| LED Digest 1966: You're Right. Good Luck. |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest post, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com .............................................. May 5, 2005 Issue #1966 .............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Problems with Web Design ==-- ~ Malcolm Bailey ~ Mark Frank ~ Alex Hughart ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Blog Robots? ==-- ~ Michael Martinez ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Malcolm Bailey Subject: Re: Stupid Biz Owner Reply Hello Adam and folks, In LED 1965 - Mark Rogers wrote about his business needs and his requirements for his website and it's back end system. He has a large wish list that he'd like his current site to do, which it doesn't currently achieve. To be honest it's a large amount of extras that he listed and I'd expect him to need to pay in the region of thousands rather than hundreds of dollars to get this development. However his wish-list would, in the hands of a professional software house/web developer, help form a perfect specification document for a redevelopment. (Without looking at his current site I'd be careful to recommend building on top of his existing software architecture as I couldn't tell if it was suitable for supporting additional development.) It seems his experience from his first two sites has focused his needs and he now has a very clear idea of what he and his customers need. The first thing mark should do is to list all his requirements in a clear and concise manner before talking to anyone. At the end of the day, no matter how good a company or consultant they are - you will always know your business better than they can. Mark asks whether he should stay with his current web company or look elsewhere. The two questions he needs to ask are: 1. Are you happy with the current company and do they provide a professional service? 2. Can they do the additional work you want, at a reasonable cost and in a reasonable time-scale? If the answer to both of these is a resounding 'Yes' then I'd stay with them - better the Devil you know ;-) If you have doubts about either then it's probably worth asking other companys for estimates based on your requirements list. (And as other threads in LED have expressed, don't always go with the cheapest!) How do determine before it is too late if a company can do all of this? Unfortunately you can never be sure (unless you're exceptionally lucky and they've developed your exact requirements for someone else!!!), but if a company has done similar work and can provide good references from at least 2 or 3 previous clients then you're limiting you're exposure. ...how do I pick a consultant... To be totally honest, I don't think you need to hire a consultant specifically for now. I'm sure you'll get plenty of initial feedback from LED members, and then any decent web development expert should be able to fulfil this roll for you and give good advice on an ongoing basis. I've come at this from the perspective of a developer myself and not the client, so please read this in conjunction with the other advice that comes, and I hope these thoughts were of help! Good luck, Malcolm Bailey www.aethon.co.uk -------- new post - same topic --------- From: Mark Frank Subject: Web design Catherine, You wondered how to answer a client who asks, "Why should someone pay a web designer $100 per page when they can use a template program for free?" I've already fought this battle. I spent a lot of time try to convince people that I could design a better website than they could. Not one of them ever changed their mind. Now my response is, "You're right. Good luck with your new website." What I'm really telling you is this... Don't waste your time with people who ask this question. They don't get it. There is much more to building an effective website than putting pretty pictures on the Internet. A website is a marketing tool. It is an extension of the business plan and its purpose is to generate cash, leads, brand awareness, etc. The average person doesn't know this. Most people them have little appreciation for copywriting techniques, and even the best of them do not understand Internet marketing or search engine positioning. They just want a website. For them templates and poorly written text are good enough. If you are dealing with people who are asking this question, you are spending your time trying to convert people who have already decided that they don't want your services. Your time would be much better spent marketing aggressively to find new clients. Client who are willing to pay you for your work. These will be successful business owners and professionals who understand that their time is best spent working to generate income, not designing websites. Focus your efforts on clients who need and want your services. That's where the steady work is. Mark Frank http://www.websitedesignbiz.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Alex Hughart Subject: Web design > How do I know before I have spent thousands of dollars > and months of time that the new server is going to be faster > and more secure? How do I know I will get a decent ROI? - Mark Rogers, LED 1965 One way is to figure out FIRST what would you like to accomplish and exactly what features would you like to have on your website. Second, do a little research what shopping cart software has those features or ability to add them later. All major shopping carts have a support network (specialized sites, forums, chatrooms, etc.) of developers and users. You can find a lot of useful information there - which are good hosting companies for that specific cart for example. You have to look at somewhat bigger picture: how large the support network is, how easy and how quickly questions can be answered and problems solved, how easy would be to customize / upgrade / add features in the future... In the end, you don't have to do everything yourself but you have to have some general idea how things work. At least, you will know when to hire a professional and for what type of work. You might not know but, my guess is, your existing site is made of a template: oscommerce or zen-cart. This brings me to other issues you brought up in your post. To customize a template with several hundreds products is a time consuming project, no matter what. You said you paid $1,500 for two months of work (I believe, it takes at least a month of fulltime work to set up an e-commerce site, even with a template and all the copy and images ready, let alone one with several hundred products). Do you expect to pay an in-house designer/webmaster $1,500 a month? As far as customers responding to the changes goes, that's anybody's guess. I'm sure, they will welcome any change for the better. Decent ROI? Again, we need a little bit of a perspective here. Brick-and-mortar retailers spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on their stores hoping that their investment might pay off in 5 years or so. Somehow, online retailers expect the same amount of sales with a website done by somebody else for $1,500. Well, according to the laws of economics, physics, universe - whatever you want to call it - this is just not possible! However you look at it, you'll have to pay for your entry into the business world. Your final invoice might show that you paid 80% in time and sweat and 20% with money or the other way around but, you'll pay for it. In any case, more you learn, more you are better off. At least, you won't have to pay for the same thing over and over again. Alex Hughart www.bonsavon.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Michael Martinez Subject: Blog bots > I started receiving referrals from blogs to my website... > They fill up my statistics and block good referral from > showing in my stats, by their numbers. - Baruch Avraham, LED 1965 Blog robots are searching for RSS feeds. If you have any on your site, that is why they are there. They will in no way hurt your rankings in search results. If you do have RSS feeds, they may be picked up by automated page-generators on some of the aggregator sites. You'll get more inbound links and people may subscribe to your feeds through their personal start pages. My sites get widespread exposure and visibility through RSS feeds. They are a good source of generating inbound links and traffic. I have been using RSS feeds to build links and traffic since 1998. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2005 Orange Wheel, LLC. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Tiredness begets sleep begets dreaming, and awareness." -Anon. |
