IDEA: For $49 I will convert your mediocre site to a modern website
The end-result would be something like the following:
-
Enter your website URL: http://my-website.com. And perhaps the type of website (food, doctor, whatever).
-
"Please wait while we convert your site to something awesome" or "We will send you an email once it's ready". In the background we fetch the content and use it on a theme we already have, related to the type of website. This could be fully-automatic (hard) or automate some stuff but use humans to polish.
-
"Your site is ready: https://domain-for-this-idea.com/my-website.com"
-
"Click here to buy this now for $49"
The MVP would be fully manual (Wizard of Oz).
I'm seeing this pattern of giving the user instant results of what they are buying. For example, do you need a logo? Enter your company name, preferred colors, select a couple of icons... here's a list of logos you can buy. https://logojoy.com/
Or convert your Facebook page to a website: https://ukit.com/lp/convert
However with all the site builder tools becoming so easy, not sure if there's value or a market for this. What do you think?
[EDIT]
Sign up here if you own a website that could use a redesign:
Just 49$? You can charge more for this if it works so well.
Yeah, $49 is probably too low. Especially since it's one time.
I don’t think you’ll get a lot of business if you price any higher. Most people will just opt to hire someone instead then. This is a really saturated space and it’s really difficult to break through because there are so many people destroying the market by making sites for $20.
I'd be interested to know where you can find those people doing sites for $20, and what kind of sites are they doing. Any links you can share?
I've seen the other side of the spectrum. People charging $1k for a couple of hours work: setting up a website with a WP theme (or some other tool) and just adding their content.
All over the place, but they never actually turn a profit and most clients end up realizing that they're not going to get a good website by going cheap.
I would be happy to pay $49 for this service. Let me know if you ever launch :-)
@ppanagi ask for his website link and details, give him your paypal info and here it is your first customer :) That's how mvp works. (You could have focused this whole thread for people to post their links)
@vez1132 as the man says - what's your URL? :)
The market of web development consultancy is very crowded and saturated. The only sustainable way to compete in it is finding an organic marketing channel:
-A relevant but unique (ie. no competitor is using it) Google search keyword.
-Personally knowing people who can give you leads.
Both are incredibly difficult to find. It may be easier if you find a niche, but web development is super generic (you mostly don't care about the industry behind the website, all websites are exactly the same).
I know your approach is kinda different but at the end of the day is the same. Your idea is good if you find the above said marketing channel, otherwise it's probably not worth it.
Good luck!
I had this idea for at least a year, and this is exact reason I haven't pursued it - it's too crowded, too hard to get leads. I've tried working as a dev agency in the past, it didn't work much, and moved on to doing remote work for startups.
I'd say what is different with this is that you immediately see the end result - you either like it or not. There's no guessing/risk as with hiring someone to redo your site. It's also addressed to small businesses with old/outdated/buggy websites, so what I will deliver will be 5x or 10x better. Not 10%.
In the end, these are just assumptions. There's no other way to know than contacting people and asking if they are interested.
Yep, that's right.
I think this is a great idea. I could convince the company I work for to use this really quickly. I would think the only thing that might scare people away is the mystery surrounding SEO. My company has a very old site that ranks very highly due to its age, relevance, and high Yelp reviews, but it badly needs an update. However, the company who manages our site wants $8k to basically throw all the content into a Wordpress theme but ensure that the SEO will stay the same.
If you could convince me that updating the site wouldn't have an effect on the SEO and it would be modernized, my company would probably pay much, much, much more than $49 for this.
Thanks!
Not affecting SEO shouldn't be hard. The new site will have the same content, and similar HTML hierarchy. The changes will be mostly visual (CSS, Javascript), i.e., in the user interface and user experience. It could actually improve SEO if the old site is not mobile friendly, which Google is considering in ranking.
Could you send me the website you are referring to?
any way to DM on IH?
I think not. Send me an email: ppanagi at dynopia.com
I think it is a great idea, but why just $49?
It can be easy tested. Choose a few websites and cold email/call them and ask if they would be interested in redoing their whole website for $49.
If they are interested then it worth building the above software and you have a business.
$49 is too low. I keep forgetting $49 is not the same as €49 :)
No excuse now to procrastinate!
At first I thought $99 or more, but I think you can already get a new very basic brochure website for that price. I guess it depends on how much value you provide / the market will tell me the right price. At this point I have no clue :)
It could work. There might be some cold emails involved.
To make this work as a business (and not just a side hustle), you would need to outsource one or some of the following processes:
Getting customers
Doing the actual work
Setting customer expectations is also key. You don't want to make them think you'll turn their site into some Fortune 500 multi-domain sort of thing. You might want to limit the number of pages you'll "modernize".
Here's a MVP landing page I created for you in case you want to idea validate: https://guest.workorder.io/b9ede694c8e9188ab4cd5024a3ffdc51a68041db60be05fda0e694bdd93b1c18
You are awesome, thanks! Cool tool that workorder, I'm impressed!
Wish I could use workorder, but Stripe is not supported in my country.
No problem. The system works with PayPal too. Email me at simon[at]workorder.io and I'll set you up with it.
maybe using the word "mediocre" could be perceived as hurting or provocative by some people, especially if they contribute to this website when it was set up.
Totally true, thanks for the tip. I guess there's no need to characterize their existing website, it could just say "I will modernize your site". So I won't explicitly tell them, your site is probably old/outdated/buggy.
I'm pretty sure there will be a market for this.
If you could automate this, cold email would be VERY, VERY effective IMO. You could send an email: "2018 version of [site.com]" and attach a screenshot of the modernized version. I'm pretty sure many of the site owners will be interested.
That's exactly it. Develop a process to convert sites fast, to make it possible to send a large number of cold emails.
Kind of curious, is it the cliche "hero image", section, section, section... so you just build a list of their urls, find the headers and throw it together? Maybe some fancy gradients/nice color palettes.
Hmm
I've setup a basic landing page, if anyone is interested in this:
http://yourbetterwebsite.webflow.io/
/cc @vez1132 @bdawson
I'm trying to gain traction with Intake360 (intake360.com) Let me know if you can help. I built it using Landen.co
Honestly, for 49-99$ it wouldn't be better that what you can already do with landen.co. :)
Regardless, I'm happy to help you as a fellow IH. Send me an email: ppanagi at dynopia.com
I'd bump up the cost, choose a general name (so you can scale) but target a set niche but with add-ons that most wouldn't offer. Target beauty salons and offer to set up their sites with the booking software widget, the NPS survey, the Instagram feed + training on how to update themselves etc. Scaling up, you could partner with the salon booking provider to offer a deal to refresh their clients website with a % split (maybe you charge $750 and the provider gets $150).
Build a client base then partner with a content provider to do their social/blog, partner with x to do their y etc
One of the only ways to wade through a crowded marketplace is to build connections with the people that your clients already trust.
Thanks, that's a great direction I haven't thought of.
I agree with picking a general name, and a small niche. Working on a single industry can help speed up the process.
The main idea however is a bit different. I'm talking about sites that are outdated, that someone could make much better, with not too much effort.
This comment was deleted a month ago.