Every web designer and graphic artist out there (if they have been in business long enough) has lost at least one bid to someones brother-in-law. Now it may not have been the brother-in-law per say, it could have been the sister-in-law, sister, brother, son or neighbor’s kid. Basically, they lost the bid to someone who probably charged hundreds or even thousands of dollars less than what the job, in the real world, would cost. If the average rate to get a 5 page website developed in your area is $500 someones douche bag brother-in-law will offer to do it for $50. Now it will probably take him 10 times longer to produce some piece of crap that will need to be redone by a professional, but hey, at least you saved yourself some money the first time around.
Why is this an issue to the small business owner?
Now, as a small business owner, you may wondering why does even matter to you. If you can save a couple hundred bucks it might be worth taking the chance. You may feel that you don’t need a sophisticated logo or fancy website and that just getting something up is more important than spending the extra money on something you really don’t care that much about anyway. Here is the problem, if you care about your business you’re going to end up spending the money anyway and in some cases even more than if would have just hired a professional in the first place. In my business alone, we do around 30 website re-dos every year. This is where someone comes to us that either build their website themselves or had their brother-in-law build it for them. Most of time we just redo it from scratch because the thing is such a wreck it is actually cheaper to start fresh. In other cases the client insists that we just fix it for them. Now “just fixing” a website can sometimes take 3-4 longer than building it from scratch. Why, because every web designer builds websites their own way and for someone else to come in and fix something the first thing they have to do is figure out how the thing was built in the first place. And guess what, you’re on the clock. You are going to be paying for your web designer to sit there and look at the website to figure out how it was put together before they can even begin to fix it for you.
The other issue you’ll run into is the fact that your brother-in-law most likely didn’t put it together right in the first place. Professional web designers build websites that validate. That means, from a technical standpoint, the website is built in a way so that the search engines can read the content properly and so that the browsers display the content properly. If your web designer has any scruples they won’t post a website with junkie code so you’ll end up having to pay for them to rewrite the code in every page. Oh, and you’ll be paying for that too.
If you just have a professional build it in the first place you’ll save yourself the headache of going through this process twice.
Professional web designers don’t use Frontpage.
If someone tells you they are going to build your website in Frontpage then run for the hills. From a technical standpoint Frontpage is crap. That’s it in a nutshell. If they are using Frontpage they are not a professional because the pros know better.
But the other bids were so high or I can’t afford a professional.
If you need brain surgery would you go to your sister-in-law because she’s a pediatrician and could save you a couple bucks or would you go to a brain surgeon? The reason why web design and graphic art can be pricey is because they both take time and specialized skill. Professional graphic artists and web designers have college degrees and know how to do the job you are hiring them for. If you take a chance on someone who’s skill set is based on the fact that they have a cool MySpace page and own Dreamweaver you are putting your money and image in the hands of someone who probably doesn’t know what they are doing or worse, someone who knows just enough to do it poorly.
Being able to draw does not make someone a graphic artist and being able to put a website on the Internet does not make someone a web designer. Remember this when you are ready to design your logo, your brochures or build your website and you’ll end up saving yourself money and time in the future.
Filed under: Marketing | Tagged: branding, business, graphic design, Internet, logo, Marketing, web design | 1 Comment »