Where to go for Website Development at reasonable cost.

[Name Trader]

I need to develop a website at a reasonable cost. Where is the best place to go for quality development at a reasonable cost. PHP, CSS, MySQL, Great Graphics, Modern Look n Feel. I actually have the database already. Need integrated PayPal and Credit Card payments.

My experience so far is NamePros, where I've only had not great designs and almost always been disappointed with the end results. Sometimes the developer just steals my code or just disappears.

My only other experience was with eLance.com, where I found a competent and cheap developer, but they proved to not be reliable in replying to my questions and getting things done in a timely manner, which eventually deteriorated into canceling the relationship.

I would love to hear where you go/recommend for quality website development at a reasonable cost.

 

[Keral_Patel]

Nah not for programming but as you mentioned you need to be able to take care of some issues if the programmer is not on standby.

The maintenance part.

 

[buyselldoms]

I agree with what Keral Patel was saying.

I developed a very basic php job website with 25k new jobs per day - the client had a small budget and I generally work on my hourly rate (i.e. budget divided by hourly rate... number of hours worked... if it seems right then go ahead) - it didn't need any CMS that needed to be updated or might have security issues with, or slow and bloated... so it was simply disk cache, load once from database, rest from file. If its stale, reload from database and so on. Slightly more to it, but not very complicated, just a few hours work.

The client came back to me 4 months later wanting more powerful features... wordpress! Piece of cake. You know... tags, theme, category hierarchy etc. Insert database fields to wordpress and set the taxonomy etc. I was conscious of the additional overhead so disabled wp-cron and cron jobbed it. Installed cache plugin. Optimised the database setup.

Not a good idea... the client had a decent enough server setup much overkill for the initial site... but with wordpress + plugins + 20-25k new posts per day. The site wasn't having any of it. In love with the new improved site he had ended up paying for a new server with Varnish which improved things significantly with some other tweaks.

The ironic thing was had his budget been larger and has he requested such features, I would have developed a much sophisticated (but not advanced) entry level CMS that would have run smoothly... now his hosting bills have just over-doubled. False economy... he will be paying through the nose many years to come for the privilege of having wordpress. I could have even ported the theme across lol

 

[JudgeMind]

ive used a couple people i found on namepros. I would strongly suggest dropping a pm to ICEDUDE, he did a great job for me, he may be available for you to use.

 

[Nym77]

Probably you are looking for a way to outsource your developments. You need to find a good company that has the expertise that you are looking for and establish a trust relation with them.

It takes a wile but it will be a good investment if you do not want to be "the programmer of your website"

If you want i can put you in contact with some companies that i usually use, just PM me

 

[comnetsolutions]

Hello,
If you are looking for website development service then we at ComnetSolutions in singapore have quality web developer who have wide experience in developing web solutions which are customized to your business.Skilled in effective web solutions development, interface design, advanced ecommerce solutions, content management systems and customized database driven solutions.We provide web development solutions at affordable price.we use technology like PHP, ASP.NET,CSS, MySQL.

 

[Name Trader]

What is your website?

 

[gatekeeper72]

That link is excellent, thanks.


Local. Portfolio, reputation, references, rapport, reliability.

Rapport is a lot of what that link above discusses - meeting in person really helps. Also as it says, you really need to work together to define your requirements before any work starts.

As others have said, bear in mind the need for maintenance and backups and routine updates - who will handle this for you and what it will cost. And how readily someone else could step in and handle that for you.

Don't want a CMS? So do you want to find and open files full of code and edit them every time you want to change punctuation, images, links, menus, SEO features, or add and delete pages? And then find a page or the whole site stops working because you deleted a semicolon someplace? Who will assist you and what will it cost?

This is another reason why I would rather just learn to do it all myself from the get go. I only know html, but not how to upload it. For just one site I have had since 2007, and another from before that I got rid of, I use a site builder that automatically uploads it for me for my site, when it comes to developing, using html. It looks very outdated to me though, and would like to learn all of this stuff, including WP, Joomla, CMS, coding, etc...I have tried WP, but seems over the top hard, as I cannot figure out how to implement adsense, or change the name of the template, etc...But from what I'm hearing on this thread, Also not wanting my sites to crash...But do want to build out some basic mini sites with my adsense, some affiliate products, and maybe some well-written content..In which I can write myself...If I just knew how to do it, then I would be set! Wish someone could help, and teach me! I think it would be more cost effective as well, rather than having to pay to have have each "mini" site built out, when If I learned how to do it, I could just do it myself, and help others do theirs..(If I have time) There is only 1 of my domains in which I will probably need a script for, and that's ONLY if I decide to keep the domain, and not dump it.

 

[carob]

I only know html, but not how to upload it.

Probably in your hosting account under something like Files or File Manager there is an upload button that opens an upload dialogue where you upload files from your pc.

Or you just need an FTP program like Filezilla - free but you need to input your password and a few settings.

 

[gatekeeper72]

Thanks, but I am watching REALLY, OVER-THE-TOP BORING WP tutorials right now....Lol..Seems pretty step by step and easy, but still waiting to see how to implement my adsense and affiliate links. Am going to save it, and probably have to watch again...
I also Found an unlimited hosting company for only around $40 for unlimited domains, and hosting, and spoke to them, asking 5 million questions already, too...lol..
I also just learned a lot about a program called pixler...So I will get there...Just a matter of me not falling asleep...LOL...
But thank you very much for letting me know that! I do appreciate it!

 

[SimpleDomaining]

unlimited mean shared hosting with other websites. its good on one side and bad on another. cons - when your site over perfoms it grabs resources that shared with other websites and that sites starting to have problems. then hosting company turns off your site, sends you a ticket to fix the problem or to upgrade. if you cant do any of it, they ban your site for good.

 

[Name Trader]

I too would be a tad leery of cheap unlimited website hosts. Why? Because they are sought out by all the worst elements related to hosting. You will be in the worst of company. The host will have a hard time controlling all their infractions, or worse won't care about them. Either way, it will affect you in some way or another. They won't have good support. Better, imho, to find a good, honest, reliable host with good support, and buy a plan when they offer their specials during black friday. This is what I did for my VPS, and support and level of service, has been excellent. Do your research well before black friday comes around. I have experimented with a few of the cheap hosts, and their support doesn't compare at all.

 

[gatekeeper72]

Well the support seems really good, and they are a sister site of Host gator, but cheaper. They work on their own server and manage it 24/7, and have 24/7 support as well. I kept the guy on the phone for about a hour asking all kinds of questions, and he was really helpful. It's an introductory offer, but renewal is a bit high. For what I'm paying now for the one site, without unlimited hosting, is almost double the price...
I am going to research the company more of course, but they've been around since 94, so it's looking good so far, and it may be worth the $40 a year for all my domains including the site builder of whatever I choose.
As with Godaddy wanting to charge $12 per WP site plus, for the unlimited hosting, I would rather have it all in one package.
The hosting company I am on now offers the same thing, just at a higher price, and is not very well known..so we'll see after I do some more research on it.
Thanks for all your input though..I do appreciate it!

 

[Name Trader]

If your standard for hosting is GoDaddy, all I have to say is their hosting is awful. But I did hear they offer cPanel hosting nowadays. GoDaddy have a reputation for nickel and dimeing their customers. They don't have email support anymore (at least on the registration side of their business). Hostgator have a reputation for cheap hosting. I would say they are adequate at best. But what can you expect from a cheap webhost. The one time I tried Hostgator, and tried to cancel, they make it almost impossible to cancel. They ask you to fulfill the impossible in order to cancel, and make you jump through a lot of unneccessary hoops. Of course they never mention all that when you sign up.

You should join WebHostingTalk.com, and do a thorough research of any webhost you are even considering on doing business with. Of course, if $40/yr is all you can afford for unlimited domains on a shared hosting account, you have to take the rough with the smooth. Your domains may be unlimited, but probably everything else will be limited, diskspace, memory, cpu, bandwidth, even they might get you on limiting the number of files you have on your diskspace. I forget the exact name, nodes, or something similar. These can add up quickly with caches and other temporary files, and emails. Hosts who offer unlimited everything, I would never use because they cannot fulfill what they promise. Because they attract the abusers. I don't see the business case for cheap unlimited hosting (from a hosting perspective), but then, I might be shortsighted.

 

[gatekeeper72]

Oh NO!!! I would NEVER, and I do mean NEVER EVER EVER use Godaddy for Hosting. I can see how they nickel and dime people all over the place...
Not to mention I have been having problems with most all of my domains still being listed as premium by former registerars..They got the problem fixed, then a couple days later, they magically appeared again! I was supposed to hear back from them 3 days ago, and have been trying to get this resolved for weeks..But this will be my 7th phone call to them, and they think I have nothing better to do that sit for hours on the phone with them, and on top of it, won't even give me a discount code for all of my troubles. PFFFTTT...I would never use them for hosting..so no need to worry about that. Was just saying what they offer in terms of hosting for WP...
As far as everything else you said, I went through everything, asked all kinds of questions, including some of the things you mentioned, with this other hosting company, but again, like I stated I will be doing more research before going with anyone, and I am very well aware of paid reviews, and know how to dig deep.
It's like $2.95 a month for 3 years, $4.50 a month for 2 years, etc..which is about $100 in total, if I want to do 3 or 2 years, and then after that the price goes way up, to about $600 a year... but at that point, I can change hosting companies whenever I want, as all I have to do is change the name servers, in which I will still have all my domains listed in my Godaddy account, just hosted somewhere else, or even park them if they aren't generating the revenue I want...I will cross that bridge when I come to it, and that's only if the domain doesn't sell, or generate any revenue after promoting, seo, etc...
I could also just use the hosting company I've been at for about 10 years now, but would get the same deal, only a bit more expensive at around $130 a year..For 1 year....Either way, I am going to research the best prices along with the best support, user interface, etc... etc..etc..They are looking good so far, but we'll see. Thanks for all of your thought on this matter, and bringing it to my attention though. I do appreciate that, and did not know that before about hosting companies. It will only make me dig even deeper now.

 

[Name Trader]

cPanel is THE Gold Standard of Control Panels. It's a must have, IMHO.

 

[gatekeeper72]

They do have the Cpanel...So that's good news