New web designers, get your own site sorted first...

[Ashley_Price]

So I came in this morning to a enquiry through our website contact us form. It turned out to be a young web designer using the form to promote his own services to us and telling us he had looked at our site and had suggestions of what could be done to make it better.

Now, firstly, I consider anyone using a firm's website contact form to sell their own services as rude - and certainly won't endear themselves to me. However, I did take a second to go and look at the chap's own website and was shocked to discover there was so much missing, and the grammar was very poor... and he's trying to sell his service to us?!

Have a look atTHIS WEBSITE and you'll see what I mean:

The Examples page states "We have created websites a lot and have experience doing it." (Ouch!) But there's only two examples.

The About Us page, tells us nothing other than he's doing a couple of courses at a college, and his Contact Us page doesn't have any contact details, just "TEXT TEXT TEXT" placeholders and a couple of quotes.

 

[ryedale]

Drives you mad doesn't it.. I had one a few weeks ago with a similar sales pitch, looked at the site and some of his work and it was entirely tables based with inline css on every line

 

[NickGrogan]

That's pretty bad.

Did you view the source? it's 1 big frame, always great for SEO

Wacky Wear is his own site. If you ever need a apostrophe, he's gone plenty.

I especially liked the "Men's Evlis" costume.

The other site doesn't look like his work or their current site.

 

[Tombo46]

He must be busy. You have to wait 3-4 days for a reply!

 

[ryedale]

I don't like to discourage anyone who is starting out as a freelance designer - we've all been there once.. but it does annoy me that he'll probably end up getting someone to pay him who doesn't have a clue about design and they'll end up having to fork out again to get the site redone eventually.

 

[Darren Street]

Yep but its got "built by Ben" so it must rock.

 

[Darren Street]

Actually I really wouldn't worry about this sort of contact. Its simple enough to remove and life is too short.

As far as the site is concerned...well you get what you pay for. We have all been there so well done "built by Ben" for having the nous to try and win more business. Perhaps a little unfortunate thou for you.

 

[Nuno]

I wonder which industry he has "... 20 years industry experience" in.
Embellishing (the truth) industry?
Food (porky pies) industry?

Or it might be the web industry. 20 years takes us back to 1994. I wonder which of the 2738 websites existing then he was involved with.

 

[Ashley_Price]

I wonder which industry he has "... 20 years industry experience" in.

And why isn't that experience mentioned in the About Us section? All we know is that he's attending college.

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

It's usually foreign spammers that send us messages via our website contact form for seo, copywriting, printing and such like. I have to remember not to hit the spam button so I don't blacklist my own contact form email address, so that's the only annoyance about it. Otherwise I just ignore it.

 

[FSIvan]

He must be busy. You have to wait 3-4 days for a reply!

And that's the "Quick contact" method!

 

[Darren Street]

Tell you what "Built by"...don't talk any notice. I think your website looks just fab. You are obviously a pro of the highest order.

 

[vvaannmmaann]

Ben also says
"We work to rigorous standards, constantly reflecting and improving our quality assurance processes to ensure you get the best possible end result. It is this attention to detail that clients consider sets us apart from other businesses."

 

[Feldon]

Oh dear, black background and white text, a big no from me, i don't even bother to read text on this type of webiste, makes it to harsh to read.

 

[10032012]

@Ashley_Price Not sure why you are getting so worked up by Ashley, I get hundreds of emails a week both via contact forms on the website and whois email address talking about web design, buying the domain name and everything in between.

My suspicions is its probably not some beginner freelancer spamming to get work but someone looking to receive payment for some sort of service and running with the cash. Could be a small amount but in many countries its not a bad days work.

 

[Ashley_Price]

Not sure why you are getting so worked up by Ashley

I'm not worked up as such, just amazed that we got this email from someone who has such a poor website themselves. I guess I took the time to look, instead of just deleting, because he's in Sussex as well.

 

[Scotty71]

He's probably 13 and working in between his homework - although I'd be mortified if my own 13 year old's writing was as poor.

I guess what we can't knock is initiative, but I do share the cynicism about designers and web developers whose own sites bring their pitch crashing down like a house of cards.... Unfortunately there are all too many of them around.

 

[businessfunding]

I agree that it is poor, amateur spamming

On the flip side, it is a college kid having a go - so perhaps we should try to educate not just criticise.

He has made himself a sitting duck though...

 

[Karimbo]

But we've blocked all emails containing al the typical spam words:

Seo, [various drugs], web design, web backlinks, online marketing, first page, virtual assistant, data entry et all

So any emails containing these words in the subject are deleted on sight. We also deleted all senders with barclays, hsbc, natwest etc in the senders name field to block out those annoying bank emails. This is probably a bad idea. Because we recently had a major bank contact us for work, the bank was not on our spam list - but I'm pretty sure we've never inadvertently deleted genuine enquires from the spam listed banks.

Unfortunately outlook spam filtering software is expensive, so we have to resort to this.

 

[Ste Hughes]

Why would you make a forum thread naming and shaming the kid?

He states he's at college, he is clearly 16/17.

He's just doing his best to make some money, why would you put this up? Anyone that Googles him now will probably see this, I'd rather have people like Ben emailing me than Sandu from Mumbai.

 

[Karimbo]

Good point Ste.

I'm glad I didn't pile in on the guy.

Everyone starts somewhere, if I told you what I did to make money online at 16 you guys wouldn't like me very much (p.s. nothing illegal, just bad business strategy)

 

[Ashley_Price]

Why would you make a forum thread naming and shaming the kid?
.
.
He's just doing his best to make some money, why would you put this up?

But he is trying to sell his services to others and if he's trying to make some money, selling a complex service like website design, then he needs to be able to show he knows his stuff.

I wouldn't have made mention of it if he was just a kid with a hobby.

He states he's at college, he is clearly 16/17.

That doesn't come into it. If your £50,000 BMW was wrecked by a 16/17 year old would you shrug your shoulders and say "Oh well, he's at college learning to be a mechanic. He's clearly only 16/17. He's just doing his best to make some money."

He's at college, doing A-Level Business as well as ICT, so he should be even more aware of what is acceptable and what isn't. Of course he "might" be a mature student.

I'd rather have people like Ben emailing me than Sandu from Mumbai.

Would you prefer to hire Ben based on his website, or "Sandu from Mumbai" who had a fantastic website that showed off his skills and experience?

 

[Ste Hughes]

But he is trying to sell his services to others and if he's trying to make some money, selling a complex service like website design, then he needs to be able to show he knows his stuff.

I wouldn't have made mention of it if he was just a kid with a hobby.

He is obviously new at this, anyone with eyes can see that and I doubt anyone would be tricked into thinking his is a great designer.

That doesn't come into it. If your £50,000 BMW was wrecked by a 16/17 year old would you shrug your shoulders and say "Oh well, he's at college learning to be a mechanic. He's clearly only 16/17. He's just doing his best to make some money."

Would I do that, no would i bollocks. But in this instance he offering you something. He has not ruined something. At the most he has taken 2 mins out your day. From what I see he has done nothing deserving of having his name slated on a forum where he is not a member and cannot see this.

He's at college, doing A-Level Business as well as ICT, so he should be even more aware of what is acceptable and what isn't. Of course he "might" be a mature student.

Do you really think they learn stuff like this in college (etiquette etc)? It will be the text book stuff, I never did either at college or high school but business studies is not about business in that sense from my understanding. The kid has the learn but if he's knocking these sites out at £100 or something and people are happy with the results for the money then who is he hurting? A lot of business owners do not understand the importance of their website and are quite happy with crappy wix/1&1 templates. This is no different.

Would you prefer to hire Ben based on his website, or "Sandu from Mumbai" who had a fantastic website that showed off his skills and experience?

I'm a web designer so would not hire either... but I would stick british people 100% of the time.

my stuff is in red

 

[Karimbo]

jeees. slow day at work? We all deal with spam every day. Just ignore and move on.

 

[CAEDAN]

Slightly off Topic here - I went on a site yesterday that advertised commercial property rentals as I was looking at a opening new branch up country.

It turned up in a search for commercial property letting agents, it said they were 'commercial surveyors' in the name.

Apart from that - all it said was they were 'green' and had 'green' values.....I was still confused as to what they did, who they were etc as it kept rattling on about being green! It only mentioned commercial property on one page...briefly....before going on about green credentials!

Terrible!

 

[Gillie]

But he is trying to sell his services to others and if he's trying to make some money, selling a complex service like website design, then he needs to be able to show he knows his stuff.

I wouldn't have made mention of it if he was just a kid with a hobby.



That doesn't come into it. If your £50,000 BMW was wrecked by a 16/17 year old would you shrug your shoulders and say "Oh well, he's at college learning to be a mechanic. He's clearly only 16/17. He's just doing his best to make some money."

He's at college, doing A-Level Business as well as ICT, so he should be even more aware of what is acceptable and what isn't. Of course he "might" be a mature student.



Would you prefer to hire Ben based on his website, or "Sandu from Mumbai" who had a fantastic website that showed off his skills and experience?

And when he makes no money doing it this way, hopefully he will go away and find out what about his approach is not winning him business!

And to think if he wasn't thinking about starting out and making a go of it - various would start on the old 'paying them to sit at home with my taxes' and 'the youth of today are bone idle'.

 

[Nuno]

There are shades of grey between starting up and being a follower of Jeremy (Kyle). It really isn't either only one or the other, and it is also unlikely that a follower of Jeremy would be spamming people and sparking complaints.
In this start up case, if it is true that it is a startup by a 16-20 year old, which rings true, then why should we condone a spam email to a website with not only quality issues but also one that tells porkies?

BenBuiltIT is a small family run business based in East Sussex that specialises in internet technologies. With over 20 years industry experience we feel we are uniquely positioned to give you the best possible solutions for your internet based services.

Does having a startup trump telling the truth? Do you qualify for a 'get out of jail free' card if your startup boils kittens? Because startup.
Our Ben might be lucky enough to read and learn from this thread rather than forced into being a couch potato.
(And friends of Jeremy could try a wash and getting a job...)

 

[Gillie]

I have always lived by the proviso of not attributing blame and criticise others, but rather to approach with answers of how to put it right, so rather than start up a thread having a go at someone's ambitions, why do you simply not reply back with help - to mock the afflicated means you mock yourself!

Send back a reply with a link to an article from a respected site that suggests how he alters his approach and how he can move things forward.

Oh heck though, hang on I forgot .... we are British and love to pull others down don't we??

 

[Nuno]

Air a bit thin on that high horse is it? And gee: the wisdom of pseudo aphorisms. To mock the afflicted..." etc. So Ben is part of your victim 'afflicted' class because he boobed on his first website? Not just young, not just inexperience, not just short on judgement, but a one size fits all 'afflicted' victim.

(BTW what is the statement you live by that has that proviso? Provisos don't stand by themselves as I'm sure you know.)