The Naive American’s Guide to Avoiding Freelance Web Designs Scams Part 1.-Webjutsu

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Naive Americans

The Naive American’s Guide to Avoiding Freelance Web Designs Scams Part 1.

This is the first of a 4 part series on creating a website for your small business. To get my points across I am going to take some liberties with the style in which I write. There is a lot of misinformation around web design for a small or new business venture and I hope to provide useful information and at the same time turn a light bulb on over your head. You are being taken advantage of but it is probably your own fault. Let us begin

Web Design for Dummies

Is it just me or does anyone else see that we Americans are getting dumber by the day. We are already the fattest country on the planet so I guess adding the “dumbest” is the next logical step. They probably go hand in hand. If that statement offends anyone all I can say is ‘Good!. It was meant to. One well known internet marketing tactic is to be controversial. You try to write something that will subtly offend half of the people that read it. They in turn will call you names, express outrage and in the process tell other people about it. The other half will take your side for ‘telling it like it is. These people will become your loyal supporters. In the world of internet marketing ‘loyal supporters’ translates to income stream.
The internet has become the modern day version of the California Gold Rush. Back in 1848, some 300,00 people came to California to strike it rich panning for gold. Most never made a penny. The guys who got rich for the most part were the people selling the pans and shovels to them.

This seems to be what is happening now on the internet. Americans are flocking to the internet to find their fortune and the rest of the world is selling us shovels and pans

Joomla Web Design Jokes

Nowhere is this more evident than on the many ‘freelancing’ sites on the internet. Often after a long day in front of the computer working I’d visit these site for some comic relief. As my specialties are web marketing and SEM (search engine marketing) I’d visit these categories on Elance and a few others to check out the job postings.

Here’s one I found that will illustrate not only the hilarity but also support my premise that Americans are getting dumber by the day

“Need a simple Joomla site developed. Want to include a couple of Ajax type effects on supporting pages. Want the home page custom based on jpg design. There are several sections. Need Articles. Need a very dynamic photo gallery and document library. Needs to be very easy to use and edit from an admin perspective too. Willing to pay around 100 or so.”

Our American internet tycoon wants a website developed with a number of features and services included. By my accounts of his posting in any world except the world of fairy tales and make-believe this would take a minimum of 20 hours and he needs the following

Web designer/ Joomla web Design Expert

graphic artist or Photoshop Pro

Copy writer

Joomla SEO professional

Ok, let’s break this down sentence by sentence so you too can be ROFLOL. (rolling on the floor laughing out loud

“Need a simple Joomla website developed.”

First off there is no such thing as a simple Joomla site, or a simple Dreamweaver, Frontpage , Cold Fusion or any other web design platform site. There are only two type of websites. Those that make money and those that don’t. We’ll excuse our internet tycoon here because it seems he doesn’t really understand the actual game he is about to enter. He threw in the term ‘simple’ to alert providers that he doesn’t want to spend a lot. What he actually did was alert every discount freelancer that he could be easy prey.

“Want to include a couple of Ajax type effects on supporting pages.”

Sounds like he needs some custom programming work here. Any self respecting Ajax programmer would charge about $75 an hour in the least but maybe someone from Pakistan or India is feeling charitable and would include this for no charge.

“Want the home page custom based on jpg design.”

Sounds like Photoshop skills needed here. Most web designers can handle this though so he’s ok so far. As an internet marketer though the red flag goes up as he is hinting that ‘graphics’ are playing a key role in his website. Any real internet marketer also knows it’s all about the ad copy not the graphics so our tycoon is heading off course.

“There are several sections. Need Articles.”

Well at least he knows that he needs content so that is good. Content goes hand in hand with SEO. If you were building a fire you’d need a match, some kindling and some wood. Content to a website is the equivalent of wood to a fire. The problem here is that when writing the content you have to adhere to certain SEO principles for it to be useful in drawing traffic. You need a copywriter that knows SEO. Most don’t as knowing web copywriting also requires you know a bit of web design.
The guys that know all three don’t want to charge you $25 an hour to help you build your website. They sell their own products and services and make 10x that per hour or are in the $150 per hour range to hire.

“Need a very dynamic photo gallery and document library. Needs to be very easy to use and edit from an admin perspective too.”

I’ll lump these together as they aren’t really that hard. Any CMS could easily handle this and it’s a 30 minute job to set it up.
Ok, we’ve laid out the facts of the joke and now it’s time for the punch line.

“Willing to pay around 100 or so.”

If you aren’t doubled over in stitches on that line you are probably not a web designer, copywriter, graphic design pro or internet marketer.
Somehow through great marketing, media scare tactics and the process of just progressively getting fatter and dumber, Americans believe that other countries breed human beings that possess all these skills and then get them to work for a cost of $5 per hour. Ok, so maybe in some foreign lands there may be a glut of technical people willing to work for lower wages but I find it hard to believe that a wanted ad appears anywhere in India, Pakistan or Eastern Europe like the following:

Wanted Web Designer, Web Copywriter, SEO Professional.

We are looking for an English speaking individual, familiar with American marketing, business practices and terminology to design and optimize web sites and bring traffic to websites for dumb Americans wanting to strike it rich on the internet. Skills desired are web design, Ajax programming, SEO, copywriting for the American market, and internet marketing. We bill our clients at $5 per hour so you must be willing to work for $2 per hour. Send your resume or CV today.

Maybe I’m the naive one but I doubt anyone is running those ads. It really doesn’t matter though as after a long period of dealing with small business owners that had bad experiences on freelance websites I’ve come across the real issue.

I call it the Internet Freelance Mendoza Line.

The Mendoza line is an informal term used in baseball for when a position player's batting average falls below the boundary between extremely poor and merely below-average offensive production. This average is usually .200 . The same Mendoza line exists it seems for Americans when using freelancing services.

If they can spend approximately $200 or under for the work and even if they aren’t satisfied with the outcome they probably won’t complain too much. They just write it off and move on to the next freelancer and hope for a better result. If they are spending only $200 they also really don’t expect to get too much for their money. After all we Americans aren’t really that dumb yet. We know that we will probably not get what we are after but we also do like to play the lottery. There’s always that chance we’ll get lucky and strike it rich

In the next article Part #2 we’ll look at the following: Why Freelancers That Really Know SEO Do Not Work for $15 an Hour.