Discuss Websites in the Business Related area at ElectriciansForums.net

Welcome to ElectriciansForums.net - The American Electrical Advice Forum
Head straight to the main forums to chat by click here:   American Electrical Advice Forum

Reaction score
5
Hi everyone

im starting up on my own after 18 years and am getting a website built. I'm being quoted £700 by someone recommended to me. Plus £200 by someone else to build a logo and supply it with business cards, email letterheads.

Can anyone spare some advice from your own experience about

website building for electrical services
ROI
what you should spend on and what you shouldnt
how many enquires should one expect from it once optimised etc

and anything else you can think of...

cheers in advance
daniel
 
I would say that £700 sounds very steep - how many pages are you getting? email accounts?

and £200 for a logo/ business cards and letter heads sound too much too.

Why do you need letter heads? Can't you have your logo embeded in the word/excel document so that its printed each time?

Don't even think about optimisation - its a con.

Make sure the pages have lots of relevent words, place names, eletrical, electrician, etc etc

As for enquiries - I get about 2 new enquiries per month.

The other cost to enquire about is the annual charge for hosting? changes? additions? - this is relevent as it all adds up.

Also don't go too technical nor have too much information/pictures - more is less
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Think about what you want the website to achieve.

Is it just a place for prospective customers to visit, who somehow already know your company name, to find out more about you? In which case maybe it doesn't need to be too elaborate, just a few pages, more to reassure them you are reputable and know what you are doing. I'd say £700 is way too much in this case, maybe half that is reasonable.

Does it have to attract lots customers who search online for an electrician, who didn't know your name before they found you? In which case, how are you going to appear high up in search rankings - perhaps by handing over lots of money to those who say they can make you top in Google for this or that search - which I'd be very sceptical about. But there are companies who go about things this way, spending lots of ad money to come up top in a search, and have to charge fancy prices to pay for that.

As Murdoch said, do you really need a letterhead? I print all my estimates, invoices and certificates (from Excel or Word) and anything I need is in the file. Invest in a decent printer, I use an A4 colour laser that cost me around £200 new a couple of years ago, though toner cartridges do add up. All I get printed (in bulk) are A6 postcards and a supply of business cards. I designed these myself (my logo is the cutting end of a pair of VDE cutters).
 
I would say that £700 sounds very steep - how many pages are you getting? email accounts?
Totally agree £700 does seem very steap for a standard website.

and £200 for a logo/ business cards and letter heads sound too much too?
that is way too steap if i was you i would make my own

Why do you need letter heads? Can't you have your logo embeded in the word/excel document so that its printed each time?

Don't even think about optimisation - its a con.
Its only a con on small websites, if you want your website to be huge with absolutly loads of badwith and multiple severs then optermisation is well worth it

Make sure the pages have lots of relevent words, place names, eletrical, electrician, etc ett ?
Just do it your self just throw aload of meta tags in the code.
As for enquiries - I get about 2 new enquiries per month.

The other cost to enquire about is the annual charge for hosting? changes? additions? - this is relevent as it all adds up.
If hosting is not included then this is way too expensive it usually costs between £200-£300

Also don't go too technical nor have too much information/pictures - more is less

If i was you i would just do it my self, its not hard to learn html5/css3 (maby a bit of javascript/php if needed) i would definatly do it my self
 
My website is HTML/CSS based and optimised so that when you type in 'Electricians Brighton', 'Electricians Hove' or 'Emergency Electricians Brighton' my company comes out on top in the rankings, above all other local electricians (there's about 100 of them listed on Google that I beat). There are various other search terms that when typed in my company comes out top too.

You wanna know how much all this cost me???

£8 per year for the domain name and £55 per year for hosting.

A little bit of research will tell you how spending a grand on having a basic website built and a little optimisation done for it is tantamount to taking a thousand pounds out of the hole in the wall and throwing it down the nearest drain.

It's easy as pie to do yourself with a little time.

Now I knew nothing about website building and search engine optimisation before I started. It took me a couple of hours every evening for about two weeks to build up enough knowledge to get my company's website to where it is today. Not exactly a huge commitment is it? And considering that I know guys in other trades who have spent tens of thousands on their websites over the years and yet their websites get nowhere near the top of the Google rankings like mine does, it just goes to show you that a day in the life of a web designer/SEO consultant is pretty damn rosy! It's money for old rope!
 
have a look at squarespace.

you dont need to understand html/dreamweaver or flash to use it. cheap as well.

if you want to be clever copy someone elses to see how they do things you like so you can get a similar visual affects.

anyone can copy your site if they want to
 
Thanks for your input everyone. I'm gonna have a go at it on my own after speaking to a techy friend of mine and reading your comments on here too.

As as for the 1k Iv saved. Well sir, I'm gonna blast it on drugs and women!
 
Hi everyone

im starting up on my own after 18 years and am getting a website built. I'm being quoted £700 by someone recommended to me. Plus £200 by someone else to build a logo and supply it with business cards, email letterheads.

Can anyone spare some advice from your own experience about

website building for electrical services
ROI
what you should spend on and what you shouldnt
how many enquires should one expect from it once optimised etc

and anything else you can think of...

cheers in advance
daniel

PM me your mobile number and I'll tell you what you need to do and know over the phone.
 
Hi everyone

im starting up on my own after 18 years and am getting a website built. I'm being quoted £700 by someone recommended to me. Plus £200 by someone else to build a logo and supply it with business cards, email letterheads.

Can anyone spare some advice from your own experience about

website building for electrical services
ROI
what you should spend on and what you shouldnt
how many enquires should one expect from it once optimised etc

and anything else you can think of...

cheers in advance
daniel

Congratulations on taking the plunge and setting up on yourself. I think by all the support you are getting in this forum you are among friends. However I beg to differ on some of the "advice" offered. Firstly £700 is quite a considerable sum considering that websites have become easier to design and you can get one sorted in a matter of hours depending on knowledge and skill.

Someone has suggested a DIY approach and thats commendable if you have the time to learn and then do it. Maybe for your case its possible because you do not have a lot of work lined up yet but that will change when work starts coming in. The other I would say is you are an electrician, thats your specialty, should you be dabbling in web design and SEO?

Someone also mentioned their sceptism about SEO and I agree to a point, there are people who claim to rank your website in Google and then charge you thousands for it, do not fall for that. SEO is a specialized skill that can be learned just like any other skill out there. However there are more factors which contribute to getting ranked in the search engines. The amount of competition and the area you will be working in are an important factor. Google now makes it "easier" to rank local businesses.

In my opinion you are better off getting someone to do it for you. Send me a PM and I can help guide you through the process
 
In the area of SEO there are a lot of cowboys; and people who happily offer misinformation after a couple of hours research.

One of the most basic mistakes you could possible make, ie shooting yourself in the foot with both barrels is.

To put a link with an tag to your business website from a forum, UNLESS of course you always behave and present yourself how you’d like to be perceived by your potential customers.
 
In the area of SEO there are a lot of cowboys; and people who happily offer misinformation after a couple of hours research.

One of the most basic mistakes you could possible make, ie shooting yourself in the foot with both barrels is.

To put a link with an tag to your business website from a forum, UNLESS of course you always behave and present yourself how you’d like to be perceived by your potential customers.

Don't really see how that makes a difference to SEO?
 
Was just sharing some info with the forum on the pros and cons of having a link on a forum to their business website. Same goes for links from twitter & FB to your business website.

Every time you post you’re creating an external a link to your business website.

Eventually these links will appear in search results relating to your business website.

We have the entirely realistic situation whereby potential customers can read your forum posts, FB and twitter posts.

Goes without saying if your forum posts etc weren’t complimentary to the main aim of your business website you’d have a problem.
 

Reply to Websites in the Business Related area at ElectriciansForums.net

OFFICIAL SPONSORS

Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Electrician Courses Green Electrical Goods PCB Way Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Pushfit Wire Connectors Electric Underfloor Heating Electrician Courses
These Official Forum Sponsors May Provide Discounts to Regular Forum Members - If you would like to sponsor us then CLICK HERE and post a thread with who you are, and we'll send you some stats etc
This website was designed, optimised and is hosted by Untold Media. Operating under the name Untold Media since 2001.
Back
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock