# how much for a website



## Midsummer (1 Aug 2008)

hi - could anyone tell me how much this should cost (not too complicated answers please !):

1. Basic website with menu and several pages of information

with

2. Message boards (forums)

with

3. Online store

I believe no.1 costs about €400, is it possible to add on 2 & 3 separately ?  (Have seen no. 2 free on web and no. 3 off the shelf for about 2k as well as free - not sure how they could all fit together).

Furthermore would something like this be easy to upgrade and add other features (i.e. ads) ?

I'm finding it hard to get a quote for this whole package.

Thanks
M


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## contemporary (1 Aug 2008)

might be better trying


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## jhegarty (1 Aug 2008)

If you can do it yourself you can setup 2 & 3 for free... but getting someone to implement an off the shelf open source board (phpbb) and shop (oscommerce) shouldn't cost a whole lot (maybe €500 to install,configure correctly and put on your logo ..etc)


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## Midsummer (1 Aug 2008)

thanks for the useful advice !


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## Brendan Burgess (25 Aug 2008)

If you are creative at thinking of slogans, you can get a free website through this competition on boards.ie


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## Omniserve (26 Aug 2008)

*Re: how much for a website - Getting it into Google*



Brendan said:


> If you are creative at thinking of slogans, you can get a free website through this competition on boards.ie


 
Something else that might be of interest to readers here, a lot of people in the Irish internet community were interested in how we could get mention of their business to appear in Google only 10 minutes after their site was set live so we put up an information page here on it:

 Just click on the "How It Works" button under the Google image on the right hand side.

Regards Eoin Costello


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## Omniserve (28 Aug 2008)

*Re: how much for a website - Competition closing*

We will be closing the competition at 12 noon tomorrow and announcing the winner later that day.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055363298 

Good luck everyone! 

Eoin


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## Mercenary (28 Aug 2008)

If you dont care ho will make you the web,you can look abroad for the company. And you may well save somehting like 300 € or more.


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## rmelly (28 Aug 2008)

Mercenary said:


> If you dont care ho will make you the web,you can look abroad for the company. And you may well save somehting like 300 € or more.


 
Are you talking about rentacoder or the like, or getting an off the shelf product from abroad?


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## samm (28 Aug 2008)

www.scriptlance.com


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## Mercenary (28 Aug 2008)

No, i mean hire agency which will do what you want. In Ireland thei wanted 2400 for website i wanted i was able to get it for 1300 which is 1100 less. But i didnt choose that as i got almost as good website for 300. 




P.S.
there are many agencys that provide premade templates which you can edit or companys can do one for you , and you change the content etc, all you need to do is buy host. It will take 1-2hrs for profesional looking web. With proper domain name. Only there wont be IE in the end only com,net etc..
So probably that wont be good.


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## Flax (29 Aug 2008)

samm said:


> www.scriptlance.com


 
I second this.

If you write out a very specific specification for what you want, someone on scriptlance.com will do it for you cheaply, e.g. < $100.

Just make sure you pick someone who has a bit of positive feedback.


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## LeoD (2 Sep 2008)

Flax said:


> If you write out a very specific specification for what you want, someone on scriptlance.com will do it for you cheaply, e.g. < $100.



Spending less than the price of an office chair on possibly your company's most important marketing asset would seem a bit misguided to me.


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## rmelly (2 Sep 2008)

LeoD said:


> Spending less than the price of an office chair on possibly your company's most important marketing asset would seem a bit misguided to me.


 


> Just make sure you pick someone who has a bit of positive feedback.


 
Yes, and it took me a few minutes to find a rating less than 10 stars. Hardly a good sign.


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## aircobra19 (2 Sep 2008)

Like any project you'd test the waters with a demo or proof of concept period to start with. That would also test how well the line of communication work etc. Then break the project down into different stages/releases and after each stage/release review how its gone etc. The person doing it would likely want to do the same and want part payment after each stage as well. 

Approached this the ratings are not that important. Though as in any line of work it can be helpful to get recommendations from other people you know. Least you know theres a minimum standard.

Looking at the minimal spec MidSummer is thinking of, I'd would say you might to walk before you can crawl. Start with a website that you can update, look at who will maintain it for you, update content, edit it, and what the budget, and how you will measure return of investment from that project. From there move on to the online shop and forum, which are likely to need specific resources to manage these continuously.


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## pflangan (15 Oct 2008)

How about the old addage, you get what you pay for.

Getting a website for under EUR2,000 is a waste of time for most web design companies in Ireland.

People always say that they want a 'simple' site and it shouldn't cost the moon, but consider this;

1. An initial meeting with the client, getting a feel for what they want, where they want to develop their site. What, if anything will they use as a measure of the success of the site. Giving general advice and best practices for implementing the site. Things like, asking the crucial questions about their target market. How are they going to get a return on their investment. Have they considered how people are going to find the site. Have they a marketing budget...... .... (1/2 day).

2. The site providers will then (if they're any good) spend at least another 1/2 day drawing up 3 or more draft designs to present back to the client. (1/2 day)

3. The second meeting. The client review. At this stage, the provider should try to lock the client down on a particular design. If they were any good at the start, they should have gathered enough assets and ideas together to have a good final guess of what the client would like. (again 1/2 day)

4. Having chosen the final design, with the obvious tweaking necessary, the supplier should then be in a 'cut up' phase of the process, where the design is cut and diced for the web, with optimizations etc. Any text and media such as images should be inserted at this stage. Again 1/2 day at least.

5. Staging release. This should be the final review with the client to ensure that they have met expectations, and have fulfilled their brief. Normally, the client doesn't take ownership at this stage. The supplier must now get hosting, email services, domain registration,  and deploy the site to the new domain. Again 1/2 day.

6. Contingency. Anything from chasing up the client for media to work with, to chasing the client for payment. 1/2 day.

Above would be the minimum time I would expect a competent design agency to charge for the most basic of sites. That's 3 full days of work. Considering the fact that minimum wage in Ireland is €8.65 an hour, that 24 x €8.65 = €207. + VAT. + travel costs + domain hosting + domain registration. I'd put the base cost for a 1 man agency, without their own equipment, without the overheads of an office, heat, telephones, advertising, marketing etc. at €300. 

Obviously the person would also need to be paid minimum wage.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are people who will do a site for less than €1k, but don't expect frills, support, and definetly don't expect them to be there next year when you need to change a few things.

To be a viable business providing quality web design services, I'd expect a minimum charge of €2,000 for a website, of the most basic functionality and quality.

Maybe that's just me.

If this budget is too much for people, do it yourself. I don't mean that in a dismissive way, it's just that a design agency will not be interested.

Paul.


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## Flax (15 Oct 2008)

^- Paul, do you own or work for an Irish web development company by any chance?



LeoD said:


> Spending less than the price of an office chair on possibly your company's most important marketing asset would seem a bit misguided to me.


 
I think you've misunderstood what scriptlance.com is.

Instead of using extremely expensive Irish designers, scriptlance.com allows you to hire extremely inexpensive designers from countries like India, Belarus, Indonesia, etc.

The quality is just as good as any Irish designer - the difference is their wages are probably 10 times lower than Irish wages.

As someone who has used scriptlance.com for about 6 years, I assure you it is worth it.

And I say this as an Irish web developer myself! I'm just being honest about the reality of the situation - it doesn't make financial sense to use an Irish company. I'm sorry, but that's the truth.


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## rekhib (15 Oct 2008)

Interesting post Paul and I think you've captured very well some of the elements that need to be undertaken in order to have an effective, functional website. 

I'd also like to point out that when clients ask me to bolt a forum on to their site (e.g. phpBB), they invariably ask, can we change this to that, can we add this here &c and these are often technical changes to the database (as opposed to purely aesthetic changes) which take time. 

Integrating forum and shopping cart software into a static brochure website (+ design + customisation) and ending up with a coherent result is time consuming and I simply can't understand who these people are who would do it for less than E1k. They devalue the web development industry but the other side of the coin is that if you pay E1k and get your fingers burnt, you'll likely spend a bit more money on a more reputable professional the next time.

To the OP, if you are on a budget, I'd recommend buying a template from somewhere like templatemonster.com, then go on to one of the aforementioned sites and get a developer to throw some HTML and PHP around the assets, add your bolt-ons and perform any customisation. I.e. hire a developer not a designer. If you're looking for a well-designed, well-built, functional, search engine optimised website with people available to make changes and support your business, hire a web development company.


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## dockingtrade (15 Oct 2008)

is it possible that some irish companies do all meetings/specs etc then outsource the coding to scriptlance type contractors. Im looking to get a site done  and researched odesk, scriptlance etc but id prefer to go irish feel id have more controll when it comes to changes/progress etc. But id like to be sure the work is done "down the road"...


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## rekhib (15 Oct 2008)

I can only speak on how my web development company operates. Basically we have a sales and marketing guy who meets clients and specs the project, then we have about 10 freelance designers, programmers and database engineers who we have worked with over the years. There are only 3 permanent employees of the company, 1 sales, 1 designer and 1 developer; this is so the spec can be approved. The designer and developer then commission bits and pieces of the project out to the freelance guys and gals. 8 of the freelancers are in Ireland, 1 in the UK and 1 in France. The important thing is that because we are a company, as opposed to a virtually anonymous individual, we set the standards, i.e. design standards, coding standards, documentation standards &c so that if something needs to be changed down the road, our sole designer and sole developer can quickly resolve any problems. Btw, apologies if the above sounds like a sales pitch, just trying to give an overview of how I would guess a lot of web development companies in Ireland operate.


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## aircobra19 (15 Oct 2008)

How much is web design is how long is a piece of string tbh. Find a website you like, or more importantly your target users/customers like then find out how much that costs. How they make it is their problem.

In my experience smaller websites are not financially viable for Irish developers, companies, it just wouldn't pay you for your time. Especially as many do this for free, to build up experience or as a portfolio, or as a loss leader for future business, which clients take advantage off. Its rarely worth doing work like that. It leads to just more of the same. Most of the web design places I used to know mainly worked for UK Clients or larger Irish companies, who are willing to pay more to get better quality, design, and professionalism. 

You'd need to interview the client to see if they certain things in place before you start the work, so theres no messing around. Do they have a budget. Do they have content. Do they have people resources in place to look after the content, and the website. Do they have a definitive time scale, and payment schedule. What are the objectives, and how till they know they have been achieved. If they don't they are not serious about it.


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## pflangan (20 Oct 2008)

No Flax, I don't. I just want to highlight the unseen costs to setting up a website, one that is set up properly, by professionals.

I did state at the end of my post, that if you cannot afford this, do it yourself; via scriptlance, elance, guru tons of other script monkey sites.


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## letin (22 Oct 2008)

Did you manage to get the site built? 

Have a contact who builds websites, including forums, shopping carts etc for a reasonable price. 

He works completely on email basis so automatically cuts down costs for meetings etc. Think his prices range from €1000 to €1500.

Although he compiles a live demo product for you to review before any money changes hands, which isn't bad.. No unexpected surprises.

Let me know if you need his contact details and I'll pass on..

Cheers


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## mainasia (23 Oct 2008)

As someone who has experience both running a web development company and running my own website I can tell you you need to think more about this.


1. Websites these days have a lot of functionality built in. These functions need to adapt and change according to your needs. Buying a script means that it's not easy to change according to your customer requirements. You will need to pay someone to change the script. Doing it yourself is a waste of time usually and not possible for regular folk. The kind of website that you can alter yourself for 300 euro is just like wallpaper, it doesnt really have any functionality and will be useless very quickly if you are truly planning to run an online business. There are many big companies competing in this business and I have observed that successful websites cost more and more money to setup and run (running costs are very high, advertising especially), they are pushing out the smaller guys, you need to step up to the plate to compete.

2. Your website needs to compete against other websites in its space. If it looks old, messy or not functional enough it influences your business.

3. You need to evolve your website over time to grow and compete. It is better to find a company or reliable developer to do that. Many programmers cannot reliably take over the work of other programmers, they will often end up breaking the scripts and often have to start from scratch. More money, headaches and time wasted.

You'd be looking at spending 2000 euro MINIMUM for a decent website with a content management system (updatable by yourself), nice integrated design, database, customer registration, online shop etc. For this you can ask for at least 1 year free maintenance contract and ongoing business relations. Actually it should be more than that. I have charged up to 4000 euro in a lower cost country for the work that you are asking to do in high cost Ireland. Off shoring the work has issues with communication and design. Most Indian website's designs are shocking. The same for Chinese and East Europeans. The quality of their work can also be low as they further outsource it down the line and you don't know who is doing the work ultimately.

Finally as other people in the biz have said above, everybody thinks they need a 'bog standard' website, I don't want to spend too much. The fact is if you want to run it as a business this is not true and actually websites are fluid things, pretty much everybody is learning as they go along on their first website, by the time you are half-way through the project you will figure often figure out major flaws in your original idea and want to change the function or design.  The design and thinking work is very important, it's the hardest part. 

The best way might be to do a quick cheap job first to test the idea but later you will have to put the money in, I don't believe there is any cheap way to do it properly, honestly.


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## aircobra19 (23 Oct 2008)

A website IMO is more like a service, that your business provides, with on going costs to keep running. Its not a fire and forget product that you buy once. Well a decent website isn't.


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## letin (23 Oct 2008)

All valid points above, but as I've done the whole "I want a cheap yet functional website", money is a huge concern when wanting to buy your first website. Not only are you unsure if the website idea will work as planned and draw in some sought of revenue, but you don't want to be spending a whole pile of money in something that could be a potential disaster and another costly mistake.

I would highly recommend using one of the many Irish based developers out there who can edit an existing template to your standards. Yes, its using a template, but everything can be reworked on it, and done to your specifications.

In my personal experience, I went this way, was a cheap alternative to a complete custom designed website, but it did the job, and I was able to determine if the website itself was worth investing large sums of revenue.

The website updates can be done easily yourself, just make sure you have a developer who is willing to give you a quick document on "what to do", and ofcourse offer email support with a quick turn around for the first year or so until you get yourself comfortable. 

But you also have the option to ask them to maintain the site for a small fee...

Again, can pass on the guys details who done mine. Reasonable prices and makes sure your happy with every aspect of the design before rolling out.

Cheers


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## GregnGra (31 Oct 2008)

On this point, I've been quoted €4250+vat for a 5-6 page e-commerce brochure site. Bearing in mind this company would also be doing my company identity and printing (at extra cost), does anyone know whether this is a reasonable price or not. It just seems a bit steep to me.


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## dockingtrade (31 Oct 2008)

GregnGra said:


> On this point, I've been quoted €4250+vat for a 5-6 page e-commerce brochure site. Bearing in mind this company would also be doing my company identity and printing (at extra cost), does anyone know whether this is a reasonable price or not. It just seems a bit steep to me.


 
That sounds very expensive. There are free off the shelf e-commerce modules with joomla, xoops , oscommerce. They may be using one of those modules themselves.
If you just starting out get someone to customize one of these modules for you and then if the business is growing and you need specific functionality then put the money in. 
I dont know about "identity and printing " but shop around for that.


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## aircobra19 (31 Oct 2008)

doesn't seem wildly more than what mainasia said previously. 



mainasia said:


> As someone who has experience both running a web development company and running my own website I can tell you you need to think more about this.....
> 
> You'd be looking at spending 2000 euro MINIMUM for a decent website with a content management system (updatable by yourself), nice integrated design, database, customer registration, online shop etc. For this you can ask for at least 1 year free maintenance contract and ongoing business relations. Actually it should be more than that. I have charged up to 4000 euro in a lower cost country for the work that you are asking to do in high cost Ireland. .....


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## euroDilbert (31 Oct 2008)

Some very interesting pointers on getting someone to design/maintain a website :


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## anjest (2 Nov 2008)

I have a website which cost € 199.00 to get done according to the details I sent to the guy. For domain registration (.ie) and a years hosting another €90.00.
Its 4 pages and includes minor alterations for the year, he sent me an proof before submitting it and billed after I was satisfied. Took him a week, to have set up and able to find searching on search panel not browser. Site waa up on google wihin 3 weeks.
If an ie domain is not important to you get a copy of computer active and look at the ads there. You can get everything although templated for about £5.00 sterling per month.
Put what you want to  have as a publisher or word doc and then ask the guys if they can change that to a web site thats what I did. 
Spending thousands wouldn't dream until I had dipped my foot in the water. First thing to ask is why do you need a website? To advertise or give customers information. 
If advertise its going to cost you extra to get up on the search engine sites eg googlead.
If customer information - what information do they need? Bearing in mind that you have in all likelihood had contact with them already and told them a  bit about yourself and your company/product/service.


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## letin (3 Nov 2008)

GregnGra said:


> On this point, I've been quoted €4250+vat for a 5-6 page e-commerce brochure site. Bearing in mind this company would also be doing my company identity and printing (at extra cost), does anyone know whether this is a reasonable price or not. It just seems a bit steep to me.


 
Bit steep in my eyes, you say they are looking after your company identity and printing at an extra cost?! I think best to keep this, and your website creation seperate.

Drop my mate a mail, webmaster@findmeatrade.ie just give him a run down of what you need, and a few screen captures of similar sites you want your site to look like. Just ask for a fixed quote, he wont astray from this. 

Cheers


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## Flax (4 Nov 2008)

mainasia said:


> You'd be looking at spending 2000 euro MINIMUM for a decent website with a content management system (updatable by yourself), nice integrated design, database, customer registration, online shop etc.


 
Only if you use an Irish company though. As I have stated in previous posts, there are non-Irish companies who cost a tenth of that - simply because they have lower wages.


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## Bob the slob (5 Nov 2008)

Dont get too caught up on your logo design.  It wont do too much for you starting up.  Yes it will look nice and priofessional but you would be better pumping that cash into your business.  Thats advice I got from a very good business consultant.


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## letin (5 Nov 2008)

Flax said:


> Only if you use an Irish company though. As I have stated in previous posts, there are non-Irish companies who cost a tenth of that - simply because they have lower wages.


 
Thats true, but take into consideration its alot easier to make contact with an Irish company if your not happy with the end result. Alot easier for the overseas companies to ignore your mails.


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## Flax (5 Nov 2008)

letin said:


> Thats true, but take into consideration its alot easier to make contact with an Irish company if your not happy with the end result. Alot easier for the overseas companies to ignore your mails.


 
Yep, I agree completely, but if budget is an issue, and with careful planning, I think outsourcing makes sense.


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## Guest106 (5 Nov 2008)

And what's wrong with what _Anjest_ has written above ?
Or are we back with the ingrained strands of righteous selfpreservation such as are released elsewhere in these threads when one dares to highlight the crazy priced differentiation in dental services that exist North and South ?


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## aircobra19 (5 Nov 2008)

1John said:


> And what's wrong with what _Anjest_ has written above ?
> Or are we back with the ingrained strands of righteous selfpreservation such as are released elsewhere in these threads when one dares to highlight the crazy priced differentiation in dental services that exist North and South ?


 
Thats not a good analogy. You can get cheap and cheerful sites in the south if you want. Indeed many people will put together a free site, using templates and using free off the shelf software. 

However some people might find value in paying more for a bespoke websites with a professional service to support it. Some will be happy to outsource that, others might prefer to have local people do it for a variety of reasons. 

Some websites are little more than ad in the golden pages. Others however are critical to a business, and problems or downtime are very expensive and costly.


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## jigsaw (6 Nov 2008)

go to digital point forums (google it) and look at the buy/sell/trade section and post what your looking for.


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## mainasia (11 Nov 2008)

Flax said:


> Only if you use an Irish company though. As I have stated in previous posts, there are non-Irish companies who cost a tenth of that - simply because they have lower wages.


 
Eh no, I am based in Asia in a country with 1/3 wages of Ireland, that's the correct pricing I quoted, starting at 2000 Euro and easily going up to 4000-500 EURO for the php/asp database website with content management system and online shop and guaranteed maintenance for a year (very important to iron out bugs and do little adjustments later, the cheapo guys might refuse to help you or charge you a bunch of money everytime for this). I also looked into outsourcing with Chinese/Indian developers. I found out most of them take the cases and try to make the commission by passing to other cheapo programmers. I once had a case develop badly through a friend's recommended programmers and when I checked who was really doing the work it was a 4th year IT student! The other issue is that Indian website companies really suck at web design in Irish eyes (it may be that in India that web design is great, it's a cultural preference thing!). In the end I hired a combination of both western and Asian contractors to the clients could be satisfied with their cultural preferences.


It depends what you want the website to do, if it is simply a information display you can get it done cheap 1000-2000 euro. If it's a very important part of your business and needs functionality like an online shop or membership you will need to pay (you can try doing it yourself but it's a waste of time and you will mess it up as it's too complex except for professionals). Also if you want it to stand out design wise you will also have to pay more money. Same for everything in life. YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR (seems some people think that doesn't apply to websites for some strange reason). I gave up on doing websites because the income wasn't equal to the time and effort and most clients continually changed their specifications as they learned through the process of designing and launching the new website (imagine asking an architect to add on a second floor to a bungalow half way through building it but not be willing to pay more and you get the picture). You need to sit down and plan out page-by-page the flow of the entire website, the functional requirements and the design of every page. Otherwise later the designer will charge more if you haven't got it in the original spec. It also helps you to think through the website fully. Another way to do it as I mentioned above is to do a cheapo off the shelf one first (they ALWAYS have limitations and usually start to accumulate bugs if you try to do modifications) and later you will be more clear on what you want from you website and you can think about spening the money to do a custom one especially for your needs. 

 I am willing to work as a consultant on website design and specification requirements of course . I have operated an online jobsite for a couple of years.

It's not worth outsourcing complex websites to foreign countries, won't work. For simple text display websites for temporary use that is fine.


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