[justme]

Originally Posted by Steve

How do you go about finding a good one? How do I go about finding one in general?

Is it the type of thing you should use locally, like find one in the yellow pages? That way you are able to meet with the developer face to face.

Or would you find a better one via the web?

Better to go with a large company or a small time company?

General costs?

Any other comments on information?

I am very ignorant when it comes to this. Is it something we could do on our own even? I want it done right, so I'd think not.

It is good to ask questions and don't feel bad about not knowing about this stuff, I use to be a web admin and when it came time to set up a web page for my wife's business I was pretty much clueless about most of what needed to be done when it came to private sector.

As to costs they vary greatly depending on who you go with. One thing I will say it has been my experience that some of the smaller web companies were not as secure or as solid as some of the bigger.

I was once given a sales pitch that undercut my current provider by about 75% but they could not guarantee that my page would be up 24/7. In the 2 years I have been with my current provider the page has been down once and the smaller (75% cheaper) company could not match that

Originally Posted by Obesity Discussion

You can go locally but you never know what you're going to get. Ideally you will want to find someone that has experience doing specifically what you're looking for, someone with a good rep, and someone with a portfolio of sites they've done in the past that you can look at and observe.

Web developers on the whole are VERY shady, so beware. That's why it's important to get someone reputable. I've dealt with a few rip-off artists myself. I personally would go large for piece of mind.

Costs vary drastically depending on what you're looking for....you may need certain software, licenses, etc too.

Then there's the issue of marketing.........if the site isn't setup well no one is going to find it via search engines....and that's usually where most sites' traffic comes from. Some people (including myself) pay for a little marketing assistance.

It would probably help to know what exactly you are looking for.

Agreed