All too often, I come across web sites and blogs filled with coding errors and feel like geocities sites from the 90′s. Sad thing is that most these sites are less than a couple of years old. Why do they look so bad? Maybe because the owner of the site decided they would save a few bucks and just “do-it-themselves”.
Unless you really enjoy web design, quit wasting weeks of building an average site and pay someone else to make you a great site. The benefits are endless. Among them are the opportunity costs you are no longer missing because the site is optimized for SEO and usability. What good is a site if it doesn’t offer those two main benefits?
Now I know what you’re thinking… What about the free themes that are already built for WordPress? And some of them really aren’t that bad. The problem with most of them though is they typically have messy code and impossible to customize. And you really need to have your site customized for your needs or it lacks on the usability functions.
Last point is that by outsourcing a task like web design, it leaves you to do the tasks that you do best and make more money for your company. After all, the goal is to make money, not save money. It’s impossible to save what you don’t have.
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Nice insight Brendan, I will definitely be using this for future client inquires.
There are a lot of people that call themselves web designers or web developers that do nothing but install Wordpress and modify free or premium Wordpress themes for their clients. I have no problem with that, but as a result there are a lot of poorly done sites in the wild. Wordpress really is the “web 2.0″ equivalent of all the free web hosting places in the 90s.
Don't get me wrong, I love Wordpress. There is just a very large Wordpress user base now that just assumes that if it looks ok then it must be ok.
When you are serious about your business then you need to be serious about the design AND the code. Hire a web designer that can code their own designs in valid code. Run the code they do for you through a validation service like http://validator.w3.org/
Great post Brendan!
I really wanted to outsource my Web design, but I was worried about driving somebody nuts while we iterated to something I could tolerate
Hi J.D.,
That is completely understandable. The best way to outsource something and get what you want is to provide good examples of what it is you are looking for. By showing the designer examples, it gives them something to work from. Also, most good designers (at least I do this) will do a 30 minute consultation or so to find out the rest of the details about the site they are building.
I looked over your site and check out the validation ( http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsourcesofinsight.com%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 ). Yes, that 185 errors and 81 warnings. And most of that is from poor theme construction. That free theme you are using is plagued with bad code and that WILL hurt your SEO efforts without question. There are many open tags that just blow my mind.
I can make you a theme very close to that one using Thesis Theme that would have clean code and infinitely better SEO possibilities.
That lesson took me a long time to learn. I was the type of person where I wanted to save the money and not hire someone to do it up for me. I think that this was not the best idea in the long runand I should have just paid the money and had someone design my sites for me.
Learned it now and so happy that I did.
Thanks Brendan
Brendan, So true… I have been doing my blogs and they all suck;-) I am now getting clients and need your services. Let me know how I can hire your designs “wholesale” so I can make a profit on them while selling them at a reasonable price to my clients.
Thanks!
Nicholas
Brendan, So true… I have been doing my blogs and they all suck;-) I am now getting clients and need your services. Let me know how I can hire your designs “wholesale” so I can make a profit on them while selling them at a reasonable price to my clients.
Thanks!
Nicholas
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