it would probably take me way longer that I'd like. I have no problem paying someone to put something nice, clean, and simple together and maybe help with some SEO (I feel old as hell not having any experience in this, being only 28 lmao). Hopefully maybe some guys like Fox chime in. Maybe someone here is interested, or should I post on a site like Upwork or Freelancer?

You don't explain why you need one built. I understand it's your dad's website, however I'm trying to work out your role in this; are you trying to learn marketing, or web design?

Or are you just trying to help your dad out?

Whatever the answer, I think you should only do the website yourself if you want to move into that area and you need the practise. Otherwise pay a pro to do it, just have a clear idea of what you want, homepage, about us... etc.

 

[Andy Black]

Hi guys, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Read TMF a few months ago.

I need a website built, not for me, but for my dads painting and remodeling company. Yes, this is one of those untapped "goldmines" as my dad is old school and doesn't really do much online advertising. Unfortunately, most of his clientele is older and starting to sell their homes and move into condos/retirement homes. There's no question that he needs a heavy online presence to bring in new, younger clients. Most of my dads work for the past 20 years has been through word of mouth and referrals.

So now the question is, do I try to learn code or use some of those cheesy templates from websites like wix.com to build it? I don't have many hours each day to work on something like this and it would probably take me way longer that I'd like. I have no problem paying someone to put something nice, clean, and simple together and maybe help with some SEO (I feel old as hell not having any experience in this, being only 28 lmao). Hopefully maybe some guys like Fox chime in. Maybe someone here is interested, or should I post on a site like Upwork or Freelancer?

Check out the link in my signature about "Lead Gen for Local Service Businesses".

If you want to build a website then bear in mind you don't need a full blown website to start with, just a simple page saying what you do, what locations you cover, and how to contact you.

Add additional info to the page after it's live, such as testimonials, portfolios, details of your services etc.

As soon as your offer is up you'll need eyeballs.

No eyeballs, no enquiries. No enquiries, no sales.

Bear in mind you can put your offer up in many other places where there are already eyeballs (Craigslist, Facebook, fliers, posters, etc).

Make sure your goal is to make sales and not to build a website.

Good luck.

 

[_Master_Shake]

Thanks for the replies guys. For now I'm just trying to help my dad out. It would be a simple site, no taking payments or scheduling appointments. Just contact info, description, and pictures of the work he does (probably some before/after). I hate when sites use stock photos, its so easy to tell that they were just copied from a quick google image search. Customers who look for skilled trades are pretty weary of companies with no online presence and will quickly skip to the next company. Not really trying to learn code right now for this purpose (I would like to eventually, even started checking out codeacademy, I need stay mentally stimulated constantly or I relapse into bad habits). Just want something put together faster than I can learn it and apply it.

 

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[_Master_Shake]

Check out the link in my signature about "Lead Gen for Local Service Businesses".

If you want to build a website then bear in mind you don't need a full blown website to start with, just a simple page saying what you do, what locations you cover, and how to contact you.

Add additional info to the page after it's live, such as testimonials, portfolios, details of your services etc.

As soon as your offer is up you'll need eyeballs.

No eyeballs, no enquiries. No enquiries, no sales.

Bear in mind you can put your offer up in many other places where there are already eyeballs (Craigslist, Facebook, fliers, posters, etc).

Make sure your goal is to make sales and not to build a website.

Good luck.

Wow, good stuff you got here in your links, I'll start reading up on all of it.

 

[Utopia]

Do a wordpress.

Costs $72 to get you going on bluehost. It is the best short-term and long-term option if you will eventually need something more in depth.

To start you can easily learn all of this with help of YouTube to create a very simple website in a weekend. Then if you have to make it more advanced or need help then or in the future, you can hire someone on upwork for $5 or will do a great job on whatever you need.

 

[Roli]

Thanks for the replies guys. For now I'm just trying to help my dad out. It would be a simple site, no taking payments or scheduling appointments. Just contact info, description, and pictures of the work he does (probably some before/after). I hate when sites use stock photos, its so easy to tell that they were just copied from a quick google image search. Customers who look for skilled trades are pretty weary of companies with no online presence and will quickly skip to the next company. Not really trying to learn code right now for this purpose (I would like to eventually, even started checking out codeacademy, I need stay mentally stimulated constantly or I relapse into bad habits). Just want something put together faster than I can learn it and apply it.

What do you want to do long term? If you don't mind me asking.

 

[adiakritos]

You need a web developer and a marketer on your team. Or hire an agency. Whichever way you do it, you need that working knowledge.

The cheaper semi-faster route would be to hire a developer and do the marketing yourself.

Why?

Because the web development stuff takes a shit ton of time to get right....

If you spend 10 weeks fumbling around with marketing, you're bound to get *some* results in terms of ROI.

If you spend 10 weeks doing web design/development you get *ZERO* ROI. Do the thing you can screw up and still get $$$$ results with if you choose not to hire someone.

Once the site is built all that's left for you to do is keep doing the thing that brings the $ in. Then you can hire a marketer or agency at some point when you've grown so you can focus on expanding in other ways. That's my 2 cents.

 

[TKDTyler]

There is nothing wrong with templates. There are so many professional looking ones out there, you just have to dig a little.

Templates are a great start because it saves you a shit load of time and they work right out of the box. Even @Fox uses templates as a basis for many of his clients and he is charging thousands to ten of thousand shopping per website.

Unless you believe you can easily make a return equivalent to the cost of a web developer (which will be thousands for a good custom website), templates are the way to go.

It's about finding what works for your needs. No need to buy a Lambo before you can handle it to its fullest. That's how you crash.

 

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[greenr]

Hi guys, I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. Read TMF a few months ago.

I need a website built, not for me, but for my dads painting and remodeling company. Yes, this is one of those untapped "goldmines" as my dad is old school and doesn't really do much online advertising. Unfortunately, most of his clientele is older and starting to sell their homes and move into condos/retirement homes. There's no question that he needs a heavy online presence to bring in new, younger clients. Most of my dads work for the past 20 years has been through word of mouth and referrals.

So now the question is, do I try to learn code or use some of those cheesy templates from websites like wix.com to build it? I don't have many hours each day to work on something like this and it would probably take me way longer that I'd like. I have no problem paying someone to put something nice, clean, and simple together and maybe help with some SEO (I feel old as hell not having any experience in this, being only 28 lmao). Hopefully maybe some guys like Fox chime in. Maybe someone here is interested, or should I post on a site like Upwork or Freelancer?

Hi @_Master_Shake... you made a comment about an untapped "goldmine". Just curious... Are you referring to the painting/remodeling business as the "goldmine" or providing a service to these types of businesses to get them online as the "goldmine"? Just curious as I've been considering doing local lead gen for this market and just haven't been able to pull the trigger yet.

Thanks.

 

[Waspy]

Hi @_Master_Shake... you made a comment about an untapped "goldmine". Just curious... Are you referring to the painting/remodeling business as the "goldmine" or providing a service to these types of businesses to get them online as the "goldmine"? Just curious as I've been considering doing local lead gen for this market and just haven't been able to pull the trigger yet.

Thanks.

Almost certain he was making reference to the fact most decorators/remodellers are still completely off-line. So getting his dad online puts him ahead of the game.

However, just pull the damn trigger!

 

[_Master_Shake]

Almost certain he was making reference to the fact most decorators/remodellers are still completely off-line. So getting his dad online puts him ahead of the game.

However, just pull the damn trigger!

Yes, this is exactly it. Most of these mom and pop companies have minimal or no web presence at all. I looked at some other local companies nearby and they either have no web site or if they do it looks like something put together in the 90's (which is probably the case). I'm currently working with someone in regards to the site and using my holiday break from work to focus on writing some good copy. I'm also working on learning as much as I can about SEO and Google ads (thanks @Andy Black ). Maybe I'll even dip into creating a web presence on sites like Instagram or Pinterest to showcase some work.

@greenr As far as lead generation goes, we tried a service years ago that would send us leads for like $10 each, none of the leads converted to any work. We quickly cancelled it but not before racking up hundreds of dollars. This was maybe 10 or more years ago, before Yelp, Angieslist, all that crap. The leads were just not very serious clients. Not saying it can't work, maybe you can do it better? Most people nowadays seem to just look at google maps or yelp when they hire trades. I do the same. I rather hire someone close and local, its usually cheaper because they don't have to commute far to the jobsite.

 

[_Master_Shake]

I'll keep everyone updated here as this progresses, I'm pretty excited about it. Who knows, maybe one day I'll have a Gold thread of my own

 

[SprdshtGoddess]

Do a wordpress.

Costs $72 to get you going on bluehost. It is the best short-term and long-term option if you will eventually need something more in depth.

To start you can easily learn all of this with help of YouTube to create a very simple website in a weekend. Then if you have to make it more advanced or need help then or in the future, you can hire someone on upwork for $5 or will do a great job on whatever you need.

I'd strongly recommend against using Bluehost. If you join any business Facebook groups about entrepreneurship or Wordpress and search "Bluehost", it will undoubtedly be made clear why. It is one of the many EIG companies and a huge number of users have encountered unacceptable problems with both speed and support. It's fine until it's not, and then it's a massive problem. And it's predictable. Bluehost offers very high affiliate commissions and is promoted heavily as a result...

I've used Arvixe in the past - another EIG company - and wouldn't recommend it, either. Siteground has notoriously good support and speed tests during peak hours show that it loads sites significantly faster than other hosts.


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[SprdshtGoddess]

I use Wordpress for my sites and absolutely love it! But I often design my clients' sites using Squarespace because it's so much easier for people to use. The SS learning curve is virtually nonexistent. Back before I was designing websites, I used Wix, Weebly, Blogger, and Wordpress (dot) com, but I would recommend staying clear of all of them. SS will be super easy to set up (zero coding required) and is very affordable. Wordpress has learning curve. You can technically do it super cheaply as others have mentioned, but you will likely want to buy extras like a premium theme.

The cool thing about Wordpress is that you can create anything that you can conceptualize, but you will at some point probably have to dabble with at least a bit of code to achieve it. The cool thing about SS is that you can have an attractive (albeit cookie cutter) site up in a few hours. Given what you wrote in your post, it doesn't seem that you will require any of the advanced functionality that Wordpress offers and that SS would be a more reasonable time and resource investment.

I'm new to this forum, so I'm not sure how everything works, but definitely feel free to message me if you have any questions.


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[_Master_Shake]

Ok guys, I think it's a good time for an update:

Website
This is in progress, have the pictures that I need for now, finishing up writing some copy.

Social media >>>way too many loose ends
I started with Googling the business name and really didn't know what to expect, I was just hoping not to find any bad reviews that we didn't know about. Well, we didn't! But that's also the bad part, I barely found ANYTHING. Google maps had our business verified (I think I must've done this years ago). It was also showing our business in 2 other unverified locations. I took control of those unverified listings and permanently deleted them. Then I got to work populating all the missing information in our listing, all the usual stuff like business hours, category, loaded some recent pictures of our work, etc... (I told my dad he has a smart phone now, he needs to use it to take as many before/after pictures as possible, people like seeing that). I'm also trying out an AdWords campaign. Just started with $100 monthly max to see where things go and which phrases attract clicks.

Yelp!
We were on there, unverified. I verified the listing and populated info and pictures. It's going to be a hell of an uphill battle to make up for 10 years of having no reviews. Other companies have been on there for years and are more established in this sense. Yelp also doesn't want you to directly ask your customers to leave a review, they want it to happen organically.

Angieslist
I did the same as above. I need to call customer service though, I uploaded 3 pictures and now the "Edit Pics" link disappeared 😕 I can't add, edit, or delete any pics now. Two of the pictures uploaded sideways, not sure if this is my iPhones fault or not, they loaded fine on the other sites. Collecting customer reviews should be easier than Yelp, Angieslist lets you order business cards from them for $20 that has your company name on there with "Leave us a review" or something like that on there.

HomeAdvisor
Currently working on this.

Craigslist
I put together a nice image ad with some simple copy. Some craigslist ads are complete shit, bad grammar, misspelled words, one sentence, no pics. Do these people expect anyone to call them. The one difficult thing about craigslist is people spam it like crazy and your ad quickly moves to the bottom.

I noticed our Google Maps listing disappears and re-appears at different times of the day 😕 For example, if I search for "painters <my hometown>" sometimes it will be the 5th or 6th listing on Maps, and sometimes it won't show up at all. If I search our company name, everything shows up just fine. I read that googles algorithm might need some time to process all the changes? Would you know anything about this @Andy Black ?

Well that's it for now! I feel like I'm building a brand from the ground up here

 

[MidwestLandlord]

Yelp!
We were on there, unverified. I verified the listing and populated info and pictures. It's going to be a hell of an uphill battle to make up for 10 years of having no reviews. Other companies have been on there for years and are more established in this sense. Yelp also doesn't want you to directly ask your customers to leave a review, they want it to happen organically.

Surely you can communicate to your customers that you are on Yelp, without actually asking for a review? I see this all the time.

A mom & pop restaurant I eat at has "Find us on:" on the bottom of their menu and lists FB, yelp, twitter, and others. It's on their website too.

 

[_Master_Shake]

Surely you can communicate to your customers that you are on Yelp, without actually asking for a review? I see this all the time.

A mom & pop restaurant I eat at has "Find us on:" on the bottom of their menu and lists FB, yelp, twitter, and others. It's on their website too.

I think I'm going to order new business cards, double sided, and on the back have "Find us on" Yelp and Google. This is OK according to their policy, as long as you're not blatantly saying "HEY! LEAVE US A REVIEW!"

 

[SprdshtGoddess]

Ok guys, I think it's a good time for an update:

Website
This is in progress, have the pictures that I need for now, finishing up writing some copy.

Social media >>>way too many loose ends
I started with Googling the business name and really didn't know what to expect, I was just hoping not to find any bad reviews that we didn't know about. Well, we didn't! But that's also the bad part, I barely found ANYTHING. Google maps had our business verified (I think I must've done this years ago). It was also showing our business in 2 other unverified locations. I took control of those unverified listings and permanently deleted them. Then I got to work populating all the missing information in our listing, all the usual stuff like business hours, category, loaded some recent pictures of our work, etc... (I told my dad he has a smart phone now, he needs to use it to take as many before/after pictures as possible, people like seeing that). I'm also trying out an AdWords campaign. Just started with $100 monthly max to see where things go and which phrases attract clicks.

Yelp!
We were on there, unverified. I verified the listing and populated info and pictures. It's going to be a hell of an uphill battle to make up for 10 years of having no reviews. Other companies have been on there for years and are more established in this sense. Yelp also doesn't want you to directly ask your customers to leave a review, they want it to happen organically.

Angieslist
I did the same as above. I need to call customer service though, I uploaded 3 pictures and now the "Edit Pics" link disappeared 😕 I can't add, edit, or delete any pics now. Two of the pictures uploaded sideways, not sure if this is my iPhones fault or not, they loaded fine on the other sites. Collecting customer reviews should be easier than Yelp, Angieslist lets you order business cards from them for $20 that has your company name on there with "Leave us a review" or something like that on there.

HomeAdvisor
Currently working on this.

Craigslist
I put together a nice image ad with some simple copy. Some craigslist ads are complete shit, bad grammar, misspelled words, one sentence, no pics. Do these people expect anyone to call them. The one difficult thing about craigslist is people spam it like crazy and your ad quickly moves to the bottom.

I noticed our Google Maps listing disappears and re-appears at different times of the day 😕 For example, if I search for "painters <my hometown>" sometimes it will be the 5th or 6th listing on Maps, and sometimes it won't show up at all. If I search our company name, everything shows up just fine. I read that googles algorithm might need some time to process all the changes? Would you know anything about this @Andy Black ?

Well that's it for now! I feel like I'm building a brand from the ground up here

Just a suggestion that you may want to consider using Facebook ads. You can target them extremely effectively if you know what you are doing (and if you don't, there are some great free resources available from experts in this area), and the investment is minimal.


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[_Master_Shake]

Just a suggestion that you may want to consider using Facebook ads. You can target them extremely effectively if you know what you are doing (and if you don't, there are some great free resources available from experts in this area), and the investment is minimal.


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Yes! I plan on using some Facebook ads once the website is finished. This will direct traffic to the site and look more professional in my opinion rather than linking to a google listing.

 

[AdamMaxum]

Hey Master Shake..late to the thread but couple points..

For a new website, if you have no budget, I'd honestly use Weebly. Easy to figure out how to create a website, still allows for the SEO stuff you'll need and it sets you up with a nice design without worrying about Wordpress stuff. There is a recurring yearly cost of like $50 bucks, but if you can make some money in a year, just upgrade to a nice wordpress site with a custom design in the future. A custom wordpress site, depending on who does it, will cost you anywhere from a few hundred to 1k+ via freelancers.

Google maps - if you have no website and have done no SEO, your google maps will bounce around. I'm surprised it's showing at all but painter + city is a relatively lower competition keyword depending on what city you're in so not that surprising. Google will show personalized results depending on your exact IP, mobile/desktop, etc the listings will show up in different spots. The results also fluctuate pretty frequently. If you search your company name and you show up, your maps listing is fine.

I'd recommend focusing first and foremost on getting at least 5 reviews on your google maps listing. Once you have 5 reviews, you get stars next to your biz name in Google.

 

[_Master_Shake]

Hey Master Shake..late to the thread but couple points..

For a new website, if you have no budget, I'd honestly use Weebly. Easy to figure out how to create a website, still allows for the SEO stuff you'll need and it sets you up with a nice design without worrying about Wordpress stuff. There is a recurring yearly cost of like $50 bucks, but if you can make some money in a year, just upgrade to a nice wordpress site with a custom design in the future. A custom wordpress site, depending on who does it, will cost you anywhere from a few hundred to 1k+ via freelancers.

Google maps - if you have no website and have done no SEO, your google maps will bounce around. I'm surprised it's showing at all but painter + city is a relatively lower competition keyword depending on what city you're in so not that surprising. Google will show personalized results depending on your exact IP, mobile/desktop, etc the listings will show up in different spots. The results also fluctuate pretty frequently. If you search your company name and you show up, your maps listing is fine.

I'd recommend focusing first and foremost on getting at least 5 reviews on your google maps listing. Once you have 5 reviews, you get stars next to your biz name in Google.

I have someone working on the site now, not sure exactly what they're using.

Yes, we show up on maps, but not until you zoom in a little bit first. I think you're right, once we get some reviews we'll be displayed more prominently. That's what I told my dad to focus on for now. Remind his customers to leave a Google review.

Also, does anyone know how to permanently delete a google location? For some reason we're showing up in 2 different places in our town. I have the 2nd listing claimed, but can't make it disappear. I deleted it from my account but it still shows up on maps. Maybe I need to verify the 2nd location and delete the whole account?