This is for Matt.

[DalesCarpentry]

I am running a good add on on Craigslist about building decks. I don't and never had my own web site. I was just aproached by this guy and wonder if it is worth a couple days of my time to do this. This is what he has offered me. Thanks Dale

I am interested in building a deck on my house and had an interesting proposal for you.
I was going to do it myself, but am having trouble finding help.
What I am proposing is this.  I but all the materials and you help me build the deck.  In exchange I will create you a custom website to show photos of your work.  I will also provide you with a set of matching business cards and an email address that matches your sites name.  You would then have a nice online portfolio to show people.
We can do it on a weekend or during the week, I am flexible.
I own a marketing company and can show you samples of our work if you are interested.
If not I understand.
Thank
Jason

[DalesCarpentry]

He just emailed me and said the deck would be 16x16. He also said it will be a composite deck so it will be all screw down. That takes a lot more time than shooting it. If you were to do such for someone what would you charge? I really don't know. I don't want to trade a couple days work for a couple hours of his work. Like I said I just don't know. I have to say it would be great to have my own site though. Dale

[Heather]

Matt won't touch designing a site for under a grand. That is for something simple like the guy is talking about giving you.  The price goes up from there depending on how much hard code he has to do.  I with less experience will do the same site for half the price, $500.00.  I would make sure the domain name was registered to myself so the guy couldn't just change it whenever he wants, but other than that it sounds like an amazing deal to me.

Heather

[DalesCarpentry]

Thanks Heather. I may just take him up on this then. Thanks for the tip on domain name was registered to myself. Dale

[mcwoodduck]

I say you hire Heather to do the website for the $500, if she needs help she will get Matt to help her and you will have a $1,000 website.
You get a quality website that you know is done right and for 1/2 the price.   
You also help out Heather and Matt.
If you do go with the other guy I would pay Heather or Matt a small fee to tell you what to look for and what to make sure you get in the deal with this guy so you do not do $500 worth of labor and engineering on the deck and get a $100 website.  Not to mention the wear and tear on your tools.  I am guessing he may not need you but really needs your tools to get his deck built.  But Heather or Matt can talk to you about what they would charge you, they may even be willing to apply any consultant fee or portion of to the cost of the website design.  If you feel they would be a better way to go.

Heather / Matt Sorry if I am over stepping my bounds here.

[Skunk]

Other questions you might want to answer before you start building is who is going to host your new site and how much are the costs for hosting going to be? Are there places online that host for free, or does the hosting service cost a bunch?

[Matt]

Ok seeing as this question was for me I guess I can answer it...

Dale, there are several factors to consider here and the biggest one is do you want your own website.

If you answered yes to that one then the next one is how bad do you want it.

If you really want one then do what you think it is worth to you.

I would agree that the guy most likely wants the use of your tools more than anything.

Here is another thing to consider: GBO Basic site design and hosting for one year will run you $750
thtat is $250 for the hosting and $500 for the design fee.

If the site is going to be so that you can update it yourself then yeah Heather is right I would not touch it for less than a grand on the design side.

But Folks here is the real kicker... Dale you already have your own site more or less as does every member of GBO... It is your blog on the GBO CMS which you can post pictures of your work and such.

The real question that you should be asking is what would the value of you building a 16x16 deck for the guy be,  I know I would not touch that for less than $750 labor and even more if he wants a roof over it. So what is your work worth? Answer that for me then I will tell you if it is a good deal or not.

Matt

[crustaceous]

To me the question is how much business are you going to generate from having your own site? If it's going to cost you $1K it will need to generate approximately $50K (2% of contracts received) to be worth while.
To be effective it needs be on page one or two when someone does a search for deck builders, carpenters, remodelers etc in your area. How that works is beyond me. It's been my experience that websites don't get you much construction work.
I think you would be better off creating your own site, on the cheap, so that when someone calls you you can refer them to your site and they can see the exemplorary work you do. By creating your own site you'll also be able to add or delete examples of your work as needed.
In the current economic situation I would reccomend getting money and consider the website a luxury to be considered in the future. Run with Craigslist  for a while and see how it goes.
Someday we need to swap Blake Construction stories. I worked for them in DC while you were at Kings Bay.

[DalesCarpentry]

Well to be honest I never thought about having my own web site. I am not even sure it would help me sell work. I just thought if it was a good deal that I might devote a few days of my time. You pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as a 16'x16' deck goes. I would figure about $750.00 profit after materials. Dale

[DalesCarpentry]

To me the question is how much business are you going to generate from having your own site? If it's going to cost you $1K it will need to generate approximately $50K (2% of contracts received) to be worth while.
To be effective it needs be on page one or two when someone does a search for deck builders, carpenters, remodelers etc in your area. How that works is beyond me. It's been my experience that websites don't get you much construction work.
I think you would be better off creating your own site, on the cheap, so that when someone calls you you can refer them to your site and they can see the exemplorary work you do. By creating your own site you'll also be able to add or delete examples of your work as needed.
In the current economic situation I would reccomend getting money and consider the website a luxury to be considered in the future. Run with Craigslist  for a while and see how it goes.
Someday we need to swap Blake Construction stories. I worked for them in DC while you were at Kings Bay.

I think they shipped a bunch of equipment from DC to Kings Bay while I was there. Including the big Blake Blue crane. Dale

[Matt]

Dale if I was you...

I would use your Blog on GBO to post a “What I do" type post then throw in some pictures of your work which you can host on www.myhostedpics.com and add contact info for those wanting to contact you. It will cost you absolutely nothing to do this and you get to take advantage of the GBO site ranking by which I mean GBO is scanned 24/7/365 by the search bots and we have a high page rank on many of them. This would allow you to have instant exposure on all the big search engines and if your wording is done in a way as to use keywords then it might just work for you...

I don’t know about you but $750 is a lot of money for something I don’t really need or didn’t really want... just something to think about.

BTW: Dale there is other things to consider in the matter... If the guy knows other people who might need your service and is willing to help you get more business then that adds more value to the deal... but if it is a one shot deal and no residuals are going to come of it... I would pass on the deal unless I just had noting to do and was bored.

Matt

[45-70.gov]

what  else  you doing  that week  end

just do the job get  some  exercise and  see what happens

you  may make a friends  and create  oppertunaty.......or  not

i  trade  work alll the  time and it works  out  most of the  time  and when  it  don't.....who cares

[Graybeard]

And don't forget the annual hosting fee and domain registration fees. We charge $250-$300 per year hosting fee depending on site size and traffic level. For a site like yours $250 would cover it. You might find some cheaper rates but most will not offer you the quality server we do. You must pay whatever that hosting fee is annual and you must register the domain and pay the registration fee annually or pay for multiple years at once. The rock bottom minimum for that is gonna be another $20-$30 I think.

[SHOOTALL]

Dale before you set up a site make sure all your lic. are in order both business and pro Around here inspectors check to see who is working with out a lic.

[DEACONLLB]

Hi Dale

What I have read here so far is very good advise. I have a simple web site for our Church group which I take care of and is used most of the time to get news and info. out to the members. We pay 140.00 a year for the site and I get a weekley report on how many hits it generates a week. My son has a web site for his buisness which he paid 1000.00 to get made up and it generates very little in the way of sales and cost him 300 per year and any work on it cost 25.00 an hour, does not sound like much but when it takes several hours to work it over it can run into real money but he is able to write it off as ad expense. The last bit of advice posted was about lic. Great advice, one thing not mentioned is workmans comp. Ins. in Oklahoma you must have workmans comp. when you work for yourself Other wise the state will hold the home owner responsable in case you are hurt on their property and home owner Ins. will not pay in that case.
I would think a way to generate some work if you wont to work for yourself is to make up some fliers on your computer with a couple pictures of your work, get in good with your local lumber company and have them send some work your way or even a small ad in local paper for handyman work. That is what I did when I worked for myself as a carpenter. I also had a little saying Chicken today feathers tomorrow

Deaconllb

[DalesCarpentry]

Well the Craigslist thing seems to be working well. I just started running these deck adds yesterday. I sold a 10'x16' deck today.  I also have another one I have to go look at. I just don't think I want the costs involved in keeping a regular web site. I might give GBO'S CMS thing a try though. With no cost involved what can I loose. Dale

[slim rem 7]

 if you were around here after you got half dozen jobs done an showed you really know you stuff.. my thinking would be you phone would ring every night.. ive been  surprised at some people here that weren t  building an now are ..i guess its labor cost being down an thier money gets more done. slim