In addition to my sign business of 21 years, I have a development and hosting company (maintaining 400 websites across 11 dedicated servers for 180 clients). I've used many different CMSs over the years (since 2005). Wordpress has been the easiest to work with all around (for development and for clients). I like Wordpress a lot because it has a robust community, is very well documented and there are a ton of great developers for it (90% of everything you need can be done without the high expense of custom programming). When searching for a developer -- focus hard on the developers' portfolios. Look for creativity and out of the box thinking, ease of use / mobile friendliness, etc. He/she should demonstrate marketing proficiency and have experience developing for a wide variety of industries (not a one-trick-pony).
Tips:
Avoid using free/cheap templates (get something that's lightweight and coded well). A decent theme/framework is probably going to be under $60-80 anyway -- no biggie. This is just a starting point (how your developer uses the framework is key). And yes, you can get very good hosting for $25-35/mo. -- look for companies that are optimized for Wordpress, like wpengine. Try to avoid any of the cheapo hosting companies because they are very noisy and overpopulated (struggling for resources, sharing the same IP as everyone else, including those who are flagged for abuse, infected, or otherwise. It can be difficult or nearly impossible to get off blacklists. Emails from your website constantly going to spam, etc). Stay away from marketing agencies. Look for small development teams instead. You can go with a solo/freelancer for less money, but freelancers are notoriously bad about going MIA!
Development:
Static content is the easiest part -- 70-80% of your website can be built within 2 or 3 weeks (assuming you're in good contact with the developer and can respond to his/her questions pretty quickly). It's very helpful to have some content ready for your developer so they don't have to guess/extrapolate based on Google / FB searches alone. You certainly don't want them using copyrighted content or copying/pasting info/articles from other websites. If a developer is trying to charge you more than say... 1.5k to 2k to get most of this initial phase done... keep searching! Outside of that, your basic startup costs will probably need to include a few hundred per year in software licenses (e.g., Gravity Forms, Schema, SEO, and maybe 1 or 2 others). Your dev should implement a really good form plugin, a very good (very fast) portfolio / gallery mechanism, and set up SEO/sitemaps. Then, if you need some slick functionality... your forms can be linked to 3rd party services to improve your workflow (e.g., uploads automatically going to Dropbox, JPG quick proofs being sent to Slack or email or whatever, receiving a text message when someone places an order or requests an appointment, etc.).
E-commerce is where the bulk of the work (and expense) comes in, especially in the sign industry where your products require things like:
- custom / dynamic attributes
- calculating cost based on dimensions or square footage.
- quantity breaks (per piece, per sq.ft., per linear yard)
- dynamically calculated discounts
- role-based discounts (retail, wholesale, etc), as well as
- payment and shipping integrations.
If you plan on selling products on Google Shopping or other channels (or at the very least having rich data populated in Google search), the proper schema / markup needs to be added to the site/products (e.g., SKU, title, description, price, sale, reviews, etc. etc.). Your site should also be registered with Google Webmaster Tools / Analytics so you can figure out what works (or doesn't work) and make adjustments as needed over time.
A great website can be your best asset, and it shouldn't require a huge financial investment to make it happen. When I build websites for folks, I look far beyond the initial inquiry / consultation. I think about the entire project from the clients' perspective (e.g., R.O.I.), because that is usually their primary concern. If I can make them happy (with proven results over time), I earn their trust and potentially a client for "life". So that's kind of what you want to find in a developer -- someone who is interested in a long term relationship.
Done properly, a website should more than pay for itself within the first 12 to 18 months. Plan on upgrading your website every 3 to 4 years so it can be adapted to whatever the latest standards are (upgrades are less expensive than new builds, of course).
Hope that helps!
