Web Design... How much to pay?

Need a little help here....
Family owns a restaurant, and wants to increase our exposure on the web. We have the social network pages FB and twit. We also have our own. .co.za domain. I setup a website (pretty baisic) using wix.. It has worked OK for the past year. but obviously not how we want. No apple/iphone intergration and very poor mobile experience. Customisation is also not that great.

Now to the question. We've got a couple of quotes on a complete revamp to match our current theme, and they seem to range from R2000 to R25000... Which we're not really prepared to fork out (cash flow is wobbly )
What is hence a reasonable investment? And what could we expect in terms of content creation etc..?

All logos, artwork and graphics are done by an in-house graphics designer.. But he doesnot know much about website creation.

What we need is:
a 5-6 page website that is easy to manage for amendments etc.
Our full menu with mobile intergration.
Some way to manage our promos and specials..
A weekly newsletter
Possibly an e-commerce system linked directly to our point of sale.
SEO... And maybe live feeds..

I know its quite a bit we asking for but ideally we want this done in stages... Initially to get the website out, so it looks good is appealing and sexy.. Then we can proceed with the other "add ons"

Also is there anyway i can do this myself. I have a bit of experience in html, and very baisic flash. But not much anywhere else.

Any guidance will be appreciated...

Have a look at something like Squarespace. If you have someone who is doing your graphic design and you know basic HTML you may be half way there without too much effort or cost.

That is a lot you're asking for. To start off though with a good looking website, perhaps have a look at HTML templates like www.templatemonster.com and choose a restuarant template there. Saw one for $70 which is about R600. With your html knowledge you can then customize text.

Will be checking them out...
What would you guys suggest, i continue with HTML or go for flash? Somehow flash looks slicker... But then again i'll have anbissue with iOS devices...

zakdoc89 said:

Will be checking them out...
What would you guys suggest, i continue with HTML or go for flash? Somehow flash looks slicker... But then again i'll have anbissue with iOS devices...

Click to expand...

Stick with HTML. If the goal is to get exposure, then well-structured HTML will go a long way to getting your site indexed in search engines. Personally, I don't find "flashy" (mother of puns) websites to be better. It's all about the content. Clear content, easy navigation and subtle design trumps "slick" animations anyday, in my opinion.

icyrus said:

Have a look at something like Squarespace. If you have someone who is doing your graphic design and you know basic HTML you may be half way there without too much effort or cost.

Click to expand...

I agree. Their new pricing structure makes it pretty affordable. Sign up for the free two week trial and see what you can accomplish. If you can get in on the new squarespace 6 beta even better still.

I would advise to stay away from flash as well

Sent a pm

whats your domain? i can develop a new theme for you, for free.

PM me

Thanks for the advise... Looks like my weekends been cut out for me..

In the interest of everyone
This is what the website looks like www.pizzanews.co.za
For some reason it takes forever to load..
I got a feeling its the flash... And dont even bother visiting it if youre on a mobile phone... Or tablet..

zakdoc89 said:

In the interest of everyone
This is what the website looks like www.pizzanews.co.za
For some reason it takes forever to load..
I got a feeling its the flash... And dont even bother visiting it if youre on a mobile phone... Or tablet..

Click to expand...

Not a local server that's why pinging the site response time average 280-320 on opening the site I noticed it doesn't want to load though at all

Do you deliver?

byron_spy said:

Not a local server that's why pinging the site response time average 280-320 on opening the site I noticed it doesn't want to load though at all

Click to expand...

Site seems to be down/not loading, for whatever reason.

+1 on staying away from Flash. If you really want the Flash-look, have a look at HTML5. It can do quite a few nice things.

byron_spy said:

Not a local server that's why pinging the site response time average 280-320 on opening the site I noticed it doesn't want to load though at all

Click to expand...

Messugga said:

Site seems to be down/not loading, for whatever reason.

+1 on staying away from Flash. If you really want the Flash-look, have a look at HTML5. It can do quite a few nice things.

Click to expand...

Its the stupid wix servers... Very erratic...

Pho3nix said:

Do you deliver?

Click to expand...

We do.. But mainly for orders over R500.. Low prices low margins so delivery is not very profitable...

wordpress + hostgator will solve all your problems.

Raevinn said:

wordpress + hostgator will solve all your problems.

Click to expand...

I tend to agree with this, especially if you want to manage certain things yourself.

If speed, overall, is your main issue - maybe look at getting a local host?

WordPress has newsletter management plugins as well, but rather look at something like MailChimp.

Either way, sent you a PM

Hi,

I looked to your website and sorry to say is quite shocking. First. Fire that 'In-House Graphic Designer'. Glad he doesn't know about website creation... otherwise...

OK. your website is hosted by webafrica and you are already running google apps for email services. good stuff. There is no difference if your website is hosted locally or somewhere else, as long is a decent hosting. I run my websites internationally and I never had speed issues. (BTW: WACS cable to europe been live for a couple of weeks already...)

Now, Flash is Killing you. Also that 6MB PDF menu for 4 Pages. Try downloading that on an ipad on "Edge" signal. Your menu should be Plain HTML in one of your pages with your pictures and if you want to put a PDF, it shouldn't be more than 500KB for 4 pages (whoever designed your menu should be able to convert it to PDF directly from the software used... without pixelating).

Your Map is terrible as well. Better just embed a proper "google maps" (where you can zoom and move the map. Or just simply recreate and make your own map (don't ask your graphic designer for that... i'm sure he is going to make a mess).

Do not use any "Coming Soon". I hate them. Unless is really a coming soon. Is frustrating to go to a website and find the same coming soon 6 months later.

Your "Gallery" is made from "Stock Pictures". Take pictures of your "real products" if you can. And keep them small for quick loading for your website (probably they are over 0.5MB each picture at this moment and that makes your website like highway during rush hour).

If you stick to HTML, your website will be visible almost in any device without much effort, including iphone/ipads and android. To use fancy animations (like old flash days...), make use of jquery. Also Fancybox may work for some stuff in your website.

Important: your telephone number must be in HTML so mobile phones can read it and visitors just select it and the phone will ask "do you want to dial the number?"

I always say: "small business doesn't mean small website".

Wow....
Thank you sincerely for the advice.. I guess you have to be cruel to be kind.
I am busy trying to put one together at the moment using squarespace but I still think I need it done professionally, However the budget constraints are really holding that back..
With regards to the graphics designer he hasn't designed anything on the site... this was done by yours truly a year ago, and most of it is actually outdated hence the idea for a revamp/ redesign. The graphics designer actually works for a close family member, and helps us out as part of his job there... his work is actually quite good, and some of it is on the Facebook page.
Thanks again for the constructive criticism...

Unfortunately, most Developers either quote too little, or quote too much, the developers who quote too little are the ones that end up hurting the industry. The developers who over quote, they also hurt the industry, because they over quote and therefore the client uses the under quoted developer, who in actual fact doesn't make much or any profit.

Many companies call themselves Web Developers, but in actual fact, there work aint all that great, It's like buying a car, you can buy the cheap car and expect the minimum from it, or you can fork out a little more cash and expect it to fly to the moon and back, so it's all about what you want, and really getting what you want at the actual price that needs to be quoted.

This can get very tricky, that's why it's important to build a relationship with the developer, otherwise they'll over quote.

Looking at your quotes R2000 is REALLY too little, it also depends on the design, you get 2 types of designers, print and web, some print designers think they can design a web site, but end up designing something that looks like a poster and will give the web developer a headache, in order to design for web, one must know what is possible, what browser support do you want, etc...