Monthly Archives: October 2008

5 reasons why you should have a website… what you dont already have one?

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If anyone ever asks, and believe me they will, remind them just what the reason for a website is, how beneficial it can be and what they will be missing out on if they DON´T have one and the competition do!

1) Always be available for business:
You don’t have to turn customers away when its closing time. A website can make any business 365-24-7. Which is better, leaving a note or voice mail saying your closed, ultimately sending them elsewhere, or letting them know they can find the information they need, or even make a purchase through your website. There is NO other medium that is always available, interactive, and this affordable.

2) Save money on materials:
You can lower your printed material costs by making them available on a website. This not only benefits you with reduced printing and mailing costs, but your website visitor as well, now having instant access to your material anytime they need it. Other traditional materials can be handled online as well, such as job applications, contracts, training materials and much more!

3) Improves customer relations and perceptions:
Customers today expect an established business to have a professional website. Saying you don’t have one “yet”, isn’t a good signal to send. Beyond that, a website can provide news or details about your business, and special offers to its visitors, strengthening your name recognition and most of all your credibility. A website provides the unique opportunity to tell potential customers what you are about and why you deserve not only their trust and confidence, but their business.

4) Provide convenience to customers and prospects:
A website can provide clients contact information, a source for feedback, complaint resolution, and even handle billing transactions. Making things convenient isn’t only important to keeping customers happy, prospects need convenient access to information as well.

An ever increasing number of shoppers use the internet for pre-purchase research. The most convenient way to do this is searching for products or services online of course. If your not there, you may be seriously missing out. How will they decide between you and your competitors.

5) Market expansion, and diversify revenue sources:
A website serves as a great place to refer potential investors. Growing your business yourself? The unique advantages of the internet has allowed businesses to break geographical barriers. Your business can go from local to reaching more people in your area, to nation wide, or even virtually any country in the world by potential customer with Internet access. You could also provide online only products and services, or sell ads on your site, or share your expert knowledge to diversify your revenue in addition to your traditional offline business.

What is an internet specialist…and where do I find one?

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Saying your an internet specialist is like a doctor saying they are a body expert or a lawyer saying they are a law expert… its just not true because its not specific enough for a professional today who works in the internet sector. It never has been actually but the general public are certainly not aware of this it seems.

Lets break this down a little. The human body is the market sector. Its covered in general by a GP (General Practice) Doctor. Thats the local man in the white coat you go to at stage one for a diagnosis of a problem or symptom. These doctors are the guys who look over the body in general and make the initial recommendations on reaching a solution. So what next…

Well that all depends…depends on what?

If you need your teeth fixed you get a dentist, heart surgery a heart surgeon, brain surgery a brain surgeon, burns a burns expert. Guess what, the internet is pretty similiar in regards the differences in expertise. God knows you would NEVER let a brain surgeon do heart surgery or a dentist fix a broken leg and YES its the same when choosing an expert for completing a job on the internet.

Thats not to say that heart experts dont know about the brain and vice versa (and this is where the lines blur) but its not something they would take on and they would not be able to do it correctly, nevermind the fact that you might die…

So when someone says “I’m an internet expert” I immeidatley assume they are a web user who knows what they are doing SURFING the web, not someone who works directly on it. What you need to find is an expert who does the specific job you require doing… makes sense no? Well guess what, not many people do it they simply assume that the person who makes websites is also an expert in:

Hosting, emails, coding, designing, programming, SEO, marketing, security, development, navigation etc. The list goes on!

And the problem can be that the website builders may not correct the client that THEY are not the experts in this particular area that needs addressing and this is cimply a recipe for disaster!

So how would a client know what choice to make when selecting the right professional for the job. Its not a big secret to be honest, its common sense, but it continues to astound me how many people will skip these all important sensible points when they are doing business.

Check these simple points out before you hand over any money to an “internet expert”

- Reputation
There are two aspects of reputation to check. The “real world” reputation as to the professionals conduct in general and the online reputation, what they are associated with, who they work with and who they are partnered with are examples of reviewing a professionals reputation.

- Testimonails
Client and business testimonials are excellent ways of assessing a professionals professionalism. That is, if the testimonials are REAL. This is something that happens in any business where an apparent glowing confirmation of a business was submitted by someone who never has, and never will exist so NEVER be afraid to check up on these testimonials and speak to the people who have supplied them.

- Portfolio
Some web companies are unfortunately restricted from publishing the work they do for clients and allowing it to be seen in their portfolios (this can be for a multitude of different reasons) but its no excuse. Web Design businesses should have a range of clients to show off in a portfolio.
*NOTE – portfolios are subjective, you might like the work you may not, but the work is examples of potential outcome and also bear in mind clients can, on occasion, have to much input into a design, thus potentially destroying the work in professionals eyes but leaving the client happy.

Follow these few steps and though there are no guarentees, it will help to ensure that the decision you make is more than liely correct and the investment in time and money wont be a waste.

I have plenty more to write around this type of subect so bear with me as I get it together.

Advice for Web Design Freelancers

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A lot of people have approached web design via this route and this is mostly due to the nature of the internet itself I believe. Having been created and progressed so quickly and hitched with a “you can do this yourself and its free” moniker that alot of people stepped up and thought “hell yeah! I can do it myself and its free”. It became a pàssion, a hobby, an interest and eventually turned into a business. Unfortunately the “its Free” monkiier has stuck a little more than the “I can do it myself” side of things but that is being dealt with.

Anyways, how can you start out for free as a web design free lancer? Simple. Offer it for Free and someone will take it for free. Cant find someone to do it for free? do it yourself for free. Make a website, make a system, make something that can be used in a portfolio as an example of work done to illustrate to clients who you are and what you do. Even your own site can be a statement or promotional piece that shows potential clients what you are capable of producing.

Now hopefully you will end up with a free client somewhere along the line (by the way if you cant find someone who wants it free, then seriously consider another line of work…). Do the job take the knocks and get it done and completed. Now the serious work begins. Finding a paying client. Dont be a complete desperate fool at this stage.

DO NOT offer your services for next to nothing, you would be better doing it for free.

DO NOT offer to do a project which is really worht ALOT of TIME and MONEY for next to nothing or free.

DO NOT make your prices so low that you undervalue your own work, be honest, be fair to clients and yourself and it will benefit all involved.

Its your first project, so find something manageable, simple to complete and with easy satisfaction to both you, the client and hopefully the end user or visitor to the site.

If possible make a contract. Clarify the client requirements and what is required from you in as much detail as possible. If you dont have a contract, and even if you do, make sure you take 50% deposit to begin works and cover the 1st year of hosting, the initial design work etc.

Do the job and only put the site live or hand over any files created after all, and I mean ALL, outstaidng amounts have been cleared. Never have a client pressure you into hanidng over work or putting a site live without agreement in wirting from them to pay the difference.

An exception to this is having the site hosted on their hosting account. To many people guillably put files on the hosting account managed by the client only to have no response from them afterwards, or a nice email saying “we are not satisfied and are not paying…” even thoguh the site is live and functioning.. thats when you are beat.

NEVER EVER put the site, files, copies of the files or give the client access to the files via FTP until the work has been paid for. THEY DO NOT own it until it has been paid for.

Freelancing can be a very tough game and unless your tough yourself you may find the clients running your business for you very quickly. So good luck with managing those web design clients and not let them manage you and hopefully some of this advise will help avoid some of the more serious pitfalls alot of people encounter in the early days of starting out.