Is my client getting screwed?

L

Lebron2727

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Hi guys,

I am doing SEO/Usability consulting for a big company (1m+). They have a webbuilding company that I think is ridiculously overpriced.

Recently the company wanted to have a simple wordpress blog added to the site, with this structure www.site.com/wordpress/

How difficult is it to do this with a very big site? Is it more difficult with a big site than with a smaller site?

I think I can do it within a few hours, and I am no professional. The webbuilding company charged 40 hours for it (installed with a standard template), this is complete bs amirite? They charge 120 euros per hour!!!
 
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What exactly is it in the blog? Is it an empty blog?
Is it Just Installation of the blog, and WP Template installation (with a free theme)?


If so, yeah, they got charged like 5k Euros, rip-off. But they saw the potential and they went for it, but if you are a consultant for the company, then consult them, and tell them about the rip-off.

WP Installation is easy, heck almost every hosting offers it for free, takes a second.

Luka
 
LukaB said:
What exactly is it in the blog? Is it an empty blog?
Is it Just Installation of the blog, and WP Template installation (with a free theme)?
Click to expand...

Yeah if it's just this it would take maybe 30 minutes tops. Less if you already have access to the hosting account and can install it from there. If you had to manually do it via ftp and setting up the DBs it takes a little longer but probably less than 30 minutes still.

Once installed the theme whether it's free or you're uploading one to use will only take a few minutes.

What they may be being charged for is a design to match the site or a conversion of the current design. In that case it would be more time consuming and cost more but you could probably hire someone to do it for $50-200 depending on the level of difficulty.
 
It is a nice paid theme, it matches the design of the site, but they did not need to change it. It was just the empty installation of the theme and the Yoast SEO plugin which a blind man can do.

But there is a lot of content on the original site already, the site did not have a blog. Because you can easily teach anyone to work with wordpress they went for it. However, the rest of the site contains a complicated CMS system, is that an extra problem?

These guys are charging 120 euros per hour, so you should expect them to be super professional, thorough and good. The installation even has some bugs in it.
 
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Lebron2727 said:
It is a nice paid theme, it matches the design of the site, but they did not need to change it. It was just the empty installation of the theme and the Yoast SEO plugin which a blind man can do.

But there is a lot of content on the original site already, the site did not have a blog. Because you can easily teach anyone to work with wordpress they went for it. However, the rest of the site contains a complicated CMS system, is that an extra problem?

These guys are charging 120 euros per hour, so you should expect them to be super professional, thorough and good. The installation even has some bugs in it.
Click to expand...
They got ripped of then. If it was a unique theme, then it would make more sense (people under estimate the power of CRO). But 5k euros for a paid theme (which can cost a maximum of $200 which is a lot for a paid theme already).

Installation - 5 minutes, but 30 mins tops as Jericho said
Theme installation - anywhere from 2minutes to 30minutes, some themes are more complex, but that does NOT justify the fact that your client paid them 5k euros.
Plugin Installation - Even an idiot can do this.


Tell your client. next time they need such thing, to contact you first, and you can offer to do it for them for A LOT cheaper, and you make money too in that case.

Luka
 
I had a potential client ask me what do I think of their new website :

so I go to the URL - and its just a plain thesis theme blog - nothing customized etc
I said its worth about $250 - its just a standard $170 template and abit of content thrown into it.

he said I just paid $1700 for that site ... I said sue the guy its silly to pay for that.

So the answer is people charge whatever the market can bear - and how knowledgeable a company/person is.

Anyway I would just show them the value of what they have received and say obviously you can do better for them in the
future given the chance.

Cheers
 
There is no standard market rate for online stuffs sad to say. We been in this line so that kind of rate do turn us off really. Hopefully they provide top notch after service then.
 
Thanks a lot for all the input guys.

The question I want to ask you, can a site be complicated or programmed in a special way where it is hard to install wordpress on a subdomain?
 
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Lebron2727 said:
The question I want to ask you, can a site be complicated or programmed in a special way where it is hard to install wordpress on a subdomain?
Click to expand...

Nothing I can think of. Perhaps some manual tweaking of the .htaccess file, but that 's trivial.
 
If it's not a custom theme, then I don't agree with their ethics. That actually bothers me. I see no problem with making the most of a situation, but I do not tolerate taking advantage of anyone.
 
It can definitely be difficult. What if they're not running a standard server. If the company is large, like the OP said, they might have the site spread across multiple windows servers running custom web hosting files. There could be a lot of things that need to be setup before the standard WP install can even take place.

Everyone who has posted assumed the client is running a normal shared linux hosting account and I imagine they're probably not.
 
What CMS is your client using for the main site ?
A wordpress blog under a sub domain shouldn't be that complicated and as others have said looks like your client was ripped off.
As they have not actually done any design work then they may have charged extra for some custom coding but it seems unlikely.
 
if you do it slow and watch a porn between it takes 1 hour.
maybe this guys watches really a lot of porn to do it in 40 hours ;)
 
Take a free theme and install it on their server and put dummy content for now and when they are convinced that BLOG is on, you add original content.
 
Even if that were the case it wouldn't take 40 hours and definitely not that much money. Wordpress has been around for a long time and is the king in the cms world so I can't imagine any specific situation that someone else has not run into and resolved yet. It is well supported so you could find a solution no matter the situation and no solution will take 40 hours for installation.

BHopkins said:
It can definitely be difficult. What if they're not running a standard server. If the company is large, like the OP said, they might have the site spread across multiple windows servers running custom web hosting files. There could be a lot of things that need to be setup before the standard WP install can even take place.

Everyone who has posted assumed the client is running a normal shared linux hosting account and I imagine they're probably not.
Click to expand...
 
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