Unfortunately, more and more disaster stories like this one are surfacing: “I hired one of those $500 companies to build my website—but they did a horrible job, they never finished, nothing works properly, and now they don’t return my calls!”

If you’re thinking of cutting corners, be warned! Here’s a little preview of what to expect:

1. No Talent

A talented web designer is a prized possession. A web designer with no talent works for a $500 web design company, which lacks the artistic creativity of a professional design house like WebTech Net Solutions.

2. Poor Communication

$500 web designers have no formal education. This limits their expertise and communication skills. So be prepared to expend a much greater effort—and more time—to build your site. Some phrases you’ll soon be familiar with:

• “Can you please repeat that?”
• “I thought we went over this already!”
• “You said you’d call last Monday!”
• “This is the third time I’m telling you!”
• “You said the project would be done by now!”

3. Bait & Switch

Many companies advertise $500 websites just to “pull you in.” The final bill is often many times that amount. Make sure to see a contract up front and read the fine print carefully. Most $500 websites come with an obligatory 2-year hosting fee of $39 monthly, $49 monthly, and even $59 monthly. So you end up paying for a nice website—but getting stuck with a cheap one instead! Not to mention unreliable hosting that you’re stuck with for two years.

4. Atrocious Copywriting

A website is only half graphic design, the other half is copywriting—the words used to grab your audience’s attention. Copywriting is crucial. Your website has only 6 seconds to captivate visitor interest before it’s “Asta La Vista, Baby.” And, no, they won’t “Be back.” Do you think $500 designers work hard to ensure that visitors actually stay on your site? In fact, most cheap web designers charge extra for their atrocious copywriting. But what are their writers’ qualifications? Are they university trained? Do they have real-world marketing experience like WebTech Net Solutions’ copywriters?

5. Irresponsible

What separates a good work ethic from a bad one? The answer is simple—salary! Imagine you worked at a job paying $13,000 a year. Now imagine the boss asked you to stay late every night. How would you feel? But how would you feel staying late for $75,000 a year? Sure, we all like to think we’d go all out no matter what. But if we be honest with ourselves, reality is a bit different. Bottom line? Getting paid less will show in one’s work and dedication.

6. Shoddy Outsourcing

Some $500 designers outsource coding, scripting and HTML overseas to third world countries. What do you get? An outdated website that’s horribly designed, that doesn’t function properly and that is virtually worthless.  Not to mention how hard it is to make contact with the outsource company when you want changes or something is totally wrong to begin with. It pays to buy American.

7. Boring Templates

$500 web companies use dime-a-dozen templates, giving you no control over the finished product, and make your site look like every other site out there. Ask them to change the design, and their answer will be “I can’t.” Ask them to shift the text, and their answer will be “I can’t.” Custom designers like WebTech Net Solutions know you never get a second chance to make a first impression. We distinguish your company by standing you head and shoulders above your competitors.

8. No Guarantees

$500 web designers make you sign a contract tipped in their favor. Ask to take a peek and you’ll read, “The website is complete only when the designer says it’s complete. The client has no say in the matter.” They know you won’t be 100% pleased with the finished product! We at WebTech Net Solutions make sure you are completely satisfied with the results before we label the project as complete. Which company would you rather work with?

9. Unreliable Resources

Ever notice how some websites download faster than others? Guess who builds the websites that take ten years to download? You guessed it! Same deal with website downtime. Ever notice how some websites you visit often suffer downtime more than others? WebTech Net Solutions relies on top quality resources like top tier servers. So if you want to ensure that your website will be there in the morning, or that your site will download at lightning speed, steer clear of those $500 designers who rely on cheap resources.

10. Can’t Deliver

Most $500 designers have limited expertise. Some don’t know flash, others don’t know how to create contact forms. Some can’t create search functions, others don’t know log ins. Make sure you ask the right questions. If not, you risk getting stuck with a company that can’t deliver what you need.

Putting things into perspective, when you hire a $500 web design company, you take on all the headaches and frustration of dealing with an inferior staff, lesser quality and questionable service. In other words—you get what you pay for. Sure we all like to save money if we can. But you shouldn’t buy a website at a rock-bottom price for the same reason you shouldn’t buy a $9 pair of shoes—because you’ll be wasting your money and getting what you pay for. Top quality web design and copywriting is a matter of price.

Sometimes your budget is limited and the $500 web design company may seem your only option. Dedicated design houses like WebTech Net Solutions usually care enough to offer payment plans. Just ask.

The moral of the story is that you get a much better value by partnering with a reasonably priced web design house like WebTech Net Solutions. You work with a dedicated team of kind and friendly professionals who always deliver what you want on time, within budget, and in a way that’s going to make your website impress prospective clients…and convert them into paying customers!

Even when you select the make and model of a car, the cost of accessories can cause the price to vary drastically. There are choices to be made: 6 Disc CD changer vs. single CD, ipod dock vs. no mp3, dual-sided climate control vs. air condition, 1-touch automatic windows vs. automatic windows, heated leather seats vs. leather seats, and the list goes on and on. Each of these decisions will be reflected in the final price of the car.

A website comes with “accessories” too. We refer to these as “features and options.” Within each feature there can be any number of variables that dictate the simplicity or complexity required to develop a feature. Just like there is an extra fee for a car with a multi-disk CD player vs. one with a single-disk CD player so too is there a premium for a website that has Flash in the header vs. one that uses basic HTML in the header.

In nearly every aspect of website development, there are design features and programming options to take into consideration. To help you better understand the individual costs, contact us to get a FREE price list emailed to you. Typically a web design firm will bundle costs together making for a lower price, so treat these as estimates. Cost will vary depending upon complexity of each item.

You should expect no less from a website design company than for them to be able to provide you with a cost sheet of everything they offer. Any company that refuses this, isn’t worth the heartache.

In website design and development, just like most other things in this world, the adage of ‘You Get What You Pay For’ stands. But this adage applies ten-fold in website design and development.

With the proliferation of freelancers who call themselves website designers to the thousands of off-shore companies who work for a few dollars an hour, you can, indeed, have a very inexpensive website built for your business. Unfortunately, you will get exactly what you pay for: poor design, sloppy programming, confusing navigation, and so on. Not to mention the miserable customer experience you will have. If you think calling the toll free number for Dell customer support is bad, then sit down, because you have a whole new type of misery in store for you when you work with freelancers and cheap web development firms.

It is widely agreed that a website is a reflection of your business. If you want to appear shoddy and cheap then perhaps this is the route for you. If, however, you are serious about your business you will need an intelligently designed website. This means you hire a web design firm that has years of experience in design, website strategy, and technology.

Look for a web design firm that has that perfect blend of the three divergent capabilities it takes to produce compelling design. A great web development firm fuses art and science, solid logic and inspiration, primitive intuition and cutting-edge know-how to build fabulous websites.

Will it be expensive? That depends on the features and functions of your website. For any web design firm that is worth their weight, you can expect to pay a minimum of $3k for a basic ecommerce business website. Prices range from there on up. The bottom line is, when you want results that are both refreshingly enticing to your site visitors and exactly what you envisioned for your company’s website only a proven professional design firm can get you there.