Business Owners Beware! Avoid Being Scammed!
Learn how web design firms are defrauding their customers and holding their websites for ransom.
Does this sound familiar?
At least once a week, I meet with a business owner who tells me the same story:
you hired a well-respected web design firm—one with a nice portfolio of sites, positive
reviews on their website, and that offer a price that aligned with your budget.
But before the ink can dry on the contract, you start regretting your decision.
Your new site doesn't look as good as the other sites in the designer's portfolio.
Then the content starts sounding like it was written by a high schooler—typos everywhere and signs that some of the content might have been taken from other businesses' websites.
It Starts With The Design...
You are now spending hours each week providing feedback, most of which is totally overlooked, causing you to send the same list of corrections over and over and over and over...
You express your concerns, and they assure you this is only the first draft and it'll get better over time. But it never does.
Months go by, and eventually, you just get tired of the back and forth. You desperately need to get your website live. You tell the design firm to just push it live, and you'll make the rest of the changes yourself.
The website goes live, and you pour even more time into cleaning up the mess they made, and finally, you get it to the point where you don't hate it. You don't love it either (who would after all that you've been through), but at least it's done.
The entire time you were fixing up the website, you've been paying maintenance fees so that when you did run into a snag, they could help you fix it. But now that the site is done, you call up the web developers and tell them you want to cancel your maintenance contract. It's only then you realize just how big a mistake you made in hiring them...
You are dumbfounded. After all the time, money, and effort you have put into your site, how can they just take it away just because you don't want to continue paying them for a service you aren't even using?
They tell you, "If you cancel your contract, your website will disappear."
Unfortunately, this is how a website leasing scam operates, and it has become so prevalent in our business environment that even formerly well-respected firms have adopted the policy as a way to attract more customers with more 'competitive prices.'
"You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy about it."
Fact or Fiction
We regularly hear from clients that other firms have often peddled a collection of myths, half-truths, and downright lies. Let's take a minute to correct the record.
At GroHaus, we have been building websites for our clients for nearly two decades, and in that time, we've developed a philosophy that not only guarantees that you'll love our work but also that you'll love working with us.
Introducing Web Design And Development On Your Terms
Fact
Unless you are significantly changing your service offering or haven't maintained your website since it was first launched, there is no reason why your website shouldn't last you five to ten years before you'll need to consider a complete rebuild. Some websites have been around for decades without a major design change simply because their owners keep up with the basic maintenance of their site.
While basic SEO is always a good practice, it is not the silver bullet SEO firms would have you believe. The best way to be found on search and on social media is through paid media, such as pay-per-click ads in search and video ads on social media.
This is called Junk SEO or Keyword Stuffing. This tactic hasn't worked in over two decades. In fact, Google has even updated their search algorithm to delist websites that do this.
For some businesses, a one-page website is perfectly suitable, especially if you are in a commoditized market where your customers are getting multiple quotes and deciding based on price. However, if you are trying to sell a more unique service that will require some form of customer education, you should opt for a full website instead.
Web design firms like building sites in WordPress because it makes it hard for you to manage your own site, resulting in increased billable hours every time you need to make a change on your website. Due to its cumbersome nature, we advise our clients to avoid the platform unless their site has a specific need that would require a WordPress-like content management system, such as websites with thousands of pages of content (think magazines, newspapers, etc.).
Even the best SEO firms on the planet cannot guarantee that your business will appear at the top of Google. Furthermore, SEO is a long-term strategy; it's meant to increase your ranking over many years through consistent posting of new relevant content. There is no secret code you can put on your site that will get you to the top of the search rankings.
Websites and funnels serve two very different purposes and can coexist on the same website. Take, for example, this page. This is a landing page for our web design service. We have several pages like this one, informing people about our other services, and a website that ties all those service pages together. Whether we are building you a funnel or a full website, our process is exactly the same!
01
On our first call, we'll discuss the goals for your website, the must-haves, the nice-to-haves, and the "wouldn't it be cool ifs..." By the end of this call, we'll provide a quote for your website and give you an opportunity to start working with us right away.
Step 1: Scoping Your Website
How It Works:
You could, but if you have the time and skill required to build a great site, troubleshoot it when things go wrong, and make sure it's continually optimized as technology evolves, you probably wouldn't be reading this page.
So, what is the solution? Do it yourself?
02
One of the biggest mistakes we see both web design firms and do-it-yourselfers make when building a website is to start by designing the website before writing the content. This results in a paint-by-numbers website that often looks good but whose content is subpar. We invert this process, writing all of the content for each page of your website first, then passing the complete content to our design team, allowing the content to influence the final design and not the other way around.
Step 2: Writing Your Website
03
With all the content written, our designer will start designing mock-ups for your site. We begin with the homepage, and after you approve of that design, we move on to designing the rest of the pages. You never have to worry about limits on revisions with GroHaus; we'll continue the design process until you are 100% in LOVE with your new site.
Step 3: Designing Your Site
04
Once you've approved the complete design, our development team will begin building and testing your site on the platform of your choice. Throughout the building process, our team of Quality Assurance experts will go through your site with a fine-tooth comb, ensuring that every button, link, image, video, and layout is functional and optimized for both desktop and mobile views.
Step 4: Building Your Site
05
After the site has been built but before it is launched, we'll give you a final tour of the site to make sure you are 100% satisfied. Our team of tech experts will then walk you through the process of publishing the site and ensuring that your domain, email, and other related services are set up correctly to work with your new website. Once the site is live, our team will provide 1:1 training for you and your team so that you can take the reins and ride off into the sunset with a great-looking website that will serve your business for years to come.
Step 5: Site Launch
Our Guarantees
Transparent Fixed Rate Pricing: We charge $2500 for the first page of your site and $1500 for every additional page we design. Before we start a project, we'll advise on how many pages we believe your website will need to be an effective marketing tool for your business. The average website we design is five pages and costs $8500 ($2500 for the first page + ($1500 for each additional page x 4)). If you need any additional pages created in the future, we'll build those for you à la carte for $1500 each.
No long-term contracts: While we do offer maintenance plans, they are entirely optional, month-to-month, starting at only $199/month. These plans cover everything from basic site maintenance to helping you create SEO content for your website and promoting your website on search and social media. Unlike other web design firms that only moonlight as content creators and paid media specialists, we have entire teams dedicated to these services.
Please note: Due to the level of care we provide each of our clients, we occasionally disable bookings to ensure we are able to provide the highest level of service to our existing clients. If the calendar is available above, we encourage you to book today and secure your spot on our roster. If you do not see the calendar, please email Drew@grohaus.org for details on our upcoming availability.
Book your free site scoping session using the calendar below.
Ready to get started?
You are dumbfounded. After all the time, money, and effort you have put into your site, how can they just take it away just because you don't want to continue paying them for a service you aren't even using?
They tell you, "If you cancel your contract, your website will disappear."
You own your site. Your site is 100% your property, hosted on your account, and completely under your control. While we are happy to share with you what platforms your industry leaders are using for their websites, our number one priority is to build your website on a platform you'll be comfortable using once our work together is complete. After we launch your website, you are more than welcome to continue to provide our team access so that we can assist you when needed. You can also remove our access at any time and without notice.
No Gatekeeping: All of our clients are entitled to a lifetime of free support and training. This ensures that you can quickly and easily make changes to your website without having to hire us or any other developer for assistance. Our goal is to ensure that working on your website is always a simple and stress-free experience. While we encourage you to reach out whenever you need help, our hope is that the support and training we provide at launch empower you to manage your site however you choose.
Fiction
You need to replace your website every 2-3 years.
SEO is the best way to ensure that people can find you online.
You need to fill your website with text that repeats your location and service offerings in a million different ways so that Google will find you.
You just need a simple, one-page landing page.
Your site must be built on WordPress in order to be found on Google or have good SEO.
SEO firms can get you to the top of Google within a week, month, year, etc.
Websites are so last season. You need a funnel.