Why Choose WordPress for Your Website?

WordPress is a powerful content management system that is used to fabricate astonishing websites and blogs.  It is expeditiously flourishing in popularity: it’s being used by over 73 million people (bloggers, nonprofits, small businesses, and corporations) exclusively or for their professional websites.It provides you outright governance of your website. Some of the top names using this platform are Time Magazine, Google, Facebook, Sony, Disney, LinkedIn, The New York Times, CNN, eBay, and more.

After evaluating numerous distinct means of web development, I found out that WordPress is the most handy option for website development.

Here are few good reasons for my conclusion:

Can be used effortlessly

It is the most frequent accusation of the clients that their existing website management system is  too complicated to be figured out. Hence, they need to  bank upon a web designer to carry out even the elementary edits which also add up their budget.

Using wordpress, you have to simply login to the site open the wordpress editor and type the changes& publish and you are done !!

 

SEO friendly.

SEO friendly means that Google has a fair chance to endorse your website when someone enquires about a keyword accessible on your site.

 

Allows you to be connect with the audience

The core of developing a relationship with the audience is by reciprocating with them.

Wordpress allows you to associate a blog with your site also there are plenty of plugins that allows for interaction like surveys, testimonials, share buttons, and newsletter sign-ups.

It even allows you to create a parallel site to communicate with a closer chain of staff, clients, or volunteers.

 

Integrated network of support.

A huge community comprising of millions of people is working towards the betterment of wordpress by bringing out new updates, themes, plugins, and tutorials to make your experience of using wordpress even better. And since you have such a huge backup of people which guarantees that you will never run out of people in case you need any assistance.

Thousands of available add-on features.

Think of a feature and there’s high probability that someone  has already created it as a WordPress plugin. Which could be used for free.

For eg: Dynamic Content Gallery, integrating calender to display upcoming events, displaying testimonials.

Thousands of professionally designed themes available for free. 

Various customizable themes with preferences to revise color scheme, upload logo, modify background, develop beautiful sliders, and perform several cool things with your website without the need to write up any code.

WordPress themes allow you to develop a professionally designed website without the trouble or expense of engaging a professional web designer.

Ready for the mobile web.  A website that doesn’t work well on smartphones is prone to be skipped by today’s audiences.WordPress bestows the audience with many responsive (mobile-friendly) themes to overthrow this issue.

Mature. Over a decade old ;has been polished, certified, and augmented. In the process it has emerged as a world-class web publishing system.

Well guarded and Secure

It was designed with security in mind, hence considered as quite a safe and secure platform to run any website.

Can Handle Multimedia

Provides integrated support to handle images, audio, and video content.Even you can assimilate YouTube videos, Instagram photos, Tweets, and Sound cloud audio by just pasting the URL in your post. The viewers can also add videos in their comments.

The Most Important Reason

The major cause of  motivation for considering WordPress is that it gives you a great relationship with your website. 

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MANAGING CONTENT THE DRUPAL WAY !!

Drupal is the most widely preferred tool as well as a customizable platform for content management which is powering millions of global ventures, websites and applications. It assists you in building almost everything ranging from a personal blog to an application for an enterprise. Drupal is developed, used and supported by an active and diverse community of highly innovative people spread across the world.

Why prefer building a site with Drupal :

Drupal offers limitless potential benefits such as :

• Availability of ample choice of layouts & modules that can be embedded to your website easily.
• It is a remarkably moldable & adaptable content management system (CMS).
• Using Drupal we can work around with thousands of users in parallel and has an impressive in-class preservation.
• Drupal is an open source, highly customizable platform which is available free of cost.
• It is being endorsed by a large number of innovative developers.
• More than 100distinct languages are being supported by Drupal.
• Provides a highly transparent & unambiguous administrator system.
• Runs equally well on mobiles as well.
• Features such as videos, blogs, podcasts etc. can be easily inculcated to the content with great ease.

We at Lucid Softech possess unparalleled sense in creating extremely proficient, tailor made Drupal-based solutions having a cutting edge. Drupal has been a key element of our designing,  developing and consulting aspirations. The Drupal web development solutions shaped up by our crew are portable, easily expandable, secure and fabricated for high-performance. 

Being a Drupal Web Development company, we make it a point that our clients receive the finest Drupal CMS solution which will help your website to fit in as per your requirements.

Why-opt us as a partner in designing journey of your website ?

Few reasons are :

1. Our competent Drupal designers charge comparative & reasonable rates.
2. Regardless of the complication of the assignment being handed over to us, our clients attain the project goals within the predefined time limits.
3. Drupal is our core skill. We fulfill all the Drupal based needs from creating a blueprint, development, consulting etc. all at one place.
4. We are always keen to hear from our clients& work in accordance with your needs.
5. Quality assurance (QA) testing done on a stringent level before going “live”.
6.  High on customer satisfaction.

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4 major considerations to contemplate while hiring a web developer

A visually alluring and classy website is the face of specific business in the World Wide Web. A business owner should make certain that his site should be impeccable so as to exemplify business in the finest manner amid clients and potential online visitors. Here, one requires committed web developer who holds specialism in web-designing to construct web-pages.

Web development is often of supreme significance for countless businesses out there. This is because moderately a few consumers will form their first impressions of an enterprise when they investigate their website. This is why maximum businesses hunt for a web developer that they can trust to piece out the constituents of a website. The individual you select as a web developer is very vital for any business. The web developer will have the role of bagging the brand of the enterprise while creating the face of the business online. The right website developer can be counted on for future business extension, service backing along with delivery of innumerable services such as email marketing, social media and search engine optimization. The four aspects to contemplate when hiring a web developer embrace:

Experience

You can begin hunting for a web developer in the native market and the global platform as well. It is prudent to find a firm that has some status in the market place along with having vast experience. Contemplate the companies that are using platforms such as Joomla, PHP, WordPress, Net, etc. in defining your requirements and pick the best contractor.

Location

It is imperative to ponder picking a firm that you may engage in person when the prerequisite ascends. Consequently, the firm should be located nearby. However, experience is the most vital concern. Therefore, you can think of working with a firm that is many miles away provided that they are reachable via email and telephone. This consents you to choose from top reliable companies operating in the market.

Services

It is essential to know about the type of services a web developer is offering. Seeing you need a website that is appropriately designed, you will need to appoint the services of a knowledgeable designer. A qualified web development team features a skilled testing crew that has the aptitude of designing a website that can get the needed publicity. Consider the firm's portfolio to decide whether their service meets your expectancy.

Listening and interpretation abilities

It is vital to employ a company that asks queries to determine what exactly you want. The right web designing company will endeavor to develop your website in line with your aims by taking into contemplation your anticipations. It is imperative to employ a firm that is approachable. This is enormously important during the website development procedure and at the time the website is being tossed. Determine how speedily the firm replied to your preliminary query; did they return the call in a well-timed way? A firm that is not reactive prior to getting the business is doubtful to be more approachable once the deal is finalized.

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Keep in Mind SEO Stratgies Before Redesign Or Migration of website

 Do You Think Site Redesign OR Launching a new version of your website? so, check SEO strategies before start up 

If you think to buy new domain or update your existing one, it’s essential to plan ahead to avoid potentially devastating SEO issues. Website relaunches, especially those that involve a change of domain, can dissolve a brand’s digital footprint and negatively impact sales driven from search.

You can protect the search equity you’ve worked hard to build and discover new opportunities for optimization by strategically planning your transition. This resource will cover how to perform the SEO checks needed to help your website maintain — and even improve — its digital dominance.

Below are some of the most important optimization elements to watch, but we recommend a complete SEO analysis to cover the many components of a website redesign.

Know Your Website key

During a website update, it is possible that your page URLs may change (even if you aren’t moving to a new domain). If not handled properly, this can result in a loss of individual page rankings, culminating in a loss of overall site visibility in search engines. To avoid rebuilding search authority from scratch, webmasters must inform search engines of these URL changes.

Start by creating a list of all the URLs on your website, and identify any pages that will need to be rerouted with a permanent 301 redirect. Many times, webmasters will skip implementing redirects for pages with minimal traffic; however, I recommend redirecting all existing site pages who’s URLs are changing, as these URLs may still provide some value for internal linking and SEO signals.

There are a number of online tools, such as Screaming Frog, that you can use to crawl your website and help create this list. After an automated report, it is important to manually review your list and sync each page with a URL on the new site. If there are fewer pages on your new website, make sure every page on your current site is being directed towards a new, live page. Additionally, be sure to review all sub-domains to ensure all URLs are accounted for before migration.

A 1:1 page redirect matches pages from your old site to corresponding pages on the new site. This can result in more work, but gives visitors a more consistent user experience. For pages lacking a page-to-page redirect, match pages with similar content to preserve relevancy to users and value in search.

Test single pages from your current site with a redirect to the new site to see if they are appearing in Google search results. When you’re satisfied that Google acknowledges your updates, you may continue with a complete site update. Avoid downtime and unexpected errors by updating chunks of your website at a time. Additionally, if you have a new domain, add this to Google Webmaster Tools, and submit a sitemap to inform Google your new content is live.

Analyze Inbound Links

Inbound links help develop authority for your pages in search. As URLs change, links that point to your digital content will need to be updated.

Perform an inbound link audit to determine your link profile and create a list of pages that must be reclaimed, then sort results by sites with the highest domain authority and relevance. Direct links are preferred over redirected links because they have less moving parts and provide a faster, clearer path to content.

Ideally, you should contact the webmaster hosting each link pointing to your site and request for them to update the URL. If this is not attainable due to the number of links or webmaster inaccessibility, preserve your link juice by establishing 301 redirects that point old URLs to new ones.

If you are purchasing a new URL that was previously hosting another brand’s site, understand that you will often inherit their back-link profile. Your brand must investigate the source of these back-links and update them accordingly to preserve or remove connections as needed.

Create An SEO Audit Report

An SEO audit can identify the strengths, weaknesses, risks, and opportunities of your current website. Use this knowledge to construct a road map of what needs to be carried over and what should be left behind. Find where your brand can improve its content and behind-the-scenes optimization, and implement changes with your website update.

What To Look For:

• Missing page titles
• Duplicate page titles
• Page titles over 512 pixels
• Page titles below 200 pixels
• Missing H1 tags
• Duplicate H1 tags
• Multiple H1 tags
• Missing meta descriptions
• Duplicate meta descriptions
• Meta descriptions over 923 pixels
• Canonical tags
• Canonicalisation
• Broken internal/external links
• Structured markup usage (correct tagging, applicable page usage)
• Image alt text
• XML sitemap
• Robots.txt
• Duplicate content
• Pages indexed by Google
• Site speed and performance
• URL structure

Website Performance check

What To Look For:

• Crawl errors
• Mobile usability
• Broken links (internal and external)
• Link count (internal and external)
• Pages indexed
• Top keywords driving traffic
• Organic search traffic

Conclusion

This migration process can be time consuming and tedious with so many moving pieces to watch, but it is essential for the growth of your brand and its digital visibility.

Be sure to download your backup files to protect your assets in case of an unseen disaster during the relocation. Complete your move before canceling any hosting plan to protect your files and database information. Once you are confident in the transition of your website data, ease back on monitoring data so you can focus on promoting your site and maintaining SEO through content and optimization based on user trends.

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Online Reviews, Reputation And How To Become Super Credible

Looking to build your online reputation? Columnist Marcus Miller details the mindset local businesses need to build credibility beyond simple reviews

Marketing has changed for local businesses. The big, yellow books of yesterday are all but dead and buried. Today, searching for a local business will most likely start on a mobile device, and the selection process goes far beyond a simple print advert with some clever sales copy.
Customers can now tap into a rich tapestry of reviews, testimonials, case studies and social media to determine a business’s credibility.
The local business landscape is more competitive than ever, and a positive reputation can be the key factor in standing out. Studies are now confirming that reviews are a trusted, critical component of generating business from local search with as many as 9 out of 10 users referring to reviews before contacting a local business.
Rather than go over the process of generating reviews, I want to detail a mindset we have used with businesses to build credibility that goes way beyond simple reviews.

Space Robots & Asteroid Mining

How would you feel if you heard about a business that plans to use robotic spacecraft to mine fuel and precious minerals, including platinum and gold, from asteroids? Crazy, right? Science fiction? This must be the plot of a new film featuring Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck!
What if you learned that this is a real business, called Planetary Resources, that was announced in 2012? That the business has a team of highly experienced space professionals including Chris Lewicki, who worked on jet propulsion engines at NASA and has run three separate billion-dollar Mars missions? That he was supported by a team of engineers who had worked on the Mars rover, Curiosity? And that the business itself was founded by two known and respected space entrepreneurs, Peter Diamandis and Eric Anderson, who are involved in several commercial space projects and have experience selling $50 million tickets for trips into space and $150 million trips around the Moon?
Starting to sound a little more possible?
What if you also discovered that backers include Larry Page, Eric Schmidt and Ram Shriram, who have all made a few bucks from a small company called Google? Now we have some of the most forward-thinking business people backing a project that is being managed by the biggest brains in the space field.
Suddenly, this sounds a lot less like science fiction and a lot more like supercool science fact — and maybe, just maybe, you are thinking that if anyone has a shot, it’s these guys. Right?

A Credibility Paradigm Shift

What I am hoping to illustrate above is a credibility paradigm shift in the space of a few short paragraphs. How is this possible? We go from an ostensibly ridiculous idea to one that seems entirely possible (and actually pretty exciting!).
You could go as far to say that, with such a team of backers, the idea goes beyond credibility and is super credible.

The Line Of Credibility

In the book, Bold, by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler, the authors introduce the concept of the “line of credibility,” which they utilized when launching Planetary Resources.
The basic premise is that we all have a line of credibility in our mind. When we first hear a new idea, we place it either above or below this line. Below the line, we dismiss it immediately. Above the line, we are willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and follow the idea over time. We also have a line of “super credibility” — when we come across an idea that is highly credible, we are blown away and accept it immediately.
Credibility of ideas can also be lost or gained over time, and ideas may initially seem credible but falter over time. Likewise, ideas may be born with a low level of credibility but become credible or even super credible as time goes on.
Using the Planetary Resources example, the founders and NASA folks were involved in 2009, yet the business was not announced for another three years. The announcement was made only when there was such an all-star roster of space and business people involved that the business launched into public view way above the line of super credibility.
To better illustrate the lines of credibility, the diagram below shows four alternative ideas that had varying credibility at conception and over time. (See caption for full explanation.)

(1) Non-credible rollout; (2) credible rollout, non-credible performance; (3) credible rollout, super-credible performance; and (4) super-credible rollout with continued performance.

The following are three examples that range from “dismiss,” “credible,” and “super credible.” I will let you decide which is which:

1. A spam email promises you “top Google ranking for only $99″ a month. The email has spelling and grammatical errors and comes from a generic email service.
2. A search for “plumber” shows a company first in a local pack of search engine results.
3. A search for a marketing agency shows a company first in the PPC results with seller ratings (5 gold stars), third in the local pack with 5 gold stars, and in the organic results with review stars showing for the organic listing.

It’s fairly simple to figure out which of these businesses enter your awareness as credible, super credible or ripe for instant dismissal. This example illustrates how credibility is layered over a typical local visibility strategy.

SEO Basics

Reviews are important, but you must also take a quick pit stop to ensure the SEO “nuts and bolts” are all in place. Page titles, meta descriptions and your Google My Business page must all be completed and carefully crafted to ensure returned listings for your business look the part and deliver your message.
This is the foundation that your credibility is built upon, so be sure to get these basics 100% dialed in.

The Three Stages Of Credibility

To effectively apply the line of credibility to local search, we have to change the model a little and consider the customer journey. How do potential customers become aware of us? How credible do we look upon further investigation? What can we do to further push credibility over time and prevent a dip below the line of credibility?
We have found it useful to break your journey towards “super credibility” into these three stages:
1. Initial Awareness
How credible do you appear on a first glance? How did the prospect or customer discover you? Remember that certain strategies and/or situations may introduce your business under the line of credibility (e.g., bad reviews), which makes your first job to pop above the line.
An example of how to make your customer aware of your credibility is the star rating that appears on your paid, organic or local search results. Five or more reviews on your Google My Business page will add those all-important stars to your listing. This is critical to illustrate initial credibility and launch you into the customers conscience as a credible business.
The example below shows how effective this can be. With only one business having reviews amongst the paid, local and organic listings, this business stands out as a beacon of credibility. (Disclosure: this is my company)

In many local businesses, having reviews on your Google My Business page and in the local results will be enough, but you can go way further. If your keywords return results for business directories (e.g., Yelp, Urban Spoon, TripAdvisor, Angie’s List, etc.) then often these will allow for reviews. In certain industries, prospects will go directly to these trusted portals to locate businesses and check out reviews.
Optimizing your listings on these popular sites and (in the case of sites like TripAdvisor) actively working to ensure that you are well ranked can boost credibility. Similarly, mentions or guest content on highly credible blogs and news outlets in your space can provide a highly credible introduction to your business.
If you run paid search advertisements, then generating reviews on sites like Feefo will allow you to connect your PPC account to those seller ratings. If your competition is doing this and you are not, you may introduce your business under the line of credibility. Furthermore, if others are not yet showing reviews in their paid listings, you can generate a strategic credibility advantage.
The following example shows two advertisers: one with a very basic PPC advert and another with a more comprehensive listing using callouts, sitelinks and seller ratings. This seller’s rating of 3.7 stars is not ideal, but it still seems the more credible of the two listings due to the presence of stars; this works on an almost subconscious level.

If I were the advertiser, I would be working on that rating to take it to 4.5 and upwards — but, in principle, this is still a more credible looking advert for the presence of the reviews and other ad extensions.
As ever, the best advice and approach is tailored to your unique situation, so you must review the landscape when looking for reviews and credibility opportunities (and problems). What do the results around your big search terms look like? What are your competitors doing? How credible do they appear in the first instance? How credible do you appear? What does a brand search for your business look like?
This basic research will provide you with a roadmap for introducing your business to prospective customers as a highly credible partner.
2. Evaluation
Once a prospect is aware of your business, what comes next? Does he or she simply read a few reviews on your Google My Business page and get in touch? Or, does the customer need to see reviews, testimonials, white papers, case studies, and even check out how your company and employees engage on social media?
Both options are perfectly viable, and many variations exist in between. The key here is to understand the requirements and goals of your target audience and your current credibility within your marketplace.
For example, if you are a restaurant in a city, then where do you sit in the TripAdvisor rankings? What do your TripAdvisor reviews look like? Often, correctly assigning your restaurant to a subcategory such as “Thai” or “Indian” can create a smaller pack to compete with.
Being the number one restaurant in your location may be tough, but getting to the top three in your category is generally achievable. This moves beyond simply having good reviews on Google and a few reviews on TripAdvisor into a strategic use of these platforms for super credibility (and a trophy position to use in your marketing).
The specifics will always vary depending on your unique situation, and most if not all business categories will have specific vertical directories and portals that can be leveraged to great effect in your journey towards super credibility.
3. Credibility Over Time
It is not always going to be possible to have super credibility out of the gate, and getting to such a stature will take time. Likewise, credibility can rise or fall in any given time period and, as such, should be monitored and managed.
If you have determined that acquiring super credibility will require more than reviews and will need white papers, case studies, blog posts and PR, then getting all of these aspects in place will again take time.
Remember that Planetary Resources was created in 2009 but not announced till 2012, when they had established a team of players that enabled them to have super credibility from launch. I am not suggesting keep your business under wraps for three years — rather, I am imploring you to consider this a journey, where each further step takes you closer to becoming super credible.
This is an iterative process that is never truly finished and not something to simply tick off your list. A single new review each month may be plenty for some businesses, whilst others may need daily reviews.
The overarching point is to tailor the maintenance of your credibility to the unique needs of your business.

Building Your Own Super Credibility

As with all marketing guidance, you have to take this information and tailor it to your own specific needs, and that means designing your own credibility plan.
The first stage of this is to understand your marketplace and customers and then to understand the tools at your disposal. You can start with some simple keyword research or go a little more in depth and develop buyer personas to provide additional insight into where your priorities lie.

The Tools Of Credibility

There are many tools in the credibility toolbox, and choosing the right ones will depend upon your business and the customers you are targeting. Your market research and buyer personas will guide you here.
The following is not an exhaustive list, yet these elements will likely be the backbone of any serious credibility campaign.
1. Reviews
Reviews are really the big one for many local businesses. Some thought must be given to the location and type of reviews needed. In many cases, Google+ is a good starting point; you can then branch outwards from there.
2. Testimonials
Simple testimonials from real people can work wonders. If you can link to their social media profiles and have a nice, smiling picture along with a quote of lofty praise, then all the better. Again, consider your target customers when deciding who to use and the content of these testimonials.
3. White Papers & Ebooks
White papers and ebooks provide a solid way to demonstrate your credibility. Better still, these can be used with various other promotion tools (paid, social, organic) to help generate awareness.
4. Case Studies
A recent study by the Content Marketing Institute demonstrated that 63% of marketers believe case studies to be effective, and I feel this is somewhat conservative. Case studies can be packed with facts and figures that clearly illustrate how you have boosted profits and provided a clear return on the investment for similar customers. When it comes down to larger projects (and you are in the running with other companies), then case studies are the tool for the job.
5. Blog Posts
You don’t need to think of blogging on your own site as being purely about building masses of traffic; this form of content can provide evidence of how well you know your trade. Likewise, external posts on highly visible sites in your industry can lend credibility and build an audience. Many of the bigger SEO and digital marketing companies have a “featured in” section on their homepage showing where they blog to borrow credibility from these key industry sites.
6. Social Media
Social media can provide a window into the business and is yet another place where reviews can be gathered. More telling is how the company at a brand and employee level interact with customers, prospects and their industry as a whole. What better way to assess credibility at a granular level than to follow the boss and his team members and see what they are up to? Do you respond to questions from prospects? Are you posting embarrassing drunken messages? Arguing with customers?
Social can also be a powerful tool to seed out your case studies, testimonials, white papers, and other credibility-building content.
7. Third-Party Sites
In every industry, opportunities abound to be mentioned on external sites — from general business directories to vertical-specific directories, from location-focused websites to more typical citation sources. If these portals rank well in your industry/location, then chances are these present an opportunity to develop more positive reputation signals and to funnel more warmed up traffic from these sites.

Putting It All To Work

I have outlined some key strategies here, but in many cases, it is the intersection of these elements that work together to deliver super credibility.
For example, let’s say you have a bunch of killer case studies. You could write blog posts that summarize the main takeaways, then promote those blog posts on social media. You could develop video versions or slide presentations based on these case studies. You could mention the case studies on your main landing pages, in email signatures, in newsletters, and anywhere they might help drive awareness and convert that browser into a buyer. You want to get yourself in front of the potential customer from every angle and ensure that every interaction they have with your business or brand is a positive one.
With an SEO mindset, it can be all too easy to focus solely on ranking a few spaces higher — while forgetting that we also need to win clicks and convert those users while we have their attention. The strategies here will drive engagement with your search listings and subsequently convince those browsers that you are the man for the job.
In fact, the word around the Local SEO campfire (which is backed up by some small-scale experiments) is that engagement with local listings can have a positive impact on rank in the local pack. Further to that, the more rich, credible content you build, the more of a reason people have to talk about and link to you, and the bigger your digital fingerprint becomes — all good things.

Becoming A Credibility Super Hero

Credibility is relative. In some industries/locations, there are still very few reviews. In these situations, becoming the most credible company can be easy, and this is a better use of your time than simply focusing on moving your listing a few more positions up the local pack.
If you have one takeaway from this article, it should be to aim higher. Reputation is everything in business, so don’t just get the same 5 reviews your competitors have. Do more than you think you need to. Don’t settle for just being credible. Be more. Be super credible.

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How Much cost should be paid to Best Web Designer?

I  Really Surprise to see emails every week, I get from potential clients who all want to know one thing: How much charge for a Web page design?
Nine times out of ten, my answer causes them to run for the hills. Scary thing is, based on industry buzz, my prices could actually be considered totally reasonable by comparison. Don’t believe me? Well, today you get the whole scoop—my prices, their prices, and my always-priceless editorial commentary on the subject :-)

My Prices

For the sake of argument, I’m going to constrain today’s post to blog design only.
When people email me and ask for a quote, I always follow the same process. I visit their current site and determine the following:

• The current CMS platform (WordPress, MovableType, Drupal, etc.)
• The scope of the site – how many unique styling elements will be required for specialty pages?
• The perceived complexity of the re-design. Does this person want a graphical masterpiece with all kinds of bells and whistles?

Generally speaking, there’s not a whole lot of variance in these areas from blog to blog, so after checking out the site in question, I usually have a good idea of how much to charge. Now, to answer the question you all want to hear…How much is all this gonna run ya?
At this time, blog designs start at $1500. This price is for a blog that has minimal graphical complexity, no customized icons, and no logo production. What you do get at this price is rock-solid, hand-crafted, browser-tested CSS, XHTML, and simple (but striking) graphic design.
In most cases, bells and whistles like plugin support, unique page designs, and extra graphics push the price up into the $1800-$2000 range. From there, the price is largely dictated by page-specific CSS/XHTML production and custom graphic design. It’s totally conceivable that a pimped out blog could run as much as $3000. Rest assured, though, that it would be totally badass, and the recipient of the design would receive mad props for having such a killer online abode.

Their Prices

Based on my experience, I have reason to believe that about 90% of you who just saw my prices thought, “Gosh, that’s awfully expensive!”
Well, you’re right, but actually, you’re wrong too.
You’re right because $1600 is a decent chunk of change – for an individual. You’re wrong because companies throw this kind of bread around all the time. They do so because they understand that crafting a brand holds a value that is oftentimes hard to measure in dollars and cents alone. On top of that, companies typically have a monetary objective behind the launch of a new design, so to them, there’s a foreseeable payoff. Individuals, on the other hand, are oftentimes unable to see things in such a positive light. Let’s face it – most people don’t make a sustainable (or even decent) income off of their blog.
Everybody wants a killer design, especially after seeing one that they lust over. Problem is, nobody wants to pay for it.
At this year’s SXSW, I attended a very informative roundtable discussion that focused on – what else? – blog design. Naturally, the hottest topic of discussion was pricing, and the panelists freely gave out information regarding not only their prices, but also some info regarding industry pricing trends.
For instance, The Blog Studio charges $3000-$5000 for a blog design. Some people thought this was quite high, but Peter (who runs TBS) was cool enough to break things down into their individual elements to explain pricing more thoroughly. It’s been nearly three months since SXSW, so I’ll try and rehash things as best I can here. The major elements of blog design include:

• Graphical comps produced in Photoshop
• Graphical splicing for optimal CSS/XHTML structure
• CSS/XHTML production in standards-compliant fashion
• Unique CSS/XHTML adaptation to CMS platform of choice
• Bell-and-whistle functionality to meet client requirements

All of the steps highlighted above require a certain degree of expertise to be completed in professional fashion. Unfortunately, people who want designs are oftentimes unfamiliar with the amount of knowledge required to pull all this off in seamless fashion. Sometimes I think people see a design and think it’s all just a matter of applying a “look” to stuff that’s already there. In reality, that’s basically what’s going on. In practice, however, things are intensely more complicated.
And this is why you hire a professional.
Another person on the panel at the SXSW design discussion was the female member of a husband and wife design team. While I don’t remember her name, I certainly remember what she said about blog pricing. $2500 and up, and this “just really begins to cover the actual time investment” required to deliver a complete, robust design.
Want another example? Javier Cabrera, a talented designer who’s responsible for some really great stuff, charges $2500 as a base price.
How’s my $1800 price tag sound now? Looks to me like I need to raise my prices :-)

Watch out for that curveball!

People like surprises. Unfortunately, when those surprises include a hefty price tag, people hate them.
Here’s why professional web designs are the curveballs of the site construction process. Well, hey, let’s look at the process first:

1. Buy a domain name: $10
2. Buy a hosting package: $60/yr. with two years prepaid – $120
3. You set everything up, and then you realize you need a design because your site currently looks like 50,000 others out there. Whoops.

The problem here is that when setting up a new site, newbies often think, “$10 for a domain? Awesome, let’s get started!”
Next, they get hit with the reality of hosting fees, and while they’re a little bummed about having to pre-pay for two years in order to lock in that great price of $5.50/mo., they go ahead and kick down $100-$200 to set up their hosting.
Their tab is already up around $200, and now they’re beginning to wonder if this web stuff is all it’s cracked up to be.
Unfortunately, they get hit with a wicked case of design lust while browsing and getting acquainted with the blogosphere, and now they really want a hot design. “Shouldn’t cost too much, right? After all, look at all those cool designs out there!”
And then BAM! They get slapped with the reality that a wicked design is going to cost them $1500+, and they totally reject the idea, especially since the hosting fees were already a tough pill to swallow.
Talk about your curveballs.

Case study: my clients

My clients all have one thing in common. They have a concrete, business-based reason for hiring me to design them a killer site. Thus far, there have been no exceptions to this rule. All of my clients are doing one of the following:

• Using their site to sell a product
• Building a subscription list for marketing purposes
• Building links and increasing exposure to help with ad/referral conversion

Based on this information, I think it’s fair to conclude that professional designs are really only open to the following people:

• Those with a plan
• Those with a lot of money

I never really thought of it this way until this morning, but it’s definitely true. Professional blog designs are a luxury item. Look at it like this: plenty of businesses buy 60″ HD TV’s for their stores and displays, but only individual consumers who have money and really want a big, bad TV would ever actually kick down and buy one.

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