Hi all,

 

I'm a newbie looking for some advice from the pros.

 

I am looking to start a review website to potentially host many thousands (possibly 10,000's) of products listed A-Z. I will want every reviewer to upload images and write a review.

 

In addition, I will also want to host a chat room or forum.

 

I already have a website host with Blue Host but wanted to have some opinions on the best website builder to use which would best fit and support the business model above.

 

 

 

 

A developer.

 

Absolutely - a "review" site and quickly turn into a complex beast and not something a beginner could easily pick up.

Thanks for your comments.

 

So you don't think WordPress as a site builder and Blue Host as your host would be sufficient enough or user-friendly to start a review site in the interim. If and when the site becomes busy enough or started to generate income as to pay a developer to improve the site.

WordPress also isn't a site builder it is a CMS. You can download some themes, but if you wanna even stand a chance with other review sites you need something unique. Not gonna happen with a premade them - almost all of which are badly written. Good developers won't be wasting their time releasing cheap themes for WordPress.

 

Some of the review sites will have big budgets, you cannot expect to compete with them having some cheap premade site, it just won't happen.

 

I also don't know any decent developer who would wanna improve a prebuilt theme, we absolutely hate working with bad codebases, anyone worth their salt will want to build out from scratch - or take over an already well structured project.

Edited October 8, 201511 yr by rbrtsmith

Hi Again and thanks for your insightful comments

 

This is not a normal review site. I'm a working Post Doc with extensive knowledge of my market. it will be very niche and generally only benefit working scientists at PhD student level and above. There is no other such site on the market worldwide would potentially benefit 100,000s scientists with 10,000s products reviewed and each review must a have supporting data as figures.

 

So you guys reckon a self build site is the only way to go. As a guide, i am looking to build something along the lines of trip advisor but obviously for a different clientele. I don't have a big budget so want to do as much as possible by myself but as a guide how much would it cost to pay someone to help develop such a site and would wordpress not be good enough to start with in the interim, humble beginnings and all that!

 

Thanks again

Hi Again and thanks for your insightful comments

 

This is not a normal review site. I'm a working Post Doc with extensive knowledge of my market. it will be very niche and generally only benefit working scientists at PhD student level and above. There is no other such site on the market worldwide would potentially benefit 100,000s scientists with 10,000s products reviewed and each review must a have supporting data as figures.

 

So you guys reckon a self build site is the only way to go. As a guide, i am looking to build something along the lines of trip advisor but obviously for a different clientele. I don't have a big budget so want to do as much as possible by myself but as a guide how much would it cost to pay someone to help develop such a site and would wordpress not be good enough to start with in the interim, humble beginnings and all that!

 

Thanks again

 

We recently took on a project similar to this, it was more of an inherited site which was already developed in WordPress (unfortunately). The site itself had plugins in place to stop WP updating from a particular version as updating would break functionality of the site. Overall the project was a nightmare due to the original hash job that was done to it hardcoded menus and all sorts, and we ended up under quoting for it and that was £7k plus.

 

So personally I get yourself a decent developer you can find several on this forum but expect to pay well for a decent end result.

I recommend you get some fuding for the project fform a venture capitalist or similar.

 

Something like tripadvisor will cost you in the tens of thousands of pounds depending on how complex. some of these sites can cost hundereds or even millions of pounds.

 

If you can't find investment I'd look at massively scaling back the functionality and just do a basic website, but with great content - as that content seems to be your biggest selling point?

If it's just a content based site you might want to look into static site generators like Jekyll, that would also be easier to learn in my opinion. Mine and many other developer blogs are written in Jekyll.

 

 

One thing to bear in mind - if you get a cheap / inexperienced developer you are taking a risk that you will be incurring technical debt, which is a killer. In a lot of instances the technical debt is so bad you have to start from scratch and would have been much better off financially - and time wise having used a professional from the outset.

Edited October 8, 201511 yr by rbrtsmith

Great feedback guys, thank you!

 

I'm going to take stock and think things through as this is a project that has been on my mind for a long time and has already taken up a lot of my thoughts but I know it needs to be right, given my target audience, from day one otherwise it just won't work.

 

 

Many thanks

If there is an educational or technology based aspect to this you could try any local or national bodies who might be able to help with funding. As it isn't clear where you are based it is difficult to advise exactly on this but you could try Kickstarter which is a crowd funding site for projects.

 

https://www.kickstarter.com/

Okay well having taken stock, I think the best way forward would be crowd funding to raise funds for this project.

 

I'll need a quote and potentially someone who would be happy to have their name associated with this project on crowd funding.

 

If any of you guys know someone reliable and who has the technical skills to build such a site but also willing to participate then let me know or drop a line.

 

Cheers:-)!

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