Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

oh my i thought this was over.

I taken my kid to the park, gone shopping, washed the car, and had dinner.
and your still firing back....  I`m not going grace your comments with a response.

I guess the truth can be painful at times.
But your point is what? Ah yes, to make your self look even more unprofessional.

Seems tonerdesign understands the ins and outs of having more than one client at a time and doing more than just static sites with canned scripts. Or even having a 9-5 aside from the biz and kids and family...

but seriously we have become thread prirates here. Let the thread starter have it back. My numbers posted.. Ring me up and we`ll dicuss the weather and the yankess in an adult setting...
remember in PST. MAke it early as put the baby down at 9.

We encourage you to check out the 10 Key Questions we recommend you get answers to when considering any prospective web designer. hope this is helpful and productive.

rich

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Rich Sloan , Co-Founder, Chief Startupologist, StartupNation

When choosing a firm to develop your site, first I would ask what kind of site are you in need of.  Each company may have its own strengths, you need to fit the right fit for you.

If you are looking to create an ecommerce site, a designer is no probably what you want.  Designers tend to be very creative, priding themselves on creating innovative, unique sites.  If you are in business, these are not neccesarily the qualities you need.  Designers tend to be artists, not business people.  You need someone who understand Internet Marketing and commerce.  What you should strive for is

Simple, Effective, Familiar, Professional

Simple - The site should be clean and uncluttered, the navigation exceptionally simple.  And above all, how to purchase should be extremely obvious.

Effective - The site should be completely geared towards providing quality content and making the sale.  Always have a mechanism for capturing visitors emails.  In order to do this you need to have some juicy bait.  Something for free, perhaps a informative newsletter or an ebook.  Capturing emails and using them for effective follow-ups is imperative.

Familiar - Many designers frown on templates, but face it most ecommerce sites are very similar in how they present thier products, categories across the left hand side, or as drop menus, contact us and a search tool across the top etc.  Consumers will trust ecommerce site layouts they are familiar with.  Sure an innovation here or there may help you stick out, as long as the innovation makes your site easier and more intuitive to your customers.  A good template is a great starting point, it will lower your costs and speed up the development of your site.

Professional - If you follow the advice above, you are already on your way to a professional looking site.  Keep your fonts easily readable, cutesy fonts and vibrant colors should be avoided.  Excessive artwork and creative designs will detract from your goal - making a sale.  Use all the tools associated with ecommerce.  Securtiy certificates, customer support mechanism, credit card payment gateways and merchant accounts.  You have to gain a customers complete trust before they will be willing to share their credit card account with you.  Your site has to be completely professional

For these reasons, a better choice would be a Ecommerce site developer, not just a designer.  Other issues to consider are

Traffic generation - Can they help you generate traffic to your site, what is their marketing plan?  Without traffic, you will never make a profit.  Get tons of traffic and you will make sales.

Does the firm know how to setup your site to recieve credit card payments?  If you cannot accept credit card payments, you will lose a LOT of business.

On the other hand if you are in the business of providing information, expressing your personal views, an outlet for your hobby or art.  Then a designer is the way to go.

Roger Sibaja

CIO
Golden Orb Business Consulting
http://www.GoldenOrbConsulting.com

Owner
Gobi Web Hosting
http://www.gobiwebhosting.com

roger@GoldenOrbConsulting.com

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Roger Sibaja roger@goldenorbconsulting CIO Golden Orb Consulting http://www.GoldenOrbConsulting Owner GOBI Web Hosting http://www.gobiwebhosting.com

Hi everyone. This forum topic has been used by some as a platform for personal attack and that will not be tolerated.

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Some excellent points, Roger. However, most customers I`ve had don`t differentiate between "web designer" and "web developer", they know "web designer" and that`s about it, therefore they tend to get taken in by those who really don`t have the technical know-how.  This tends to speak toward having some sort of testing process with credentials that state whether the person has passed the basic knowledge needed in various areas. It would not be a bad innovation to have in this fledgling field, and would give consumers a better idea of just how much the person they choose to work with really knows. But tests can also be misleading, so I say this with some reservations.

Technical ability *should* come into it, for the web designer as well as the developer--I`ve had a LOT of sites to fix lately that didn`t display correctly, all done by graphic designers turned "web designer" except that they have no knowledge of standards, they only know how to use a WYSIWYG editor and the code is a mess. It`s a nightmare going through some of these, trying to clean them up. In a couple of cases I`ve had to completely rebuild the basic template, saving time over trying to fix every page.

On the other hand I`ve seen developers build sites that are technically correct, but are absolutely hideous and turn customers off. IMHO, a *good* web designer is someone who has a blend of both sides, technical and creative, and those are not nearly as common. The designer can specialize in the creative side, but if they`re going to be designing efficient websites, they absolutely must have a grasp of the code behind those sites and be able to correct WYSIWYG deficiencies. And it doesn`t hurt to know how to script basic stuff, either.

Many multi-person web design companies, if not most, have both designers and developers (meaning those who do the scripting behind a site, not just basic HTML code) on staff. In one-person companies, though, like mine, one person must wear many hats, and it takes a lot of effort to learn as much as is needed. I have taken online courses through http://www.iwanet.org/  in order to bring up my skills in programming. (These are excellent, by the way. The teachers are working in the field, not like a lot of community college offerings.) So while I go by the title "web designer", I`m probably somewhere between designer and developer. No wonder consumers get confused...  :-)

So maybe what we need are some defining characteristics that would help a customer choose the best firm for their needs... anyone?

My favorite term was coined by Adobe...

"Deseloper" and "Deselopment"

Someone who understands good design and usability, brings some artistic flair and reinforcement of brand imagery to the party, and then also has the technical side covered and a business sense to know how the end project is going to achieve the stated goals.


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"It`s not work, it`s network!"

Portage Media Solutions
http://www.portagemedia.com
My Blog: http://www.interactivemediatips.com

I disagree somewhat with this point.  There are plenty of designers out there that know how to handle ecommerce sites, since they are more than just graphic designers.  My designer is brilliant with css, xhtml, and php. 

You are correct with your last point though.  The biggest hurdle I see with clients who have ecommerce sites built is what to do next.  Just because you build it, doesn`t mean anyone will come to the store and buy.  SEO, SEM, email campaigns, and other online advertising techniques are critical to ecommerce success.  Offline marketing is big as well.  You need to get that URL out there everywhere.  The difference is with SEM and such, it is a little easier to measure conversion success rates.

New click and mortar retailers also tend to struggle with supply chain flow, inventory control, and fulfillment.  If you are going to go full bore with your ecommerce site, you need to have plans set to deal with the traffic and orders that hopefully will follow.


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Steve James Fresh Yields- a new media firm, providing ecommerce solutions, redesign consulting, web design, email campaign management, and internet marketing.

I first got started in web design in 1995, when black type on a gray background was the state of the art. And if you had graphics on your page? Oh, were you cool.

That was then, this is now. And viva la difference.

One of the constants of life on the Internet is that it`s always changing. Which means that we in the design field must keep up with what`s coming down the pike.

But here are a couple of things that haven`t changed:

1.  I`m still finding that the clients need to have things explained to them. In plain English.
   
2. Chemistry is still the key to a good working relationship. I`ve had some clients stay with me for almost as long as I`ve been in business. (Oh, how I love those people!) And others? Well, let`s say we went our separate ways.

Hope this helps!


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Design & Consulting | | Water Harvesting

 

What do you think this website, some of my friends said it`s perfect?

I figure you`re an expert in this field, what`s your opinion.

 

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http://space.bosslink.com is my favorite.

I would like to know more about your site . I just started working with a business called www.libertyleague.com/josephscionti

And i would like to create my own website to capture leads

Thanks Joe

Let me know if you can help

 

Thanks

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Joe Scionti joepippo1@yahoo.com