I’ve been unemployed for the past 9 months now … printing jobs pretty much drying up in Rhode Island, so I decided to start looking at other skills.
And since I’ve been designing websites for the past ten years as a hobby, I figured… okay …why didn’t I do this before?
The reason … I never had the time before. But now since I have nothing but time on my hand, I decided to give it a go and start my own design business.
I know I’m not the flashiest designer in the world, but that’s not what I’m going for. I know there’s a ton of competition out there. But I’ve seen sites designed by others in the area that are making a living at this and I look at them and think “I can do better than this!”
There is one line I really didn’t like at all, though…
In the “Services” section:
Web Site Repair
It's rarely a good idea to try to fix a website that someone else has put together badly. It's always best to start from the ground up. **But we can take your basic ideas, as badly coded as they may be,** and turn them into a professional web site.
To me, and it’s just my two cents, I don’t like how that sounds. It’s like you’re saying your (potential) client’s basic ideas are badly coded. Like you are pairing their ideas with the word “bad.”
What about something like …your basic ideas, repair the coding, and turn them into a professional web site.
I’m trying to be constructive, and not sure if I’ve worded correctly what I’m trying to say!!
Yeah, and you might want to be a little more gentle about the bad coding thing, in case the client was the one who designed the website they want improved.
I’d also lose the “ADD inspired design” as a pejorative. You don’t want to offend potential clients who may have ADD or not want to use someone who makes comments like that. It’d be enough to make me choose someone else, if I could.
My $0.02. Good luck!
When I navigate to a page that claims to be the home of “Marshmallow Fox Web Design,” I don’t want to see a lame picture of a waterfall. I want to see a picture of a marshmallow fox.
Agree about the ADD thing. I’d say something like:
In an internet world dominated by slick, difficult to navigate websites with confusing content and cluttered design, simple and effective web design has all but been forgotten.
All the best with your new venture! Exciting times!
Good ideas, all. I’ve taken them to heart and incorporated them into the site.
The fox … we live out in the boonies and have a fox that comes into the yard every now and then from whence we got our name. Unfortunately, he’s been reticent towards sitting down to have his picture taken. As soon as I can get him to cooperate (or get a good graphics person to do a rough approximation) I’ll be replacing the picture.
I would just like to mention that in my browser, the buttons on the left are floating up into the logo picture. They are also jammed up against the content div where I would normally expect a little space. I assume that your browser didn’t display the site like I’ve described, which is why testing in several different environments is important.
Firefox 3.0/Vista/1920x1200 & I see the buttons as jammed as well. Also, the home link is non-functional on the samples page. Are you generating each of these pages manually or is there some kind of CMS system in the background? Simple HTML is fine but increasingly people need a more structured solution for long term growth. I don’t see anything in your site that suggests you can provide that.
Personally, I think you’re philosophy is misguided. To cast all of Web 2.0 as crap based on poorly applied uses strikes me as incredibly close minded and outdated.
Hmm … I’m on Firefox 3.0.11 / Vista / 1280x800 and it shows just fine. Also shows fine at 1024 x 768. Curious.
As far as my comments on web 2.0 go… I’m not trying to change the world here or even do any complex programming. I’m offering good, inexpensive web design for people who have minimal needs and don’t want to pay the high prices that other designers would charge. I don’t want to get into a big debate about it, but when, i.e. amazon.com ties up my browser and won’t even let me close the window because they’re trying to load a third party ad, something’s wrong. I’ve seen sites bogged down with javascript that could be achieved just as well and simpler with CSS. And I’ve seen too many sites with too many fancy gimmicks just put on the site because they’re cool looking but don’t help the customer locate the information they need.
And I’ve seen time and time again people give up on waiting for a site to load because of all the gee gaws and gimcracks that are trying to be loaded as well.
Well, you get the idea. Not everyone needs that kind of depth of web programming. That’s a niche I’m trying to fill.
It’s nice to see designs that aren’t screaming at me.
But I think your prices for Domain Name Registration and Hosting are too high to compete with the big guys. The average domain registration is $9.99 for .com and .net, and much less for all the others, (. info is 1.99 at go daddy). And hosting is usually less than $20 per month. Of course the big guys can afford to lower their prices. And most of your clients will probably be web newbies, so they won’t be familiar with competive prices. But if you plan to get google traffic, you need to offer more bang for the clients buck. For instance you could lower the base price, then offer some add-ons for an additional fee.
Sorry but I like websites that are a bit flashy, as long as they are still intuitive / easy to use (these do not have to be exclusive of each other). For example, see http://www.whitehouse.gov - aesthetically pleasing but still easy to navigate and find relevant information. I mean, I get that you’re going for a kind of “back to basics, keep it simple” approach but it still doesn’t seem like a lot of time was put into the site.
Also I’ve always considered “slick” a compliment, not a pejorative as you seem to be using it. A site that offers web design services should be especially slick, seeing as that’s what you’re selling. For example the banner at the top is too big and forces some unnecessary scrolling. The different elements don’t seem to really “mesh” together as one fluid experience, but are rather disjointed.
