Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hi,

 

I`m wondering if anyone has ever tried a program like this one http://www.1webimage.com/sbprogram/index.htm

 

It`s a program designed to help small businesses get the most out of their presence on the Web.

 

Looking for your honest and straightforward comments.

 

Thank you in advance

I personally have no experience with such a company.  I`m more of a DIY person.

I tend to believe you will find better results with individuals or small companies that will give you a personal working relationship.  From what I see on the homepage of that site, it`s a pretty faceless company.  They hardly mention their company name and don`t have a logo until the bottom of the page.  The URL isn`t clean.  And this line, "Building traffic to bring visitors" is redundant and poorly written.  Traffic and visitors are the same thing!

To me, it looks like they don`t know what they are doing.  That`s just my impression.

That company isn`t doing anything special... I do all that stuff for my clients, as I would expect any web designer worth their salt would be doing. The main differences I see are that you`re paying a flat annual rate rather than getting billed hourly or per-project; and, you don`t really  have much say in what goes on with your site because it`s all some kind of prepackaged deal... there doesn`t appear to be any individual human with whom you can discuss anything. What do you do if web1image gets something wrong? Who do you ask for when you call? Will they meet you for coffee and pick up the tab for your Venti soy quad mocha latté?

I know that for my own clients the initial outlay of cash is usually considerably higher than $1000, but month-to-month the invoices are considerably less. Depending how the site is set up and what the client wants, the annual expense can be less than half what web1image is charging... including ongoing SEO and all that.

My educated guess is that web1image is a couple of guys in the Philippines who set up the contracts, collect the money, then farm out the work to freelancers at elance.com for a tiny fraction of what they collect. I see this business model cropping up everywhere and I don`t like it... I think it takes unfair advantage of peoples` lack of knowledge regarding web design & development and ultimately costs them more than it should.

—paula

That URL looks insanely expensive for what you get.

I honestly don`t see the point. And I agree it looks offshore to me.