ITC On Your Own?

[InsuranceWhisperer]

Hey guys does anyone have any experience with ITC? I am currently having my site built with them and it seems to be going slightly different than what I had expected.It also seems like I am ultimately responsible for many of the features I thought i was purchasing. There are many levels of sites that you can purchase as well as add-ons and such. I chose a platinum site with the social add on, blog post, agency buzz and newsletter options.After 30 days I am still waiting for my site to be completed. Ordered in mid December. The way they seem to do things makes for a really drawn out purchasing experience. Apparently first they set up your site (45 days) Then they set up your landing pages (15 days) Then social media (?????) Then you have to set up the agency buzz yourself I think???? As for the Logo- the one thing I would say is if you need a logo you should use someone else. Their designers give you 4 at a time and it takes 5 days for any new designs. You cant speak with them so you are going through a third party to convey your likes and dislikes. I'm not sure why they don't let you speak with the person designing your logo. Same is the case with the websites which are more standard so it is not as big of a deal. If the site ends up doing what they say it will it will be well worth the wait and minor frustration. I will let you guys know when my site is done

 

[lrixford]

InsuranceWhisperer,

30-45 days is very atypical. I will research your account immediately and have your coordinator contact you. We do like to have the website coordinator as a single point of contact for your creative process. This is usually preferred by agencies as most people do not speak "designer".

All of our designs are custom created in house. Each graphic design does require a standard timeframe between changes. We have the set timeframes so we meet them versus continually telling you "just a few more days". Our internal processes are time to task oriented assuring we meet deadlines.

As for the overall timeframe of component setup tasks, we require the visual graphics to be completed for the website before we setup the social media, blogs and AgencyBuzz as the creative will be carried over to those mediums.

Once we complete the creative we will do some setup within your AgencyBuzz account. You should receive a call from a member of that team who will assist you in using your custom template within your chosen line of businesses.

You have chosen well in the Platinum plan. We look forward to making you a proponent of ITC. Thank you for your business.

 

[lrixford]

As you pointed out I do not speak web design so this method is very time consuming for me as the noob developer. There should be a clear design plan laid out so that consumers are not felt mislead every time they pay for custom charges

I appreciate the feedback on having a clear design plan. I have CC'd the team on this thread and they will be contacting you. In addition, the product manger is open to suggestions or feedback on how we can develop a design plan document to assist further customers.


Thank you again and have a great week.

 

[InsuranceWhisperer]

Thank You, I look forward to helping in any way that i can.

 

[superdave45040]

Whisperer, thanks for your post and please let me know how it goes with ITC.
I have looked at ITC, Alicorsolutions & Brightfire.

I am also considering having my own website built for me in Wordpress with a blog.

I would appreciate any thoughts/opinions that anyone has on the subject.

Best,
Dave

 

[blue_wynd]

I am currently having my site developed with them too. I first paid for my account on Jan 2nd. I have the gold plan. The logo I already had it designed prior by someone else. The website just got done yesterday, but the domain still need to be transferred over. I think they should have started on the domain name transfer in the beginning rather then the end, right now it is more waiting. Bear in mind I asked about the domain transfer at the beginning but was told it will be done later.

I did have a few custom pages work done, but I think that the whole process should be faster. Aside from picking the template you want and any customization work, all the rest of the contents you will need to input yourself anyway. So the timeframe for the work involved is a little much in my view. But, maybe I am just impatient. You also will be charged the first month's hosting fee at the same time as the website development. So right now there exists a possibility that I will be paying for one month's fee without my website being live. I was offered a little initial hosting special when I signed up, so that might covered it; will need to wait and see if I will be charge this week.

The user interface is decent, pretty easy to fill the main contents. You will need a little working knowledge of website design if you want to maximize the tools. For example, I think the website is already set up for SEO, but not entirely sure since there is a advanced seo part where you can put in the meta tags and titles. I will be calling support to ask about that on Monday.

Overall, it is all right; but the whole process can be a little faster. I give it 2.5 out of 4 stars.

 

[lrixford]

blue_wynd,

Thank you for choosing ITC. We start the domain process once the site is done as we are extremely careful to not bring a site down during a transfer. If something goes wrong during the transfer such as reverting to default DNS server values (GoDaddy is notorious of this) we do not want any risk of your site or email going down. Therefore we only begin the transfer once the new website and mail server (if switching) is live.

As you could tell everything is done custom in-house. We work hard to create a website that is unique to you and your needs. This does take time, however, the end product is worth the wait. If you have any concerns about the timeframe please contact your website coordinator and have them walk you through the process or give you a status update.

Finally, yes we bake SEO directly into the site. You can modify all the meta tags, robots, and sitemap.xml using the interface. Call into our support anytime between 8am and 7pm CT on weekdays or 9am and 2pm on Saturdays and have us show you how it all works.

Thanks,

 

[blue_wynd]

blue_wynd,

Thank you for choosing ITC. We start the domain process once the site is done as we are extremely careful to not bring a site down during a transfer. If something goes wrong during the transfer such as reverting to default DNS server values (GoDaddy is notorious of this) we do not want any risk of your site or email going down. Therefore we only begin the transfer once the new website and mail server (if switching) is live.

As you could tell everything is done custom in-house. We work hard to create a website that is unique to you and your needs. This does take time, however, the end product is worth the wait. If you have any concerns about the timeframe please contact your website coordinator and have them walk you through the process or give you a status update.

Finally, yes we bake SEO directly into the site. You can modify all the meta tags, robots, and sitemap.xml using the interface. Call into our support anytime between 8am and 7pm CT on weekdays or 9am and 2pm on Saturdays and have us show you how it all works.

Thanks,

Ok, that makes sense. I view it from my prospective in that my domain was just a name only, no email or content; so nothing to screw up if the transfer is done at the beginning to save time. Maybe you can change the procedures for someone who had already brought the domain name and have no content before using ITC. Your staff also contacted me earlier today about my gripe about the slowness and it is appreciated. As I told him, that is my only complaint and would recommend ITC if anyone wants an insurance website.

 

[trapp0120]

If you guys only understood how easy it was to setup a Wordpress site, buy a $45 theme and write good content, you'd not only stay in control of this whole process but it would save you money and be up and running in about 1 hours worth of time.

I get that it's one less thing you have to do, and sometimes it's easier just to pay for a service, but as you can clearly see - when it's out of your hands you just wait, wait, wait.

 

[lrixford]

WordPress is a great platform. I have designed many sites on WordPress. It has its benefits as well as a quite a few negatives. Here is a comparison that anyone should look at between Insurance Website Builder and WordPress.

Website Smackdown : Insurance Website Builder vs. WordPress - ITC Marketing Blog

The biggest benefit of WordPress is speed to market and low cost, however, you often get what you pay for. Building sites on our platform do take longer then throwing up a template that thousands of other people have downloaded. We customize each design specifically for the agency (colors, logos, lines of business, licensed stock images and content) with our in house graphic and website design teams.