Where to go for quotes on a Joomla/Wordpress website?

Hades · 23 Nov 2018 at 12:42

I help run a car club. Our website is very old and needs significant updating or rewriting. It is currently based on Joomla and we either need to update it significantly or rewrite it, probably in Wordpress.

I am currently learning web development so I am tempted to just rewrite it myself. But realistically I probably won't have the time so the committee would like to get some quotes for doing it. But apart from simply googling companies I have not engaged anyone in the past to do it.

I'd appreciate any suggestions on the best way to approach finding suitable companies (or even a on-man band).

Thanks.

AHarvey · 23 Nov 2018 at 14:12

tbh, a wordpress site needs little to no rewriting/web dev, just set it up, copy old site pages/content and copy over.

Nothing wrong with taking a page at time and rewriting them for SEO reasons to get more traffic to the site though.

Do you have a link to the existing site?

Hades · 23 Nov 2018 at 21:28

Thanks. It's currently a Joomla site, with several plugins to add functionality for event calendars, etc. The reason for needing to update it is that it's very dated and isn't GDPR compliant.

AHarvey · 24 Nov 2018 at 13:39

Hades said:
Thanks. It's currently a Joomla site, with several plugins to add functionality for event calendars, etc. The reason for needing to update it is that it's very dated and isn't GDPR compliant.

Wordpress should be able to supply the same plugins, it's easier to maintain and update and does have a GDPR compliant plugin

Hades · 24 Nov 2018 at 14:33

AHarvey said:
Wordpress should be able to supply the same plugins, it's easier to maintain and update and does have a GDPR compliant plugin

Thanks

Hades · 27 Nov 2018 at 09:59

A quick update on this. I posted a job advert on freelancer.com and within an hour I had over 40 bids ranging from as low as £250. No doubt there will be a range of quality in there from great to terrible. But how any UK based companies can survive against that is a mystery. It seems to be a race to the bottom in terms of prices.

Now to try to work out which bidders are decent amongst the bloodbath...

AHarvey · 27 Nov 2018 at 11:01

Have you tried asking on social media for local recommendations?

You don't need a big company, a recommended local one-man band would be best. They can come and meet you and the committee and you know communication isn't going to be an issue.

I'd offer but like you, no idea if I'd have the time.

As for Freelancer, I lost a lot of photo editing jobs to far cheaper Indian companies doing what I do for 20p. 90% of clients came back after 2 weeks but I'd put my prices up in that time

I've bagged Freelancer off in all honesty, people don't value quality work, it's all about the price on there.

Hades · 27 Nov 2018 at 13:08

AHarvey said:
Have you tried asking on social media for local recommendations?

You don't need a big company, a recommended local one-man band would be best. They can come and meet you and the committee and you know communication isn't going to be an issue.

I'd offer but like you, no idea if I'd have the time.

As for Freelancer, I lost a lot of photo editing jobs to far cheaper Indian companies doing what I do for 20p. 90% of clients came back after 2 weeks but I'd put my prices up in that time I've bagged Freelancer off in all honesty, people don't value quality work, it's all about the price on there.

Thanks for the feedback. I would prefer a local developer but was struggling with time to find one. Communication is key and I know that's going to be a struggle with many of the bidders on freelancer.

I have actually started knocking something together in my spare time too as a learning project. It's going surprisingly well but I just can't guarantee to commit the time.