Web Design Cowboys
Some may consider it a weakness on my part, but I’m one of those web designers with some morals. I only raise this point after speaking to a friend the other night and learning the astronomical quote someone gave a company he knows for a really basic e-commerce style site.
It’s something that has always irritated about a lot of web design companies and freelancers out there - the complete shoddiness of their work coupled with the ridiculous amounts they charge, while they prey on unsuspecting small businesses who know very little about the web other than it’s getting bigger and they should probably have some sort of online presence. 9 times out of 10, once they’re online they’re unlikely to ever do much business directly from their site because of how small they are anyway, so an expensive all singing, all dancing site really isn’t the most cost-effective solution for them.
I’m one of these people who (a) takes pride in their work (I see my work as an advert for my services - the better my sites are, the more likely I am to get more business) and (b) refuses to take these businesses for a ride by charging 10 times what the site’s worth. All that’ll happen is that they’ll be calling the designer a month later when they learn they’ve been ripped off, and when you couple that with the shoddy site they made that’s some pretty awful PR there.
I’ve found I’ve managed to have a nice steady stream of work come through by making quality and reasonably priced websites, leaving the customers pleased with the end result and the feeling they got great value for money. Next thing you know, you’ve got 5 other people contacting you wanting a site thanks to you good word of mouth.
Now my prices are by no means “cheap”, but I pride myself on creating something of the highest quality and value, and I’d much rather continue to get a steady stream of work, or often too much work, coming through than to take some poor soul for a ride for 20k and struggle to get much work again in the future.
This leads me to another point I’ll quickly make which also comes as a result of the conversation I had with a friend the other day. Nowadays, anyone can make a website, the real battle’s it getting found. Now, what’s the likelihood that these web design cowboys are offering any sort of SEO or PPC (if applicable) advice, or even bothering to optimise the websites properly?
As the old saying goes, “if a jobs worth doing, it’s worth doing well”.
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