What on earth makes you believe that every small business person is equipped to write their own web content?
But they can give us the information can’t they??? Badly-written content is better than nothing… even I can work with badly-written and do… something with it. Hell even a moron like me could possibly even improve it. But many people hear the web is this great thing, they must have a web presence, and they don’t know what that means. They don’t know what they want to say.
If they want to sell products, they need to give us the product information (names, product id’s, prices). If they are pushing an NGO/charity, they need to tell us what the heck that charity is about (where do you serve? how were you started? What specifically do you do with the donor money??). That’s the content, whether it’s polished and ready for the web or not. I don’t care if it’s sketched out in half-sentences on a napkin, it’s something. I would not build a site for a client (not counting my day-job boss, I have to do what he says, and I’ve built content-less sites for him and they were miserable) if they couldn’t give me at least that.
My last non-main-work client, a mover, had all his content ready. He knew what he wanted to say. He knew his tariffs, his types of jobs, the moving supplies he sells and rents, his terms and conditions, he wanted information about his vehicles on there (so he told me the year, make, model, and supplied photos), he had a list of moving tips for individuals and businesses, a list of all the various specialty functions he does for moving offices, archiving, IT and the breaking-down and setting-up of detachable furniture. I didn’t know any of that; I’m not a mover and I’m not the accountant for his business. I knew he had a moving company. It could have been terribly written but that would have gotten us started. This is information that only the client knows and can only come from the client. If Stephen King has to come in later to make it actually readable and pretty, well, that’s something different.
The OP does seem to want his client to write everything nicely for him, but he should at least be getting the actual information from her regardless. She sells stuff? Then she needs to supply prices. Names of products. Product id’s. It is content, but it’s not “content writing”. Does she have a return address? A chamber of commerce number? Photos of her products? A phone number? How long will you wait for that information before you tell your “client” that there’s no web page to build?
This pretty well smacks of absolute arrogance. What on earth makes you believe that every small business person is equipped to write their own web content? Do you suppose they walk into a TV station and the station manager says to them, “We’ve dressed up the set and the cameras are rolling. Now you just go out and do your thing?”
Writing web content is more than putting a few words in a text block. It takes skill to engage and keep the reader’s attention and entice them to click to the area where they convert to a customer.
If you’re not in this business to help your customers created a decent web presence in total, then get out of it. If all you want to do is design, then hook up with a web developer who knows his business and can help develop a total web presence for his or her clients; one who sees the whole picture and not just a part of it.
The response I got this morning was “Let me know when would be a good time to meet with you.”
…She has done this before when I’ve asked for content. She is a little batty (my mom said she takes psyche meds, lol). The reason I want this information over email is because she can’t half-ass it this way (for lack of a better term x.x). If I try to get this information verbally I’m going to get a lot of unfinished sentences or guesstimates rather than actual facts/numbers/etc.
Am I doing something wrong? What should I do at this point? My uncle suggested that I ask for payment up front (“that’ll tell you if she really wants this site or not” he said).
To be fair, you did request an in-person meeting. Apparently that is all she responded to. She is likely a person who does not like to write.
I think your best bet would be to meet with her and take control of the conversation. Ask leading questions and repeat information for confirmation. Make a worksheet/checklist for yourself and fill it out during the conversation, pestering her until you get adequate details.
I believe I lost my last client because I was not willing to write the content for him. It is very frustrating to be waiting weeks, and sometimes months for the client to get the content together.
Pity there are no such things as writers who can show you how they work with clients to joint venture with. A real crying shame.
I pretty much only deal with small business clients and content has been an issue with the majority of them. I believe I lost my last client because I was not willing to write the content for him. It is very frustrating to be waiting weeks, and sometimes months for the client to get the content together. I am considering not starting my next project until the client submits at least a rough draft of the content. Their 50% deposit can just sit in my account and collect dust. (end venting session)
I have great deal of sympathy with the OP. I am builiding a static site with about 20 pages and it has taken a year because of getting content. It’s an image gallery and even getting the images (in reasonable quality) has been a nightmare. I built a site for a skip hire company and wrote all the content myself. When I asked for content the most I got was a page of text copied from a competitor! I’ve started a site for a business trainer (a communicator) and wait about 4 weeks for emails to get answered. I am on my 3rd attempt at building this site and have learned to not proceed without a clear commitment from the customer.
I think that getting money up-front is helpful. If nothing else it makes the whole thing more real for the site owner.
I think that a clear project outline is important and that it seperates out areas of the design: 1) page structure (coding) 2) functionality (contact form, social networking, comments etc) 3) copy 4) Graphics/images. After that, tell the customer the kind of costs for a site with one or more of those components and if it’s a freebie how many hours work each part comprises.
Martin
PS I’ve also learned that lots of people know that the internets is a jolly good idea but are not too sure why!
In fact, in most cases, it’s a reflection of the web developer’s poor communication skills that leads to the situation. If the web developer is truly the domain expert then they should ensure the customer has sufficient explanation of the process and expected outcomes to understand what’s going on.
I didn’t catch the “clients/customers are stupid” part – even going back and reading posts.
However I almost agree with your comment on the problem. That problem being developers want sites to be a code project when the customer wants it to be about effective communications leading to improved business.
I wouldn’t call it poor communications – it’s quite clear what’s not being said. Because when you estrange yourself from client content, that’s a choice. As you can read from the comments, it’s a deliberate, conscious, decision. A decision which won’t change.
A decision which come out of a very disturbing interpretation of what “separation of content from structure and style” means.
Separating content from structure never meant failing to ever put the disintegrated elements back together again. Or so distancing yourself from client content you could, quite readily, start and finish a site with not so much as a word of English text.
Bringing “don’t call customers stupid” into it seems like more distraction; much like the “are you asking me to write all my clients’ content myself” gibberish.
I’m a project manager and an operations manager as well as an occasional writer. I have to say that some of the comments here are a little concerning in terms of some people’s attitudes towards their customers - you know, the people who pay the bills?
Just because a customer doesn’t understand the intricacies of web development doesn’t make them stupid. In fact, in most cases, it’s a reflection of the web developer’s poor communication skills that leads to the situation. If the web developer is truly the domain expert then they should ensure the customer has sufficient explanation of the process and expected outcomes to understand what’s going on.
In the vast majority of cases where a project goes bad, it’s a lack of basic project planning combined with poor communications that causes the problem.
I wrote Basic Project Tips to Help You Plan for Success some time ago, primarily for freelance technical writers, but the points are true for anyone taking on a customer-centred project. Feel free to read.
I usually take an interest in the nature of the business when building a website, & it’s this ‘research’ that allows me to create better content, have better conversations with the client and even find new clients in the same space.
That is really the point here. And, of course, what are you doing beforehand which creates the problems: Like clients having no conception about content driven design.
Could the way the web developer’s site site is set up telegraph content is easily put off or neglected entirely?! Is your site design setting up the problems you then see later?
Content irrelevant design leads to clients who want lowest possible price (and then some). And who see design as superficial nonsense anyone can do – so your ‘opinion’ is just as valid as anyone’s (like the secretary or janitor).
And a final symptom is clients don’t provide written content in a timely manner.
Let us face reality here. If clients had the slightest inkling of written content driving the project, this situation would happen approximately never. They wouldn’t even think before furnishing well written content well before a site got underway.
I don’t know if you could put it all under the banner of “trash work”. Really depends on the type of client. If you are actually charging for the content writing, then you’d obviously need to spend time on it & the client would need to be cooperative in providing primary information about the business.
I usually take an interest in the nature of the business when building a website, & it’s this ‘research’ that allows me to create better content, have better conversations with the client and even find new clients in the same space.
And how much time did you spend “making stuff up” that would later need to be completely revised? My time is much more valuable than that and I certainly wouldn’t charge a client for trash work that I knew wouldn’t fly.
I was in this shoes before… For these clients, best thing to do is make multiple assumptions, make a prototype, and let them choose. They basically don’t know what they want until you built them something… then~ they start rolling on criticism and improvements.
Yep, I agree. Especially for small businesses where I know they are obviously not going to get a proper writer to create their content for them. Most of my clients keep all the “sales speak” that I dish out on their original websites because they were not game enough to talk themselves up. Most small businesses are a “me too” crowd, so they want to just have what everyone else has anyway, so if you are just serving up content - just write something about the subject and let their clients contact them directly for more information. And give your client access to edit their own.
You need to discern what type of client they are. Are they technical, need lots of help? Eg. Some of my clients don’t have dedicated internet connections. Some are old school or don’t use computers everyday.
You need to gauge what kind of client they will be at the beginning. If they can’t give you a simple email with typed text, then maybe it’s time to get a dictaphone or learn how to record phone calls, if this is the type of client you are currently attracting.
It’s a different client from one that would login, edit their site, etc. You need to decide what type of client you want, because one client will talk to another client, and usually, they are all similar in nature. This can be a good thing.
If you get a savvy client, they’ll probably know other savvy clients… catch my drift?
… if she’s still being difficult, just shelve the project. Without any sort of payment, you have absolutely no obligation to do anything. Life’s too short… your future clients are waiting.
When I’ve been in this position I’ve just made stuff up. In my experience, people are much quicker to correct information than to fill up a blank space.
You already have the contact info so you can chuck that in, and you only need to write a couple of other lines of anything else to get her to email you corrections.
That pretty much sums up my general feeling of how most websites are designed and deployed. That first paragraph touches on what I say differentiates programmers from software developers. Software developers have moved beyond code and study the nuances of human interaction with the software they develop.
I wrote Barebones CMS because I see a large and very real problem in the enterprise every day - the inability to communicate between programmers, designers, and content editors.
<snip>
I would like to think that I did not waste the past year I put into developing Barebones CMS. I carefully thought out the interactions between programmers, designers, and content editors. I also spent considerable time just listening to people in the industry and what they implicitly were desiring but not directly vocalizing.
Honestly, I’d walk away from it… Which I’ve done with prospective clients…
Though usually getting content from them usually sits between the NDA phase and the actual contract for work phase, as I won’t quote somebody on a website until I know what’s going on it for content… since I won’t lay down one line of code until there is content.
And DCrux - Stomme isn’t saying that you shouldn’t know SOMETHING about your client and what they do, what she’s saying is that you shouldn’t be writing content for a field that you are not an expert in.
For the third time, who says you have to write anything yourself? It wasn’t me. What I said was for you to team up with a writer or writers who can write on the topic at hand.
Since the completely and absolutely bogus objection keeps coming up, I feel it is a smoke screen for what’s really going on. It wouldn’t matter what the content was, you will not have anything to do with content whatsoever, under any circumstances.
Don’t do anything until you have the content. If you already started stop. Keep what money you have and move on with other projects until the client gives you the content. It’s up to them not you. The site is built around the content. The content is not built around the site.
