Is my freelancer dev a lazy ass?

[GouzElFada]

Hi everyone,
I'm trying to help my family business as a volunteer about some ranking issues.

The company just payed (way too much) for a fresh new website build by a freelancer, and they are ranked at the bottom of the first page results even if they are the leader on their market.

With my basic knowledge of SEO, I wanted to take some simple actions to improve this situation such as adding a News/Blog category on the website to write KW focused content regularly

THE PROBLEM :

There is no backoffice on the website, so I discussed by email with the freelancer who created it (he used symphony) and he just answered me that he can not add a CMS/integrate a wordpress. What do you think about it? What are my solutions to post content without having to ask him everytime (and getting charged for it...)?

Thanks for your help!

 

[bobod]

Might be your best option to just hire someone else to rebuild the site using a CMS where you actually have some control over it.
Without some technical knowledge you won't be able to post new content to your current website.

Or maybe you could install wordpress in a subfolder /blog and post news etc there.

 

[GouzElFada]

Or maybe you could install wordpress in a subfolder /blog and post news etc there.

You mean link to an external wordpress?
I thought about that, but content I planned to write would be 95% for SEO purpose, so I guess having an external blog is not really effective even if I add a lof of links to the main website (tell me if I'm wrong)

 

[bobod]

No put it under the same domain in a subfolder.
yourdomain.com/blog/ - wordpress
yourdomain.com/anythingelse - symphony website
But your freelancer would have to set that up at the web server level.

 

[doggysog]

I think rebuilding will be your best option, think about long-term, also wordpress is easy to learn so your family can contribute content as well for themselves.

 

[KraftyKyle]

Without knowing many detais, it sounds like that guy is trying to take advantage of the situation. If it's a simple family business there's really no reason to not build it on top of a CMS and no reason to make you continually pay if you just want to add pages / modify content. Sure it takes him some time but not much. I'd hire someone that can explain the system to you and show you how to easily add pages or (more likely) have someone rebuild it in WordPress.

 

[SepticFish]

If the site isn't big currently rebuilding the whole thing will save you headaches later on.

 

[Fang Yu]

He is lazy and just wants you to bank more.
Rebuilt it using cms if you can.

 

[Gogol]

I guess it is not worth the money for him to do what you are asking. Lazy? Every programmer is lazy. That is why programming exists.

Just tell him that you will pay him hourly if he does the job. He will probably agree, if the price is right for him.

 

[agetmant]

As most others have suggested, I'll do the same - rebuild the website.
Really, all of this is not worth the effort.
Doing it proper all over again is the best way to do it.

 

[itz_styx]

you could also put wordpress on a subdomain and then just link to it from the main website i.e. blog.yourdomain.tld

 

[GouzElFada]

Thank you all for your answers and advices

The site is only 4 pages, there is an intranet but I guess this is just external link to add.

Can you give me an idea of an honnest price to rebuild it with a CMS?

Having the wordpress in a subdomain is still SEO efficient?

 

[Hira Ramzan]

If it's just a 4 page website, you can just download a HTML5 website template to rebuild the website or as most people said use WordPress. Your programmer is leeching off of you. WordPress site is a good idea but not as SEO efficient as an independent website.

I believe the max ost should be $250. It's a fairly small project but maybe I am cheap

 

[Emily Ingramer]

well, it's not only dev responsibility.
do you have some testing engineer?

 

[showmaker]

Do you remember mentioning CMS requirement to him when the website was actually developed? if yes, he is on fault. But if this was not mentioned, not all blame goes to the developer. However, looks like you need a CMS based website where you could easily manage content.

 

[GouzElFada]

Do you remember mentioning CMS requirement to him when the website was actually developed? if yes, he is on fault. But if this was not mentioned, not all blame goes to the developer. However, looks like you need a CMS based website where you could easily manage content.

No CMS mentionned for sure as I was not involved at all, I just took a closer look very recently. They probably asked the dev to do a "beautiful engaging professionnal looking website to rank higher than the former website". Guess the dev forgot to tell them that a good looking website is not enought for a top rank...

 

[Brilian]

Can you share Site link? or DM

 

[kinglion]

You could build the website again since there are only 4 sites it would not take alot of time.
(experience 10/10, costs 1/10)

If you have zero experience, search for am theme that is similar to your site. Just make sure to buy one with VisualComposer. They are easier to work with.
(experience 4/10, costs 4/10)

Me and my Company had build wordpress pages from scratch, so you could ask another agency to fix it for you.
(experience 0/10, costs depends/10)

 

[rexstacy]

Nah he is not lazy he did what he was ask to and don't want to deal with it, that is why he is giving the excuses.

No put it under the same domain in a subfolder.
yourdomain.com/blog/ - wordpress
yourdomain.com/anythingelse - symphony website
But your freelancer would have to set that up at the web server level.

To do that he actually just need to add between 3-5 sentences [ 2 - 4 ] lines of code in the framework to ignore the address/folder where
you will install wordpress and manage the blog by yourself causing no interference with the current site at all.


Initially I was again rebuilding the site with wordpress but since it is just a 4 page site go ahead and rebuild it with wordpress

Just be sure that who you pick for this job does it first in a development environment (a subdomain for example) there he will import your current content (4 pages LOL)
and setup the area for the blog.

Realistically speaking what will take more time in this project will be the theme to use.

If you want to use a custom-made theme then yes it will take some time and will be more expensive period.

on the other hand if you go with a free theme or even better take one from @Festinger vault here, you can have it all running in a couple of days by yourself.