We were talking in the office about potential future courses and one came up that I’m not quite sure where I stand on. I thought I’d put it out there and see what you all think…
The course would be designed for people who don’t have a lot to spend on a web site. We’d teach how to people could take their limited budget and stretch it as far as it could go.
“We’ll show you how to create a professional web site for less than $1K”
It would show people how to leverage free templates, or places like 99designs for the design, then how to leverage/use/install open source platforms like wordpress, cheep domain registration, value for money hosting etc etc.
I know I talk to a lot of people who run a small business, and don’t have a lot to spend on a site yet, that would be perfect for this course. But I’m interested to hear your opinions.
It sounds more like you are targeting the small business start-up who have no knowledge of web design but need a website. These folks don’t have the time or interest in learning these things. I think they would like the information to better communicate and knowledgeably/make informed decisions to talk with designers and coders in order to keep their budget down.
So - the actual techniques and how-to’s might not work but good direction and what is free along with advantages and disadvantages, big picture will more suit the target audience.
Like, here’s what you need for a website…
Domain - where to buy?, how much? .com or .anything else?
Hosting - Linux/Windows - what are your needs vs what are the pros. Cost differences?
Outlining the goals of your site
Design/Coding - template sites vs 99designs
Communicating your ideas to the developer
CMS vs static
Maintaining/updating
Estimates costs for certain number of pages…
Stuff like that I imagine would be a better guide.
I’m partial to telling folk:
“Cheap, fast and right are your 3 choices. You only get to pick 2”.
If money is a big concern, time almost is definitely too, leaving only 1 option on their list of 3.
I’d be concerned that targeting a pool where expectations only went up to unreasonable would leave a target market too small to make it super plausible.
That’s just my two cents, I’d say SP should kick it around a bit more.