The question I have is...is it really necessary to have that many pages?
Acutualy I was thinking that the # of pages were the most important part of that site. The design is ok but they have offered to give me a lot of the content but I would have to rewrite it so that it is not simply copied.
That sounds 'fishy'. If you get that content, but have to rewrite it, and pay for it, you could do it all yourself, I believe. With an editor, of course.
Do a search here. There have been many posts on the subject and even some names of really good developers who can help. Don't go cheap; you will just get cheap.
When you mentioned the $1500 price, I thought the seller was insane for offering that much for so little even though it is obviously a template site
What makes you think this is a template site?
It might be more helpful if I use a Heating and Cooling site example that is probably very close to what you need. Since you have been in business for over 40 years and serve a fairly large market, I am guessing your needs are also very similar. The site comes up top ranking in my area and would be in the price range I mentioned above.
Coolray is not my site. It was a model of a site proposed to me.
I was looking at your heating/cooling site (above) and noticed that there were not many articles other than some content on products/services.
So I cannot understand why another site would link to a page on your site for the purpose of education their visitors.
When you mentioned the $1500 price, I thought the seller was insane for offering that much for so little even though it is obviously a template site (which I don't care for). Since you mentioned the content being used on several other sites, it makes more sense from the seller's perspective. Even though I just stated it makes sense, I believe you were taken. One of the most important things in web design is uniqueness. They are just selling the same thing to several companies so they can bait people with price and make more than the design is worth.
A comment was made above about duplicate content not ranking with search engines. That is very true! You would have a tough time getting search results with this.
To answer your question directly, calpub, about a price, you should expect between $3k to $5k with a good designer. If I were doing it, I would pose the same questions Mike referred to and more. The price mentioned is usually sufficient for a small business like yours appears to be. Your needs are not served by a magic template like you have now, but by answering some key questions that help to determine the best use of the investment, and then building a site that meets your objectives.
The challenge you face is content, which is much more involved than the look and feel. The look and feel is not worth $1500. Since it is a template, it is worth about $60. A custom design is worth maybe $500. The rest is determining and meeting the marketing goals, SEO, and creating content. Content is the toughest and most time consuming. It also determines the success or failure of your site.
$3-$5K is outragous. I would not spend that much. There are outstanding companies out there can do a whole site for cheaper (I am not saying the companies from India either...) lol.
$3-$5K is outragous. I would not spend that much. There are outstanding companies out there can do a whole site for cheaper (I am not saying the companies from India either...) lol.
There are thousands of 'coffeecup' sites around, just look.
But have you tried to link to them? Have you ever asked for a reciprocal link? Even if you have a partner site and want to trade one-way links is it easy to do that? Will the owners ever get that email you sent them?
Chances are if the owner spends $5/month on their site they don't expect results and are not checking their logs, checking keywords, adding new pages weekly, and looking for link partners.
Suppose they install epdm membrane flat roofs. Will they have a page dedicated to that particular subject? A link to that page with 'SleepyHollow EPDM roof installer' may be useful for them but most websites have a list of their services in a bullet list and don't have a page just for one particular service. It they provide 50 different services it could be hard work creating 50 pages, one for each service.
I know I am ranting but you should see the sites I have seen.