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Gabe
01-03-2013, 03:02 AM
Hey everyone.

Some background:
I've been building a managed website service for small businesses over the past year. I'm considering positioning it is as a way for website designers to give low-budget customers an affordable alternative until they can afford custom website design.

The service comes with professional template based website design, managed hosting (including CDN), managed plugins, video tutorials, built-in caching/optimization, etc. Pretty much everything a novice WordPress user needs. I’ve put quite a lot of money into infrastructure, so it’s pretty premium stuff, i.e. top-notch security, 500ms to 1s load times, solid code, super scalable, etc.

The goal is to give customers a quality website and teach them to use it, so when they're ready to move up and invest in custom web development, they're already familiar with WordPress.

To keep it simple, I'm just pitching it as a mutually beneficial solution for low budget customers and designers: customers get a great, affordable website and web designers get a referral/affiliate commission.

To keep it affordable, there are no signup or cancellation fees. Web design comes free with signup and future website redesigns are only $99. It's a monthly subscription based service.

Questions:

As a web designer, would you consider this service helpful?
Would you use it to refer low budget customers?
What's a fair monthly price?
How could it be more useful to web designers?


Thanks everyone. I hope to launch in in the next few months as time allows.

SDGSteve
01-03-2013, 12:34 PM
I think you would do better selling it directly to consumers rather than web designers, any pro designer is going to have a few templates around or it takes a few seconds to download one, most people have hosting package with plenty of spare space etc. Why pass the money to you when I can sort it out myself and not have to rely on your service to keep my client happy? It just adds risk and reduces profit.

Sold directly to small businesses it sounds really good though, a lot of people want a small and simple web presence just to try the water. In terms of pricing you should look at the 1&1 web builder service, they'll have done a lot of research into the pricing, so far their service has been a bit of a flop, they're offering huge discounts, I think it's because their system is too basic, the sites look virtually identical, stock copy is going to slay people on SEO as well, if you can offer something a bit better and charge the same or just a little more then it makes you very competitive.

Good luck!

Harold Mansfield
01-03-2013, 02:44 PM
I also agree that selling it directly to consumers is the best way to go. I don't see how it would be very useful to web designers since we'd likely either get them to spend the money, or work out something to make the sale if possible. It's doubtful that I would ever recommend another WordPress or hosting service to anyone unless they needed some very advanced programming that was out of my league.

But I do think that direct to consumers is a good market. If you can offers something better than current site builders from 1 and 1, Quicken, Go Daddy and Web.com it may get some interest. I'm pretty sure none of them are WordPress based.

Wozcreative
01-03-2013, 03:18 PM
I'm not sure I understand what the business model here is.
Is this a whole other CMS system with templates you've put together? If so, why would the designer choose your CMS rather than just installing a free wordpress framework, purchase a premium theme and teach the client to use that?

Direct consumer would definitely be better target.

vangogh
01-03-2013, 03:46 PM
I'm also one who thinks you'll do better marketing directly to customers. To be honest what you're suggesting already exists many times over. I can just send people to WordPress.com for the basics and it's free. What you're offering sounds like something of an upgrade from the basics, but these are people who probably aren't going to realize the benefits of those extras.

Also in my experience, the kind of low budget customer you're targeting rarely, if ever, moves up to become a good custom client.

I do think you can sell directly to customers though. You'd be positioning yourself more as a high end all in one managed solution. I see lots of people already paying monthly for setups that include hosting and the site and additional features like a shopping cart. I'm not sure if $99 is the right price point. You tend to see more in the $25-$50 range, though the price would probably come down to what you specifically offer.

WebEminence
01-04-2013, 12:19 PM
I agree with the other comments that it seems like it would be best to direct it at consumers. A few questions/comments..

1. How is it different than the big website builder company offerings (GoDaddy website tonight, 1&1, Homestead, etc.)?

2. One of the assumptions that I built my business plan on is that small business owners and people who want an affordable website don't have the time or knowledge to mess around with WordPress or even website builders that are supposedly "simple". Your business plan would limit your target market to people who already know WordPress or are willing to put in the time to learn it. It's not as easy to pick up and use as some of the website builders out there so your target market may be much smaller than you realize.

3. I'd be curious to see your pricing and the quality of your design templates to determine if it's something that will be competitive in the market. It's possible that I would refer my potential clients who want to build the site themselves rather than have me build it.

Good luck

SDGSteve
01-04-2013, 03:46 PM
One of the assumptions that I built my business plan on is that small business owners and people who want an affordable website don't have the time or knowledge to mess around with WordPress or even website builders that are supposedly "simple".

Excellent point. Most small biz owners never get round to keeping blogs or understand what half the plug-ins are for, they just want to be able to change a photo occasionally or add a paragraph to the front page about a new service. Wordpress feels really simple to anyone who builds websites but it's a whole new learning curve to someone who's web creating experience is the occasional Tweet.

Gabe
01-07-2013, 04:06 AM
Hey thanks for the feedback everyone. I'll focus directly on customers rather than on supplementing web designers' services.

This project is essentially just a managed, specialized WordPress based solution. I didn't like to DIY website builders, so I opted to use WordPress and make it a more controlled environment than a typical WordPress install. I think the end result it really good, but haven't done much user testing yet.

Looking around at all of the website builders and solutions, it seems like most of them are a bit of a hybrid and target consumers and businesses. I want to target a higher price point since I'm just focusing on businesses and give them correspondingly better tools and support.

I'm still working on it, but I'll release in the next month or two and post it here for a review. Thanks for all of the feedback.

Gabe
01-07-2013, 04:18 AM
One of the assumptions that I built my business plan on is that small business owners and people who want an affordable website don't have the time or knowledge to mess around with WordPress or even website builders that are supposedly "simple".

Ryan,
I'm doing something somewhat similar to what you're doing. About how long did it take to get traction and start getting customers? What channels did you use to get your name out there?

vangogh
01-10-2013, 06:55 PM
I want to target a higher price point since I'm just focusing on businesses and give them correspondingly better tools and support.

Better tools and support could be enough to justify higher prices. The CDN, tutorials, and caching also are worth extra. Same for extra security. You could probably charge more for an ecommerce solution for those needing one.

You might already be planning this, but if you can measure how people are using the system you can learn more about the different things they might need. Maybe keep an eye on which plugins are installed the most and think about what you can offer that would serve people needing those plugins. For example if a lot of people are hosting videos and adding plugins for them maybe there are video services you could add not served by plugins that people would pay something extra for.

WebEminence
01-10-2013, 09:07 PM
Ryan,
I'm doing something somewhat similar to what you're doing. About how long did it take to get traction and start getting customers? What channels did you use to get your name out there?

I got some pretty immediate results with PPC marketing but have built up some organic traffic in search engines in a years time. I've been doing this hobby-style for the last year since it's not my full time job. I didn't have time to take on a lot of clients as a result. I will be focusing on it full time starting in March so then I will really go after it.

People have a ton of options for creating a website so you have to give them a reason to choose you. That's the kicker.

Gabe
01-15-2013, 06:12 AM
Thanks for all of the feedback. I still plan to launch in April or so depending on my schedule, so I'll post the website on the review forums to see what you guys think of the finished product.

vangogh
01-15-2013, 06:21 PM
I'm glad we could help Gabe. Definitely post the site for review when it's ready. You know we'll have opinions. :)