Website Design Is Dead

[Crabcake Johnny]

I didn't spend $20,000 to rank for long term care insurance. I spent hardly anything. I only spent big money on my website design, plus I screwed up by going over budget.
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I don't think I overpaid. Go to page 1 of Google. Put yourself in a consumer's shoes. Click on my site, and the 5-6 others. Please tell me if you like any site better. I will take honest feedback.

Who cares if a site costs $13,000. I made $14,000 from the site since Monday. Today is Wednesday.(Either that, or I made it from my knowledge and experience.) But at least the site brought the clients to me.

If the site is boring or cluttered maybe I don't get anything.
I know I couldn't have picked out fonts, colors, photos.
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Josh, I don't know how complex the site is. It was built on Ruby on Rails and it has a Content Management System that is awesome to use. And I can update everything very easily. From a consumer viewpoint, I guess it is clean and professional looking---which probably translates into leads----way more than I can handle so if anyone is an LTCi expert call me!! I've been coming home at midnight every night.

Josh, I would appreciate your feedback on the site most of all.
Crabcake Johnny needs to work on his site before he can really criticize anything. Thanks. www.LTCPartner.com.

I've been over your site. It's nice, professional and clean....just like 10,000 others sites I've seen that cost less than $1,000.

It is, however, about conversion. My site converts great...for $39. Your site converts great...for $18,500. See the difference?

If you like the site Josh's site: http://affordablemarketinglists.com/ that's likely a better example since it converts really well and was free? I believe that's just the basic WP 2010 theme. Maybe now you're starting to get the point a little more.

 

[ltcadviser]

I've been over your site. It's nice, professional and clean....just like 10,000 others sites I've seen that cost less than $1,000.

It is, however, about conversion. My site converts great...for $39. Your site converts great...for $18,500. See the difference?

If you like the site Josh's site: Affordable Marketing Lists | Marketing Lists | Cold Calling Lists | Direct Mail Lists | Insurance Lists that's likely a better example since it converts really well and was free? I believe that's just the basic WP 2010 theme. Maybe now you're starting to get the point a little more.

If a site can do 1 million dollars in commissions per year, then I am not so sure I would want to be penny wise and pound foolish. Maybe you can understand my point. Why wouldn't I hire a professional?

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I think there's a pretty big difference between a professional who charged you $18,500 and a professional who would have charged you, say, $5,000 for the exact same site. That's my only point.

 

[GreenSky]

"Isn't it great? I spent $20,000 for a site and earned $1,000,000!"

"You got ripped off. You could have spent $5,000 and made $1,000,000."

Somehow I don't really see the difference. Get my point?

Rick

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

"I needed something to eat and this restaurant charged me $400 for a filet mignon, and it was great!"

"Ummmm, ok, but you can get a great filet anywhere for $30."

"I don't get your point. I was hungry, the steak was great. That is cost $400 is irrelevant. Plus, mine had blue cheese on it. Show me that you can get one with blue cheese for less than $400."

 

[Sam]

This is just my opinion...if you want to have a really well done website, with very strong execution on the design, copywriting, onsite SEO, backend etc... and YOU DO NOT WANT TO LIFT A FINGER then $10,000-$20,000 sounds about right to me.

Time really is money and for someone who isn't technically inclined, nor graphically inclined, having to act as a project manager and make decisions about things comes at a real cost. If that same person is a high performing salesman then the opportunity cost is even bigger.

Sure, you could probably find someone to do the site cheaper, but even that process has a cost. Spending time looking for people to request proposals from, and then putting together a proposal takes time and even then can be quite difficult because you don't even know what you need unless you have a decent technical knowledge.

John's original point, while said in a rather sensationalist way, does stand...web design can be done for cheaper and it is far easier to get a decent looking site that it used to be, and also far cheaper, if you are willing to be the project manager, make decisions about design, take care of the copyrighting on your own etc...

However, if you want a high end design with excellent execution across design, flow, copy, onsite seo etc... and don't have the time or inclination to do it yourself, then $15,000 doesn't sound high at all.
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"I needed something to eat and this restaurant charged me $400 for a filet mignon, and it was great!"

"Ummmm, ok, but you can get a great filet anywhere for $30."

This is just a matter of degrees. You could also buy a great filet for $12, but then you have to cook it yourself.
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"I needed something to eat and this restaurant charged me $400 for a filet mignon, and it was great!"

"Ummmm, ok, but you can get a great filet anywhere for $30."

This is just a matter of degrees. You could also buy a great filet for $12, but then you have to cook it yourself.

 

[ltcadviser]

And to be clear Crabcake, the website estimate was only $9000. When I requested additional design and layout changes, I went over budget and spent a total of $13500. Not a big deal to me. They just designed my email Newsletter for $800. Guess I could have went to Constant Contact for free. Oh well, back to eating my $400 steak with blue cheese crumbles.

 

[Crabcake Johnny]

I'll get back to the original point when I posted this thread - website design is dead. SEO is obviously not dead and if your goal is to generate leads that's where most of your money should be going - to content and professional SEO services.

These are not the agents I deal with on almost a daily basis. They either want a web presence or they want to update their old (in some cases over 10 years old) websites.

Without SEO as a goal and for a simple web presence, agents should be from zero to $60 for a WP theme. Past that, if they want to pay someone to configure it or add text/contact forms/plugins, etc...that's fine.

My point is pretty simple; web "designers" are continuing to charge most of these agents $500 to over $1,000 for what is little more than a poor to average looking template....and they can't do their own updates.

 

[Pangaea]

However, if you want a high end design with excellent execution across design, flow, copy, onsite seo etc... and don't have the time or inclination to do it yourself, then $15,000 doesn't sound high at all.
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This is just a matter of degrees. You could also buy a great filet for $12, but then you have to cook it yourself.
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This is just a matter of degrees. You could also buy a great filet for $12, but then you have to cook it yourself.

All things being equal and you actually hired someone worth that price tag, yes it will make a difference. I think a bigger issue which John may be alluding to is: scale and scope of work.

Most of the people he comes across are indy agents who just need a web presence, LTC adviser took an entirely different approach and no matter how much he's paid he's satisfied.

And to be clear Crabcake, the website estimate was only $9000. When I requested additional design and layout changes, I went over budget and spent a total of $13500. Not a big deal to me. They just designed my email Newsletter for $800. Guess I could have went to Constant Contact for free. Oh well, back to eating my $400 steak with blue cheese crumbles.

Congrats on your site being successful for you.

 

[Josh]

If you like the site Josh's site: Affordable Marketing Lists | Marketing Lists | Cold Calling Lists | Direct Mail Lists | Insurance Lists that's likely a better example since it converts really well and was free? I believe that's just the basic WP 2010 theme. Maybe now you're starting to get the point a little more.

It's a different wordpress theme, but it was one of their free ones. I've been working with some more premium themes lately and have found some I absolutely love. My site mostly converts well because when people are coming to my site I usually already have credibility. On quality of service (accuracy of data and price) I kill https://salesgenie.com/ and ReferenceUSA, but their websites are a bit more slick than mine and on that alone I'm sure they get more business. They are giants (more or less the same company), but even if you check these guys out: Dataman Group Direct Mail and Telemarketing Lists , they have a website that is a little richer in content, but get $225/1,000 on T65 records while I charge $49. Part of that is my pricing model, but my point is more that a extra money on a website can be money well spent, especially if it's a big ticket item. Even someone getting ready to spend $1k+ on data is going to hold less of a critical eye to the website of the person they're doing business with than someone getting ready to dump $300k into an LTCi policy (or at least one would hope).

I need to spend more time on my site because I've seen my list business grow by leaps and bounds over the last year or so and that's something I need to pay attention to. I bought a domain a while ago with certain thoughts in mind, but I decided to make AffordableMarketingGroup.com a web development site. It's still very much a work in progress, but it's a premium wordpress theme and I think it looks really sharp. Spending a few bucks on a premium wordpress theme saves a ton of time.