I have a big job on my hands

[JoyDivision]

One of the people I have met through networking has paid £500 for this site which I must admit looks good. However its produced using Dreamweaver and using tables, javascript roll-over images and other iffy stuff.

There is no code validation or anything. The company put a add in Google adds so it appears in Google but there site appears to have no SEO at all.

The cheapest I could do this site for would be about £600-£700 because I would use CSS/XHTML and validate all the code this takes a lot longer due to reasons I won't bore people with.

My problem is persuading people that my sites are worth more even if they look the same to the human eye. I can tell them about SEO, text readers etc but I am not sure if people are willing to pay a premium until they are totally convinced by web accessibility and usability.

I wondered if anybody had any similar problems, not just in web development but with anything and how they managed to get around competitors offering cheaper products that look the same but are actually inferior?

[fastfences]

Hi JD,

A lot may depend upon the person's use for their site. I think a lot of people don't care about SEO and being top of page one on Google or Yahoo.

If you were to build a site for a charity for instance, I don't think they would want to pay for all the validation time etc. All they would require is a mere 'presence' that they may use for seeking donations etc.

On a more personal note, my site, for example, would probably contravene every web developers rules. Built with your pet hate (templates) I did the lot myself with NetObjects Fusion (ver 8). I haven't got a clue about validation etc, but I use the site successfully as a gallery of work. It ranks 1 on Google, partly, I think, because of the thousand and twenty seven :wink: directories I'm registered with. ou could pick holes in it but it works for me!

So what I am saying is 'qualify' or check your client's needs first. If they have a budget of £500, tell them what they can get and what they will expect, THEN, TELL THEM WHAT THEY CAN GET FOR £600 etc.

But one thing, neverlower yourself to match the 'cowboys' of teenage wanna be designers.

cheers, Nigel

[DuaneJackson]

I think Nigel is right in saying this particular person isn't your customer. Just because you "do websites" doesn't mean everyone that wants a website is a potential customer. Learn to spot the difference and/or upsell.

Sometimes the good ol' "Ahhh, you're after a cheap site. We only do high quality, top-end stuff." works a treat. Dangle it in front of them and then take it away and see how quickly they bite your arm off.

[JoyDivision]

Yep there will always be customers that will always go to the same supplier no matter what, we all do if we are happy with a service we don't change.

I think I need to invest in a cheap PIII laptop so and build one accessible site and one thats not, both which look identical, that way I can show them the problems.

I think if I can find SMEs which do need accessible sites I should be ok. I tend to be a bit more artistic than some people that specialise in this stuff which should give me an advantage.

I know for a fact the market is there now having spoken to people both on here and in real life about so once the site is done I need to attend some networking events.

I also should tell my old boss what I am doing, he might not be too pleased at all, but if I am promoting accessibility I am making people aware of it, so it could do his business some good. His company targets public sector and I am targeting SMEs so its highly unlikely I will take any custom away.

PS If your happy with your site that is all that matters. A lot of people cannot afford to spend £500 on a site and I understand that.

[DeveloperBloke]

hi there,



at the end of the day, css takes llonger, which equals more money, when no direct business advantage can be made. their website will still work, still look exactly the same.

i have worked with compnaies and have discussed this issue many times, and they dont care. i have worked on projects of 10,000, and doing that sort of site in css would add a fortune to it. if you are going to learn css, dont become a css diciple. make sure that you can still use tables, styled with css, as your contracts will grow and grow as you get better and better, and thats whent he price difference can really be seen

the web standards are only there because at one stage, this was the next genration of how web sites were to be built, but the humble tables are still around, and as long as there are lots of differen browsers, then they still will be because you cant have a set of standards if the very browsers which display sites dont adhere to these standards ro are at different levels

j

[DuaneJackson]

Well said - nothing "iffy" about DW, tables or rollovers!

[mattk]

I agree with you JD, but it all comes down to showing that you can add value. I find that people who's sites have been through one or two evolutions are alot more clued up with regards to things like search engines and are happy to pay a little extra to get an all round site. A site that looks good is worthless if no one can find it - and you need to point this out to your customers.

As for CSS taking longer - I'm not sure about that. Obviously there is an overhead with regards to building the CSS, but once it's done the task of adding a new page should literally be a cut and paste job, no code required.

It makes be laugh when you see people offering sites for £49 all in. You get what you pay for.

[creospace]

I think if your good with CSS and only use tables for forms and data display then you can build a site as quick if not quicker. £500 is better than £0! Take the job and do what you would normally do for the same price!!

All my sites now come validated with minimum tables apart from the above regardless of what somone pays, it's a matter of good customer service and product quality.

Gary

[Anonymous]

My brother is a web designer and was recently asked by a client to create a new site in tables rather than CSS as the client wasn't bothered about accessibility issues ect, he was rather annoyed at the client but then I gave him some words of wisdom; If you just get on with it in tables, make an excellent job of it and take the money- I am sure when the world catches up to web standards they will be asking you to convert the site into XHTML and CSS, so you will be payed by them again.
-Tom

[multilingual]

If the client is paying, then give the client what he wants, but make sure you explain the ins and outs in details first.

When clients come to us for a translation, we quote a price and they ocassionaly go up the wall and claim that, "how can you justify that?" and, "anyone with a basic knowledge of language can translate", or "I can get it cheaper elsewhere".

We sometimes go down the Duane route and say "Oh you want a cheap and chearful translation, sorry we only do professional translation", etc.

The important thing is to explain why you are more expensive and give all the benefts of what you do against the pitfalls of going for the cheap options. If they still are not convinced then let them go elsewhere, but the serious ones will listen and understand that low cost now may cost them more in the long run.

There is an old Russian saying:

"I am not so rich that I can afford to buy cheap things!"

JB

[creospace]

I've heard that saying too from my wife but I think in English it's 'You get what you pay for'

Gary

[multilingual]

Exactly,

You pay your money, you take your choice.

The important thing is that if someone wants you to do a cheap job then tell them absolutely everything beforehand. Then after it's done, there will be no comebacks along the lines of "This doesn't do what I want it to do, I want my money back"

You just have to say "Well I did highlight this issue before we started"

JB

[JoyDivision]

The problem is I want to take the web forward, more and more people are using mobile phones for web access and if the site doesn't work on mobiles it annoys me. But then I am not Joe Bloggs.

The reason making old fashioned tabled sites is quicker is you can just use any crappy WYSWYG editor, randmomly add some tables, stick some images in there, the site will look good but will be a complete mess.

Plus there is no time consuming issue of validation which always causes problems even when you know XHTML.

I suppose it is my job to convince people why they need web standards without scare mongering or being pushy.

I have been building sites since I was 15, I am 23 now so thats quite a long time, so I can build the old fashioned tabled sites.

I suppose another way of looking at is I should get a loss less come back on a CSS/XHTML site as it should work in virtualy anything, so in this repsect I might be able to do it for the same price as a tabled/godknows what one.

The clients just want a site to work for them, so as longs as it works in I.E they will be happy, until customers start complaining the site dosn't work.

Developerbloke I have found that the last two sites I have made worked in all Firefox, Opera and IE with minimal tweaking, its just practise. You get to learn the tricks and how to avoid the IE pitfalls.

I also have a nice book which explains how to get round that issue.

I must admit I am have a rather annoying problem at the moment though where IE is refusing to see a heading tag for no apparant reason. It knows its a heading but its not seeing the size element in the CSS.

[creospace]

Get it in writing not just verbally, disclaimers etc. Often before signing a disclaimer the custoemr reads tiand realises what the developer is going on about and decides to upgrade. Plus of ocurse yoru covered if they do come back.

Gary

[JoyDivision]

Exactly,

You pay your money, you take your choice.

The important thing is that if someone wants you to do a cheap job then tell them absolutely everything beforehand. Then after it's done, there will be no comebacks along the lines of "This doesn't do what I want it to do, I want my money back"

You just have to say "Well I did highlight this issue before we started"

JB

One problem is though is the portfolio, people will judge me by work and I cannot exactly say "this client wanted a cheap site because he was tight fisted!" that would not go down well. Once I have a lot of stuff in my portfolio then I will probably be less fussy about not validating sites if the client has a very small budget.

[JustOneUK]

That's true, but then you don't have to put all your work in your porfolio. How many pages do you have to make for the £500, or is it database driven?

James

[MinuWeb]

offer the client the choice

£x.xx for cheapo design
£y.yy for using css etc

then explain that a conversion in future will cost alot more than the current difference between x and y.

You don't have to put every site you design in your portfolio

Take the job, do it well, take the money

[JoyDivision]

For £500 it will be completly database driven. Its won't be a full CMS for that price, but clients can easily update their sites via simple web form.

It will be a good solid weeks work with couple of extra days added on case I am rushed to hospital or somthing.

£500 a week is not a lot though when I won't have work every week and I also have to take expensives off that.

At first most sites will have to go in the portfolio as I only have two sites in there at the moment. My cousin runs a sweet shop so I am going to ask him if he wants a very cheap site which I will make a big loss on in order to fill my portfolio :).

[creospace]

Joy, what is your portfolio, or indeed what is your site?

Gary

[multilingual]

Gary,

This where we hear the wind blowing and a tumbleweed rolling by.

We are all waiting to see a JD site.

:)

JB

[JoyDivision]

Joy, what is your portfolio, or indeed what is your site?

Gary

It is still offline as its not finished yet as I have two businesses I am running. The main long term one is a web developers site, the other is a WIFI installation service which I am going to test trade as I have no idea if it will take off.

[creospace]

ah :?

sneak preview maybe :lol:

Gary

[creospace]

I always thought about doing a wifi domestic instalation service when i was in the Uk, think it could work well in the future.

Gary

[JustOneUK]

there is a whole bunch of stuff here,

however I am interested how you can sell your website seo service, what results have you had in that field?

James

[multilingual]

more wind and more tumbleweed :)

JB

[JoyDivision]

there is a whole bunch of stuff here,

however I am interested how you can sell your website seo service, what results have you had in that field?

James

I will post a picture up later I need to be in town in an hour so I don't have much time now. Its on Apache on my local machine at the moment.

Most my SEO knowledge at the moment is theoretical but I managed to get my parents site on the top of goolge just by converting into XHTML/CSS.

For the copy if the client needs good search engine results I intend to sub contract that out. I know exactly how to make a site good in terms of its structure but its the actual content I need to brush up on.

The WIFI business is designed to help clash flow

[creospace]

Oh Joy, when can we expect to see the digital delight of untamed maganatude. you simply call it your business website but due to its legendry state has simply become known as 'THE SITE' (drums roll like in 2001 a space oddesy) :o

Tease us Joy, tease us like you've never teased before, my money is on 2 weeks?

Gary :lol:

[DuaneJackson]

The problem is I want to take the web forward,

Ahhh, idealism. bless.

You'd actually be a hindrance to a client - they operate in the real commercial world. You need to do what the client wants, not what you want. They pay you.

[gapgb]

Joydivision

If I can offer some advice from an ex director of several SME's don't get too technical too quickly in your sales pitch. I bought several websites with varying degrees of success from several vendors (and yes I know my site is nothing special but it cost me nothing because I'm in start up mode).

What was important to me was less price, although that was a factor because everyone has a budget, but more the comfort factor with the vendor. Did they listen to me? Did they take the time to understand my business? Did they explain what was possible at different price levels? Did I understadn what the hell they were talking about?

With the thousands of web developers bombarding you with promises you kind of take it as a given they can do websites once you've looked at a few examples of their work. If they started to explain the technical side too much then you just get lost.

Sell yourself first, your customer service etc. Most clients really want to talk about themselves so listen and you should pick up what's important to them. If it's price then you're on a sticky wicket straight away. If they say you're too expensive then this may be a sign they really want to use you. As others have said offer them something less for a lower price and people usually will then stay with the better option even of they are paying more.

The worst pitch I ever heard was some chap rang me up, told me he'd looked at my site and told it was Ok'ish and then told me my SEO was crap. This got my back up pretty fast and I told him where to go and hung up even though we had just budgeted a few £k to improve in that very area. He just made me want to punch him.

Any way I can ramble on for ever so I'll stop, I hope this helps

Guy

[DeveloperBloke]

hi there

joy division

The reason making old fashioned tabled sites is quicker is you can just use any crappy WYSWYG editor, randmomly add some tables, stick some images in there, the site will look good but will be a complete mess

i have been programming for 4 years. if it wasnt for wysiwyg editors, then i would have to write all of the html or css too. i am fluent in both, and not only would i find this boring, and at £25+ an hour, thats gonna be costly. I spend as little time as possible on the front end, as i need to ensure that the programming and back end of the site are top notch. ths doesnt mean that my sites dont look good, and i dont take care in what it loks like, just that the wysiwyg editor cuts this time considreably.


I suppose it is my job to convince people why they need web standards without scare mongering or being pushy. #

why do they need web statndards? if it is cros browser compatible, but not web standardised, then whats the problem

Developerbloke I have found that the last two sites I have made worked in all Firefox, Opera and IE with minimal tweaking, its just practise. You get to learn the tricks and how to avoid the IE pitfalls.


im sure they did, and so did mine, but mine didnt take as long :D

why limit (and thats exactly what you need to do to get corss browser compatibilty with css) when you can simply use tables to achieve the same if not better results (compatibility wise)

one thing i would love to see, is one browser, and one browser only. this way, as developers we could then use web standards, we could cut development time, do what we want without worrying whether it will or wont work.

and pigs might fly

j

j

[JoyDivision]

The problem is I want to take the web forward,

Ahhh, idealism. bless.

You'd actually be a hindrance to a client - they operate in the real commercial world. You need to do what the client wants, not what you want. They pay you.

Well if there is no market for accessible sites its as simple as that, I move on.

Money is not important to me at all, I would rather earn £10k a year and do things I am deeply passionate about than earn £20k producing stuff I don't believe in just becuase the clients wants it.

I am sure I can work out a way to offer CSS/XHTML/W3C validated sites for the same money as other people are not offering them for.

I would rather see it as a niche than a hindrance.

I am not changing my business but what I can change is marketing plan to ensure clients see the benefit which is what the thread was about in the first place.

[creospace]

As I've said before if you know CSS well then it takes just as long as tables however. You have a much neater code and a faster loading page and seeing as CSS seems to be the future rather than tabled layouts it's worth getting to grips with. CSS gives far greater control over sites than tabled layouts.

However I think JoyD is making a little fuss out of nothing here because if you do know it well like I said, dead easy to knock sites up.

I admire JoyD for his care over his work, less speed more haste Developer bloke. We're trying to earn a honest living not make a fast buck.

Gary

[JoyDivision]

Thanks for the replies, I was reading a marketing section of this book on the bus which echoes what some people have said here. A customer is not likely to care if its done in CSS/XHTML or not, but the end result will be better.

In non technical terms I will have to convince people of why CSS/XHTML is better. A am selling sites which load faster, are easier to maintain and should produce better search engine results.

When I do post my site by the way it won't be perfect there will be problems with it which hopefully will be ironed out when I get some feedback.

[Richard Conyard]

Joy,
I think we could probably do a nice bit list on the benefits to getting sites done properly (I think I have some marketing info somewhere), but to kick it off:
Faster load times
Better for search engines - so better placement, more visitors and hopefully more sales
Ability to change design without having to re-do content or structure
If any case law eventually hits likely to be better placed against any DDA "requirements"
Easier to maintain so less on-going costs
Ability to display over multiple devices better (mobiles, tv, pda, etc.)
Greater amount of future proofing (ties a little into the last point)
Since all main browser companies have made a commitment to standards it is unlikely that newer versions of browsers are likely to break the site

--
Any more for any more. There are enough design agencies on here that should be able to put more points down (after all I can and we do programming not design).

[sparklyscotty]

Joy - I sympathis with your issues here, although I make jewellery and you design web pages. I am also in category where my work is high quality but still affordable if that is what people are looking for.
A lot of it comes down to percieved value, and trying to express that in terms of what a client needs.
If someone asks me 'do I do plastic or glass pearls?' I say no. I can't guarantee their quality; the colour might fade; the finish might wear off. Once this is explained to customers, they make a choice - pay for quality, or go look elsewhere for cheaper.
The difficult part is realising that you can't make the decision for them. You just have to make your own choice - do you need the money and take the job, or do you pass the job up? I agree with above posts that if you take the job you need to do it to your normal high standards.
One necklace in particular I sold was a commission which ended up double the budget. I swallowed the losss and added the design to my collection at a good price and have sold loads since on referral.
-Angel-

[mattk]

I'm not being funny JD, but if your portfolio consists of your cousin's sweet shop and other sites, then you'll always be doomed to work with people who don't understand the importance of standards, css etc. Do you have a full time job as well as your designing/wifi?

If not, then I suggest you try and get work with a large agency who will give you some experience of working on quality blue-chip Web sites. These will add masses of endorcement to your portfolio and will allow you to work with a higher echelon of client.

[fastfences]

. . . I cannot exactly say "this client wanted a cheap site because he was tight fisted!" that would not go down well.

But you can say, 'this client was on an extremely tight budget, it's not what I would recommend, but it's his start-up site.' That enables you to replace the emphasis on your better option.
Cheers, Nigel

[SillyJokes]

One key driving factor to me would be whether I would ever see a finished product.

Would I ever see one from JD? If money is not a motivator how would I ever get him to finish the project? Tell him a disabled puppy needed it to raise funds for a new leg? ;)

[fastfences]

That's not very fair :wink:

What's that cliche; Rome wasn't built in a day?

Cheers, Nigel

[JoyDivision]

Edited for no so I can make some improvements when I get a more creativity.

[multilingual]

er........

:?

Anyone care to comment, I am a bit lost for words.

JB

[JoyDivision]

The phone is probably too big, I just wanted to try somthing a bit different. It might look better if I have a few smaller images.

[Hayles]

Have I missed something?

I know I'm not very good with directions...... could that be why I'm lost? :?

[JoyDivision]

I posted a screenshot of my site which was half way complete, I know it has problems with it but the feedback wasn't good (judging by the lack of it) so I have taken it off.

I am going to have a long break away from my computer in the hope of gaining some creativity.

[fastfences]

No, don't do that. It may be counter-productive.
You're probably on a roll now; it's best to keep the momentum going. You got the site up and identified just a minor prob; attack whilst the iron's hot!!
Cheers, Nigel

[Hayles]

Don't be so pessimistic JD! I'm sure it wasn't that bad. The lack of feedback could have been because everyone was elsewhere.

(I myself wasn't around to give you feedback as I was attending my first UKBF addict meeting - I was away for a whole TWO hours!!)

Why not set yourself a deadline to work to for your site. The new year is always good to give yourself and your career a boost - give yourself a date, say 30th Jan to have it all up and running?

Hayles

[JoyDivision]

I am going to concentrate on my other business now as it does not require the same kind of creativity and can get me money quicker, that will allow me to develop my web development business more slowly.

At the moment I am under a lot preasure at home due to a few family problems (most of us have them though). I am also reading an awful lot about business.

I need to have some fun to bring back my creativity.

I am not happy with the current version which is why I took it off.