k & I am not sure if any one of you knows of someone or a company who has built a CMS type deal where a customer can just add text to, their logo, tagline, galleries, etc. to a website. I have tons of features I wanted on the system, but I’m sure no one has all those features.
I was going to build a system like that years ago for my industry, but the programmer ended up ripping me off & then I had no budget.
Since my clients sometimes come to me for referrals to web designers (I don’t call anyone that, I call everyone a website coder, or a graphic web designer), I have no one I can partner up with to refer them to. Tried to partner with one guy who had a similar system, then he refused to pay me. Another one just approached me, but when I wanted more info on him, he suddenly disappeared. So obviously REAL people who aren’t lying, hiding & cheating is necessary
There are lots of these. There are many very reputable CMSes out there—some free, some commercial—that are fully featured. In some cases, you can use them (for yourself or for clients) even if you aren’t a real coder, while others require you to be a fully fledged coder (at least with HTML and CSS).
It sounds to me like you are dealing with the wrong kinds of people. A proper web business—whether freelance or a bigger operation—should never be involved in “ripoffs” and so on. There should be clear, professional, written agreements in place. Ideally, I’d say deal with people locally so you can go in and meet them, too. I’m sure each region must have reputable people you can go to.
Well I know there shouldn’t be people like that out there, but they are a dime a dozen. They do the sales pitch & don’t even know what they are doing. They talk the talk, not the walk.
Re: the programmer, there was a contract in place. I didn’t even know he ripped me off until I FINALLY found a programmer to go look at what he had put on teh server. I ended up paying $1,500 for a skin of some sort to be uploaded. And we did thoroughly go thru the word doc with all the features, but I didn’t even get a DB design out of it.
Most times for the little things I pay by the hour.
I don’t live in a country now or even my prior city where there were top notch people. That’s why I hire from anywhere in the world.
I do pity people who are looking for web professionals, as it’s an unregulated industry, as acknowledged above. It would be nice to have some kind of accreditation, but then again, that would have plenty of downsides, too. Perhaps it’s best for the web to stay open like this. One thing you can do it seek out web design companies that have a good reputation among their peers. There is a thriving community of prominent web designers and “standardistas” out there. They may be quite expensive, though. Another option is to look into the various CSMes. The one I use has a vibrant community, and has a list of approved “pro” members that are very good. To get that status, the CMS company has looked at their work and judged it to be of a high standard.
I thought you were referring to a word press site? A word press site wouldn’t function without a database. $1500 sounds in the ball park for WP set-up and design without custom programming work.
Re: the programmer, there was a contract in place. I didn’t even know he ripped me off until I FINALLY found a programmer to go look at what he had put on teh server. I ended up paying $1,500 for a skin of some sort to be uploaded. And we did thoroughly go thru the word doc with all the features, but I didn’t even get a DB design out of it.
Maybe you should look into what you actually got. I’ve never heard the word ‘skin’ in actual web design. Maybe you’re referring to a template. Did they provide after support, or help for your website, any training of any kind? These are the things you should look into.
Most times for the little things I pay by the hour.
It’s great to feel you’re in control, but sometimes it takes 20+ hours to achieve something properly, depending on what it is. Having said this controlling their hours could potential be a dangerous thing as they might need a certain amount of time for something to work right.
when I hire a website coder, it’s one guy who has no boss as I am his boss.
I think you’re reading this a little wrong. Essentially the person is his own boss, and he’s achievement should be to keep you happy and to be in business at the same time. For you to be his boss you’d have to give him a salary every month, have a business with a knowledge base of some sort, and provide a lot more than just a one-off payment for a one or more services. I hope this helps.
It’s not all doom and gloom. It’s about procedure, nothing else.
When you give a proposal / contract it states what will be done. This binding agreement is between two people and they have to live up to their part of the deal. Now whether somebody is using CSS 2.1 or CSS3 does not influence the price, or at all mean’s you’ve been ripped off. This depends on a web designer, and what they are comfortable working with. Personally I like CSS3, so I work with that. I will soon (despite other’s opinion) start using HTML5, because I personally feel this is the future. I will not charge more if I am using HTML5, it’s just a personal preferance. If somebody is using this to sell something in he’s sales pitch, then I’d really question the other vital parts they are missing, like support, maintenance, security etc.
If the web designer uses wire-frames, and break’s stages apart then you’d limit confusion. This web designer (presuming he works like the rest of us) would have to provide some training and support on his system.
Another key point to raise is the warrantee. The warrantee comes with x amount of FREE hours for x amount of months which would cover any mishaps to your site. I am not too sure what is means by ripped off? Looking at this thread, it’s subject is 2.1 or 3.0?, where as the issue what not CSS to begin with. I think it’s more likely that you don’t know enough to judge whether you’ve been ripped off. The only real way to know is to see the proposal and what you paid for and what you got, and what they did.
The testing, training and delivery phase do not mean immediate payment to many. They only mean immediate payment if the host is done by the client. Most web designers would happily host a website for a couple of weeks and wait for payment until the client is happy with it, presuming both parties stick within their agreements.
I would consider it a very low rate, TBH. It can take quite a long time to do all that nicely. People don’t seem to think twice about buying a car for their business at $40,000, yet baulk at paying a few thousand for a carefully designed and coded website—which is arguably a much more powerful tool for making making money. It’s quite ridiculous, and is partly why the web is so full of junk sites. YGWYPF.
I almost always ask for an estimate before I give the go ahead. If they feel more time is needed, they have to tell me first. I state this upfront.
There’s no unlimited pool of money here where someone can just do whatever they want & obviously they aren’t on salary. I’ve already dealt with those types too where they start doing tasks that weren’t asked of them causing me to have to pay money I didn’t approve b/c they went off & decided what THEY needed to be done. Again, people who think they are the boss & I’m not.
Both times this happened to me, what they did was useless. It wasn’t even something that was crucial. Of course all this does is stress me out, but I don’t pay for work not approved. I state that upfront too. If a team member can’t respect the company’s bottom line & understand that not all companies are made of money, they aren’t the worker for me.
Nope, not reading anything wrong. I don’t believe that just b/c someone has the title of IC & isn’t an “employee”, that they don’t have a boss. That’s just semantics. If you work for a company, you have a boss even if you only work for that company for a month.
I live in the real world.
Unfortunately this is what a lot of self employed ICs do online so they can do whatever they want & not have to be responsible. I feel it’s one of the biggest problems with the online workforce. I don’t generally hire people for just one or two tasks, no real company ever does b/c it’s too hard to retrain new people. That costs the company money & more stress. I am only seeking a long term relationship even if it is very p/t & the contract reflects that. That’s of course assuming we work well together, they have above average communication skills, are honest & have a good work ethic.
My company has policies & procedures in place. I don’t hire people who think they have the right to run my company & tell me what to do. It’s the other way around. That’s not to say I treat people like garbage b/c I don’t, but I am the boss & I run my company, no one else does. If someone wants to be a cowboy & run off here & there or talk down to me strutting their stuff just to prove they hold that title of “IC”, then I’m not interested.
I’m always willing to listen if they can’t follow one procedure, or they have a better suggestion, but all of my policies & procedures are in place to streamline the company. In fact, compared to some companies, I’m have very few policies, but no, I’m not one of those online companies that doesn’t act like an offline company. IMO, they make all legit companies look bad b/c then ICs get it into their head that they don’t have to answer to anyone.
I don’t wish to hire people who want to make things difficult & not learn, organization & grow.
Of course b/c they are ICs, they decide their own hours & days they work & they notify me when they need to take their yearly vacation or the odd long weekend, but I’m not looking for people who are absent from work all the time, don’t wish to be a part of the company & help it grow.
I had a client that wanted updates to her site. I didn’t write the original code but saw that it was a mess and was poorly written years ago. I ended up re-writing all the code so that it was clean and commented it so that if someone else came along, they would be able to see what I did and add to it or remove whatever needed to be removed. BTW, she is still my client and will be for some time. I saved her a lot of time and money just doing what I did. I didn’t charge her extra for it either as I needed a cleaner canvas to work with.
uhhh… I thought that is what you don’t want people to do … go off on their own and do their own thing without making you aware. The only difference here is that the work was done free. Professionals don’t work for free artist do. No actual professional would do free work like that. Only students trying to “learn” and “improve” to have things in their portfolio. Sure sign of an amateur and logic that has probably only improved in their eyes.
I was referring to set-up and theme installation not a custom theme. Perhaps some *small theme tweaks but nothing more. None the less, I don’t do that type of work myself but it is what I have seen. I think I rather live on the street than work with WP… yuck. Great marketing and good UI… but nothing more.
I work 9 – 5 as an in-house software engineer – no freelancing for me. I wouldn’t even consider it until I have at the very least 5 years of professional experience. Besides all the other things outside of programming that one needs to manage scare me to be quit frank.
You seem to like to start arguments & accuse me of things. This is the 2nd thread of mine you have done this on. Maybe it’s time to get out more & do other things besides sit on here & argue with me.
So, if that’s how you going to continue to talk to me, then just don’t talk to me, as I’m in no mood to argue with a “know it all” who really doesn’t have a clue what I mean & doesn’t know me at all.
