hire matt web blog :: advice for freelancers and entrepreneurs

As much as websites have gotten easier, there's still some things that you have to know how to do. Knowing HTML is a good place to start. Knowing how to compress images for web display is a good second skill. If you don't know either... Let's just say that you're driving on bald tires. You can probably go for a few hundred miles, but I'm not riding in the car with you.
If your site is a blog and somebody else designed it for you, you can probably get by posting new articles, but if your site is more complicated - like a shopping cart, for instance - you're eventually going to need some backup. You really have two choices:

Options for Running Your Own Website

1. Hire a Webmaster. Get someone on retainer that knows some web design, or at the very least some HTML and PhotoShop skill. When you get over your head (believe me, it will happen), you'll be glad you have someone you can call on. This can be your very knowledgeable nephew. I don't care. Just have somebody.
2. Start Getting Your Learn On. You have a long road ahead of you. Make sure you block out some time. You need to learn Photoshop (or an alternative program to compress images for web display) and you need to learn HTML. You can learn HTML in about a month with a good book. Photoshop is a bit easier to learn (at least for what you'll be doing), but the price tag is pretty hefty. $650, to be exact. Yes, yes, there are cheaper alternatives. You can investigate those. That will just take more research time.

What I'm really getting to here is simple. I assume if you're running your own website business, your time is money. I know mine is. Spending hours learning a new skill is hours that I'm not earning money. Now, if that skill will make me money, it might be a worthwhile endeavor. If it will only save me money, then it's probably not worth it. I'd much rather pay a guy to fix my car than learn how to fix it myself. I'd much rather pay a guy to do my accounting than figure it out myself. I'd much rather... well, you get the point.

This one is tough, and I would imagine that it comes up for anyone that works freelance. Clients obviously can’t afford what you’re charging and they ask for a special rate because they “know people”. Why is this so common? I can give you some examples of where this kind of question does not come up.

5 Places You Can’t Get a Referral Discounts

1. The Doctor’s Office. You really need a heart transplant. You tell the doctor that your father might need one, too. Can he give you a discount?


2. A Car Mechanic. Scenario: Your transmission died. You get a quote from the mechanic. After calming your racing heartbeat, you ask, “If I can get four people to get their brakes done at your shop, can you lower my price?”


3. Power Company. You call your local power company. You tell the operator that you could totally sign up your neighbors for their service. Ask for a discount.


4. Grocery Store. Go to the manager of a store. Tell him that you have lots of friends that you’re sure will want to buy apples at his or her store. Ask if you can get a discount on *your* apples.


5. Your job. You go to your boss and say, “I can direct you toward lots of people who would love to work for you. Can I have a raise?” Depending on the industry, this may or may not work.

These situations might seem laughable to you. In some very rare situations, they might work. Are you the kind of person that might try this kind of thing?

I’m not that kind of person. I don’t haggle. I don’t ask for discounts. I try not to associate with people that would do this kind of thing. Why, then, do I keep getting these kinds of questions?

This kind of question is a back-handed compliment. It says, “I don’t feel that your services are worth what you’re charging.” It also says, “I think you’re a nice, gullible sucker. You seem like the kind of person who would believe my little story and give me a discount.” It also says, “Wow, you must be desperate for work. If just the ‘promise’ of more work will get me a discount, you must be hurting!”

Furthermore, you’re already changing my opinion of your friends. In my experience, the people that push for a discount are also fairly difficult to work with, as clients. If you are a difficult person, why would I want work from your friends and family?

So here’s a statement: I do quality work. I charge what I am worth. If, after you are happy with my work, you would love to refer someone, that would be great. I get most of my business from referrals. I am not hurting for extra work. No, there are no discounts. Go online and you will find hundreds of foreign freelancers who will fall all over themselves to do your project for pennies. Good luck with that. I’ll be here to redo your failed project.

I simply can't say it better than the folks at Common Craft. This is the "Next Big Thing," people. If you have a good, viral podcast, you will have a great marketing tool!

Yes, yes... you may have noticed that I have yet to start one... I'm working on that!

I get this call all the time. A client was just contacted by email or by a salesman on the phone. They were promised that they could get a higher ranking in Google if they paid some "service"... and the rate wasn't cheap. If you gave me half of what you're about to pay them, I'll increase your Google rank and keep you there.

That's really the key point here. Yes, there are ways to trick Google into giving you a higher ranking. But that's just it. They're tricks. The folks at Google are pretty big with the learnin'. How would you like to wake up one day and find that your site has plummeted in your Google listing, or worse yet... been removed entirely from the search engine?!

It is possible to get banned entirely from Google. How would *that* affect your business?

Here's an example of primitive tricks they used to pull in the "olden days" (circa 1995):

5 Ways to Get Kicked off Google

1. Use lots of keywords on your site that have nothing to do with your site. Lots of people use the words "sex" and "nude" and "Britney Spears" on search engines. Please don't be offended here, but if someone typed those things into a search engine and they found your website, do you think they'd be likely to stick around?

2. "Hide" keywords by putting black text on a black background. This is just silly, but you could (people did) hide text out of sight. That way, you wouldn't offend people, and "steal" a higher search engine ranking. This is much like the first way to get kicked off Google. Search engines actively look for "same colored" text on "same colored" background... they single them out to not be included on search results.

3. Use the same keywords over and over and over and over and... over. I sound like I'm repeating myself (I am), but if you sell tires and your competition sells tires, you might reason that you could get a higher ranking by using the word "tires" a lot. What if your keywords had the word tires repeated 25 times? Don't do it. Just don't. That's lame. How about a diversity of words? Pull out a dictionary. Pull out a thesaurus. They were introduced in grade school for just this point in your life. Seize the opportunity.

4. Create or link to a "link farm". At one time, your search engine ranking was based solely on how many sites were linked to you. Because of this, sites and services cropped up to merely link to your site. They would have links to hundreds of other sites, and this would boost your ranking, because you would be linked to hundreds of sites. Well, besides this being very dishonest, it just doesn't work anymore. Your search engine "reputation" depends largely on the "reputation" of the sites you are linked to. Link farm sites, once identified, are given a very low reputation. If you hang with the "bad kids" you become a "bad kid" as well. Be careful.

5. Allow hackers to manipulate your site. If you have a forum or take comments on your site, you will start to get spam comments. A lot of these are just mindless spam robots, but some of them are downright nasty. A hacker can put code into a comment field to try and attack computers that display the comment. Although this isn't something an SEO company will do for you (at least, I certainly hope not), this is another danger you need to look out for. Whatever software you are using for your forum or blog or content management system should have a way to filter/restrict/moderate comments. Use them. If you don't understand, either hire a webmaster or do some research. If you get booted from Google, it's hard to get back on.

Bottom line... you don't have to resort to hiring a "Search Engine Optimization" company to improve your ranking on Google. If a website is built the right way and properly maintained, it will naturally improve in the eyes of a search engine. If you offer relevant information or sell products people want, you will have no problem getting the traffic you need. Period. Get people talking. Interact with your peers online. Make sure your site has solid, standards-compliant code. Success will follow, both in and out of the search engines.

Next time you get this spam in your inbox or unsolicited call on your phone, ignore it and move on. Look there! I just saved you loads of money!

How many mistakes have I made as a freelancer? So, so many... Hopefully, we'll get to cover them all eventually, but let me touch on one that could kill you before you even get started. Please, with any project you're considering, get a deposit before you start any work.

Do you think this is a little extreme? Think you might scare away prospective clients? Well, that's kind of the point. Let's think about what can happen if you don't take a deposit:

1. Your "client" might be fishing for quotes or looking for free work. Let's say I wanted to have my car painted. You know, something really slick.. with blue flames. Something the chicks would love. Wouldn't it be cool to take it to a bunch of different paint shops and say, "I'm considering hiring you. What would you do to my car?" Then they'd actually paint the car before I pay them! Then, if I didn't like it, I'd go to the next shop and repeat the process. Of course, I fully intend to pay the people who paint the "winning" design, right?This is exactly what it is like when people ask you to create a mockup for them before a business relationship has been formed (e.g. before they pay you anything). Unfortunately, some people still think that is easy to create graphics and websites. Just because they don't know how to do it... it's easy for you, right?Hey, I don't know how to remove a brain tumor, but you're a brain surgeon! Easy, right?
2. Your "client" may never pay you. I'm as trusting as the next guy... Wait... I take that back. Believe me, you only make this mistake once. Everybody says that they'll pay you when you finish your project, or when they start to make money, or when their child support check comes in, or when this darn lottery number finally pops up... Get your money up front. At least enough to make it worth the hours you put in. They want something from you. Remember that. Don't get drawn into the story about how they would really like to pay you. Everybody wants something cheap/free. Just visualize how angry you would be if this "client" never actually paid you. Wouldn't you feel better if you had a deposit?
3. The project may be more difficult than you originally anticipated. Ok. Every once and awhile, you'll take a project that is way over your head. I mean way... It looks good on the front end; and let's admit that the money was pretty good. But then something snaps. The project scope does this weird roller coaster thing. The client grows three heads and starts screaming at you on the phone. You get an ulcer and can't eat anything but beets and peach-flavored yogurt.You dread waking up every morning. You want your life to end. With a sword. Samurai-style.But look! You have the client's deposit check sitting right there! A way to freedom! The clouds part and a majestic choir of angels trumpet!Sometimes you just have to throw up your hands and walk away from a project. You're a freelancer. You're not a therapist or a miracle worker. Having a client's deposit check to return is a wonderful, wonderful way out of a bad project. You'll thank me. Wait... you didn't spend that check already, did you? Oh, man. You're screwed. Here's my sword...
4. Your client may not be serious about the project. Entrepreneurs like to think big. That's their job. That's why we love them. But sometimes people like the idea of working for themselves more than the reality. When you ask them to put some money down on a project, some people get cold feet. Some are much more comfortable committing you to something than commit themselves to something.Taking a deposit is a vital first step to separate the serious from the fanciful. You'll see that clients who balk at paying a deposit were not that committed to their idea, and not people you wanted to work with. What's more, the higher your deposit, the higher quality your prospects. The same holds true of your hourly rate, but that's a subject for another blog post.

I hope you take some of these ideas to heart, fellow freelancer. And for now... courage!

I'm not sure where people are getting their information. Is it "common knowledge" that you can start a website that nobody has heard of, sell some banner ads, and retire in the Bahamas?

If that's the case, the common knowledge is wrong. The only way you can sell banner ads is to have a wildly successful website. You know... tens of thousands of hits. That's a few more than your friends and family. It's very, very, very unlikely (like winning-the-lottery unlikely) that you will be able to have a successful, ad-based website right out of the gate.

If you're serious about going that route (and I really recommend against it), your first task is to create a "wildly successful" site. It has to be addictive, viral, fun, informative, or useful... a combination of these traits is helpful. The problem is that many first-time online entrepreneurs are thinking profits before purpose. How would our bumbling president say it? "That's like putting the cart before... I mean the horse before... It's just not smart with the horse and the cart, you know?"

The real shame is that most sites online that make a decent living with banner ad sales are accidents. The creators of the websites were just trying to make a good site and then their popularity sky-rocketed. It was only after they started receiving millions of hits that they started making good banner ad money.

So don't book that plane to the Bahamas quite yet. Go back to the planning stage and make a site that fills a real need in the marketplace. Banner ad profit comes only after success. No ideas? Make something with kittens or ninjas.

Stop me if you've heard this one before. With any large-scale project, whether it be building a website or building a house, there's three things that everybody wants:

1. Make it Cheap! Nobody wants to spend a lot of money. This is the #1 request of clients who want website, but it holds true of just about everything. Why do people shop at Wal-Mart? Probably not because of the Quality!

2. Make it Quick! For most website projects, clients want the thing to be done "yesterday." Now, I'm going to give folks the benefit of the doubt here. I'm sure they realize that a website can't magically materialize out of nothing. Right? Please? Tell me they don't think this stuff is easy. Right?

3. Make it High Quality! Everybody wants their website to be the best. Everybody wants their project to be the best thing since sliced Spam (you can get it sliced?!). Better than FaceBook! Bigger than eBay! More profitable than [insert billion dollar company here]!

Are you ready for some tough love? Are you ready for some common sense wisdom?

No. You can't have all that.

Now I'm not just being a jerk here. Let's break it down. I work on an hourly basis. While you are chatting with your friends on the phone, watching television, practicing your golf swing, or learning to knit, I am at my computer writing code. For you. Say, "Thank you."

What I'm saying is that time is money. Even if I worked for pennies on the dollar, it still can take massive numbers of hours to create a website... or a house... or a baby. The faster a project is done, the lower the quality. The higher quality a project, the longer it takes.

Here's your basic choices when selecting from your dream criteria:

1. Fast and Cheap = Your website will have fewer features (lower quality). I can get this done in a weekend and you won't be spending much money. It won't be the most innovative website, but sometimes good enough is good enough... less time developing a website is more time that you can start advertising your services and making money. You'd be surprised how much money you can make with a simple website. Go for a bigger site when you can afford it.

2. Fast and High Quality = This will cost you a lot of money. You are renting hours of my life as I work around the clock to finish your project, or for multiple workers if I hire additional help. We'll get it done fast. It'll be better than sliced Spam. Just be prepared to pay for the privilege.

3. Cheap and High Quality = This is the holy grail for most clients... until they realize what they're in for. This will take a long time to complete. Maybe the project is interesting to the web developer. Perhaps they will be learning how to create something they haven't done before. They certainly won't be making this task their highest priority (folks gotta eat, you know). They will be working on the site as they have time and as they learn how to accomplish the programming tasks. High quality, indeed, but at what price? Didn't cost you much out of pocket... who cares if it launches some time in 2009?

Just realize that nobody is a miracle worker (well, besides myself). Ready for the fortune cookie breakdown?

• You will get what you paid for.
• Something done right takes longer than something done wrong
• Your lucky numbers are 12, 87, and 62

Cheers!

As web designers, we see it all the time. The “I want to be unique and different, but I want my site to look JUST LIKE that site I just saw that is selling the same things and has the same concept as I do…” (Did that sentence even remotely make sense?)

A cynical person would say that there is no individuality left in the world, “you can’t reinvent the wheel, you can only improve it; yadda yadda yadda.” While that is true, you can appreciate other websites and take artistic pointers, you don’t have to copy.

Ask yourself how the designer or owner of that website would feel if they were to come across your website and see that you had copied their vision right down to the logo, color scheme and tag-lines.

The real question here is “WHY?” Why are you starting a website project? If the answers have to do with the following 7 reasons, turn off your computer, go outside and every time you say or think the words, “Website” , “Online Start-up” , “Shopping Cart”, or “Business Loan” flog yourself repeatedly with a sharp, thorny stick.

7 Reasons NOT to start a website 

1. Everybody else is making money online, why can’t I too?

2. I have an amazing product and EVERYONE will buy it from my website.

3. I have some extra money set aside and I’d like to take a stab at an online start-up.

4. I’m bored.

5. I am starting my own line of (insert here), it’s not manufactured yet, but I know it will be a hit!

6. I want an online business, but I don’t have any money to start one. I know I can borrow money from friends/family/bank, etc.

7. I want to try something new.

I’m certainly not here to discourage you from starting an online business, I make my living through website design, but I can’t sit back and let good people make the same mistakes over and over and over.

I’m an expert at failure: I used to own a website business (shopping cart selling bath products) that made absolutely no money whatsoever. I was stealing from Peter to pay off Paul weekly and it was very humiliating. I barely broke even at the end. In retrospect, I would have rather taken that money and thrown it into a large trashcan, and then thrown a lit match inside that trashcan. It certainly would have been more stimulating than the year of working for no pay, long hours, regret, depression and failure.

So before you choose to hire that web designer, please take the above into consideration.

It's no secret, a shopping cart site takes a lot of planning. Before you even think of hiring a web designer, make sure that you have all of your ducks in a row.

Where do I begin?

1. Website Name & Domain Registration. Everybody uses GoDaddy. You should, too.

2. Web Host which supports PHP and MYSQL. We recommend Blue Host.

3. Company logo

4. Color scheme. If you just want a template site, check out Template Monster.

5. Labeled product images in size 450X450 pixels, jpg. format

6. Product descriptions: Size, weight, price, care instructions, manufacturer/designer, shipping options, available colors & sizes, where is the product made and a full product description.

7. Website copy: About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, Legal, Return Policy, Shipping, Payment Options, Newsletter, and Home page.

8. Shipping policies: Will you drop ship or ship to customers directly from your current in-house stock? Will you ship via USPS, UPS, FedEx, DHL? Will you be shipping internationally? If you are going to ship internationally, do you know how?

9. Contracts for Drop Shippers, if applicable: Are you using Drop Shippers? What percentage of sale will you pay them for each product sold?

10. Merchant Account: How are you going to take payment? You must secure a Merchant Account from your bank as well as a payment gateway such as Authorize.net. Are you going to take PayPal as a form of payment? Make sure you do your homework.

11. Taxes: What state are you from? What percentage of tax do you pay per transaction? Are you going to charge taxes on your site?

12. Business License: Buying and selling online requires you to be established.

13. Accounting: Are you going to hire an accountant or do all accounting on your own? Will you send out receipts with each order?

14. Returns: What is your return policy? Will you require your customer to pay for shipping in order to return their damaged or undesired item? How would you like to be treated by an online merchant?

15. Budget: How much money are you willing to pay for a website? How will you purchase stock? Can you afford advertising? Are you going to have a Blog? Do you have time to maintain a Blog? Can you afford a webmaster? Can you afford a marketing representative? Will you send out Press Releases and SWAG to magazines, newspapers and even celebrities?

16. Who will update the products on your site? New stock means new updates! How much time do you have set aside in a day to add and take down products? Can you hire someone to do this for you? Do you know how to use Photoshop? Can you re-size an image? Can you make a .jpg? What is your level of expertise? If you cannot re-size images, you must factor in the need to hire a webmaster.

17. What is your expected return on investment? If you don't advertise in the right places, people will not know about your site. How do you think people will find you on search engines? There are millions of ecommerce sites on the web, how will you make your website stand out? Don't be mistaken, just because you have a website with a shopping cart and you offer amazing products, this does not mean that you will automatically make sales.

Before you even think of hiring a web designer, please take the above 17 points into consideration. Once you can answer all of the questions, and can deliver on all needs, then you are ready to start your adventure.

Good Luck!