I have purchased EE 2.02 and also have purchased the most recent Discussion Forums module. I already have purchased a VPS Hosting Plan and have installed both EE 2.02 and the Discussion Forums.
Also, I have a couple colors chosen as colors I want to use on my website and have also had a professional Logo designed using those colors.
I have a description at the end of the post of the website we want to develop.
We have a few questions:
-I know this one may be hard to answer but what is the time frame often like to develop an EE Site in days/weeks or hours? We hope to be able to launch this website by August/September so that it’s ready by the Q4.
-If we outsource this job what are costs often like? We have already talked to a few developers but are getting costs ranging mostly from $6000 to $12000 and in some cases as high as $25,000 or more. We have had a few bids down to $3000 and as low as $1600. We realize anyone has to make a living but some of these bids seem way too high.
-If there are any developers that we should contact for assistance in getting this site developed and launched we’d be interested in knowing so that we can contact them.
-Also, we are interested in any ways that we could possibly develop this website on our own. We have in the last year purchased some CSS and HTML books. We have bookmarked some websites also that we have come across on these forums. We originally hoped to develop this website on our own but still don’t have enough knowledge yet and also because of current time pressures in other areas of our business we have not have enough time to devote to it. Because of the high costs of development we still hope to be able to develop this website on our own.
-We are also interested in templates to use for our website. Part of the problem is it seems the costs we are finding are high because more developers either want to use their own template design instead of an off-the-shelf template or either feel an off-the-shelf template is not going to work for us. I understand this may be the case if we can’t find an off-the-shelf template for us or either if we use one would have to have it heavily modified. If there is a site that may have off-the-shelf templates that are close to what we need we’d like to know.
Here is a description of our website:
1. We would have a variety of topics that would be listed along the top of the website in a row. These would include several categories and subcategories underneath them where a visitor to the website, for example since this is a tech information site, if they chose to read about smartphones they could click on the smartphones category at the top and read all posts recently listed under smartphones. When we would do a post we would want to be able to choose which category(s) to place the post under. As for the subcategories there for example may be a subcategory saying iphone and then other phones so that they could select iphone under smartphones to read all iphone stories.
2. I also want to install AddThis Bookmarks that’s available on the internet so that people can share articles that they read. I also want to have a section where people can subscribe to get updates via an Email Newsletter, RSS feeds, Twitter, Facebook, etc.
3. We would need the template designed and have an idea of what colors we want. We would want the name of the website at the top and we are currently having a logo designed by a company that will be available in the next 1-2 weeks and we’d want this put at the top of the website. We are okay with an off the shelf template that’s already designed being used and just being modified for our logo, colors, and other needs.
4. We’d also have several other options along the top of the website where the categories are such as an About Us section and a Contact Us section.
5. We also want to be able to work with affiliates where for example someone could read the review of a iphone and then select to buy it and click on it and they’d be taken to the apple store affiliate site to buy where we would collect a commission. We want the option to place this link in the various articles.
6. We also want a ‘shopping section’. This may be a link along the top of the website but more likely we’d like it to be a column along the right side of the website. We’d want to be able to put banner ads along the right for our various store affiliate programs where a visitor could click on the link to be taken to the store off of our website to make a purchase.
7. We also have a e-commerce site that we’d want to prominently display on this website to link to.
8. We also have the Discussion Forum module installed (3.0.1) and would like to have any necessary setup done to have it match the look of our site.
If I am correct all these things can be done with EE and as I said we already have a logo being designed, colors chosen, ideas of our template, a web hosting account purchased and active. We have already installed EE and the Discussion Forum module on it and have the domain name purchased and linking to this website.
Thank you for your help.