Had a little bit of web site consulting today. No, I’m not going to share the site with you, because that isn’t my point today.
I’m going through the site with the guy, telling him just how bad it really is. I’m pretty sure it was made with a hacked copy of Flash Studio and Dream Weaver 4. Navigation was non-existant. Unneccessary flash. Keywords in images, not in the text. Tables for layout. You get the idea.
The further in I go in telling this guy how bad his site is, the more and more angry is starts getting. Not at me because he is agreeing with every point I make (about 20). He is getting mad with his web guy for basically lying to him while he charged him US$10,000 to make the site.
10 Grand? Really? I’ve seen better websites for high schools done by the AV Club.
It’s obvious this guy got taken for a fairly long ride. No kiss, no dinner, no nothing. All he is left with is a crappy website that he will talk to his web guy about using the list I sent him as a guide. His guy will more than likely want a lot more money to do the work, at which time I’m sure he will call me back and I’ll make him a smokin’ deal. But this isn’t my point today either.
I’m not sure I really have a point here today. I am fairly pissed that there are still people out there with an old copy of dreamweaver churing out crappy websites and charging people way to much to do it. And, I’m not pissed that they are taking business from me, I pissed that they are taking advantage of people that don’t anything more than the fact that they need a website.
If you are one that needs a website, make sure you check with someone that actually knows better first. Everyone has a friend that is more web savvy than you are. Someone that reads blogs, digg or SlashDot. Someone that has visited flickr, twitter or facebook. Someone that can look at the portfolio of the firm you are looking to hire and tell you if what they produce is crap or not. Use these people.
Trust me on this one. You’ll be glad you did.
Besides, I’m starting to get tired of having to go back after others to fix busted/ugly/poor websites. I mean, I need the money and all that, but I’d rather get a start-from-scratch gig, ya know?
2 Responses to “Don’t let this happen to you”
Leave a Reply
Comment moderation in full effect!
All comments at donburnside.com are moderated by my first rate team of robot warriors, ready to do battle with all the nare-do-wells that stalk the interwebs!
Besides, it's only your first comment (per IP address if you are commenting from work and home) that the robot warriors have to approve. After that it should be clear saling! If not, contact db and I'm sure he'll hook you up.
Finally, for those of you in the know, Markdown is available as it a very small set of HTML tags. If you are scratching your head, don't worry, it's just geek stuff. You can still comment!
Thanks for stopping by!
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:09 am
And I hope at the very least that you’re getting a VERY good consulting fee…
Hell, considering all of the web consulting that you’re doing lately, maybe it’s time to “go official” with your own Site Design and Usability Consulting gig?
September 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 am
I’ve thought about it, especially with this going on. Not sure how much business I can drum up, but it’s worth a shot since I don’t seem to be employable any other way.