Cost for custom blog?

Has anyone hired someone to design a custom blog for them on blogger? What

do people charge for this. I've been told the going rate is $500-$2000, but I wanted

to see if that was true.

 

Thanks!

 

Morgan

I believe that is a fair average :-) I would look into flosites.com or simplysplash.com. They are popular amongst photographers

Umm... I use Nucleus - it's free.

I also use a news add-on for my website.

Check with your web site host to see if they offer blog software for free. A lot do. Then you can customize it all you want for free.

I highly recommend using Wordpress.com for your Blog. There is no charge and they are fairly easy to set up.

 

You can check my Photo Blog out at http://www.sherrimeyer.com/Blog.

I'll second the Wordpress recommendation. Have you started your blog yet--as in do you have an established blog that you're looking to upgrade--or is this a brand-new endeavor? If the latter, certainly spend a few months blogging before you even think of doling out the cash for a custom design. You can build an audience with any of the standard templates, and be sure that you have the interest and stamina to keep the blog going. You'll also figure out what you'd like to have in terms of style and features this way--and can have your designer incorporate this into the custom design.

 

Good luck!

Hi Morgan, I just set up my blog at Wordpress as well and have been very pleased with it so far. They do offer quite a few templates and offer a CSS editor which lets you modify the visual style of your blog. I believe it is $15 a year for an upgrade to be able to edit the design of your blog. I am sure there is certainly a difference between editing a a blog at Wordpress and having a custom designed blog. However, $500 to $2000 to me is a lot of money!

 

Michael

<A HREF="http://www.oregonfoto.com">Oregon Foto | Pictures of Oregon</A>

Sorry, I should have been more clear in my first post. I have been designing blogs for people & have gotten pretty good at it. I have been told by several photographers the going rate for custom blogger design is $500-$2000. If that is true, I am interested in starting up a custom blogger design business. I planned to start at the low end or $500 and see what kind of business I get.

 

I have searched around the internet & talked to various people and have not found anything cheaper than $500 for a photography blog. I did see some cheaper for a general text blog. I feel like my blog designs can definitly compete with many of the custom blogs I came across.

 

So I'm trying to get a feel for if there is a market for this. I have spent so much time learning the tricks of blogger that it seams like a waste to not put it to use.

 

Even with the cheap & free options out there, I'm being told there are people who would pay $500 to have the customization. This wasn't really an area I set out to work in, but I was asked to help someone out with a blogger layout. I learned it is easy to customize blogger following their template, but if you want to break out of that template (large pictures, large header, slideshow header, print background) it can be really difficult. These are the types of things I've learned how to do.

 

Thanks for the feedback.

Oh well, I wanted to put a blog on my photography site but put a news page instead - far better. I decided to keep my blog more personal and not linked to my website.