Who should I hire for my offline business?

10 replies
I want to hire one or two people for my web design offline business. We will be doing websites for local businesses, all template-based. Originally, I planned to hire a web and graphic designer but now I realize customizing template-based websites requires only basic web design skills.

Should I hire a content writer instead of the web and graphic designer? I found that writing content for the website is something I don't want to do and neither my clients. So do you think it would be a good idea to hire a content writer who has basic experience customizing wordpress but is not a designer? Should I hire both a web designer and a content writer?

Any help with this dilemma would be greatly appreciated.
#business #hire #offline
  • Profile picture of the author THK
    Hire different people for different jobs. I think you will be hard pressed to find a content writer who is also a designer. If you hire a "jack of all trades" type of individual the quality will suffer.

    If you have design skills and want to be hands on, then maybe you can just hire a content writer.
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  • Profile picture of the author Soulstreak
    I suggest you outsource it. All of it. I would go into more detail, but people with the most knowledge when it comes to template-based websites like wordpress can be found for cheap online. They also have first-hand experience.
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  • Profile picture of the author laurencewins
    If you don't have skills, outsourcing is a good way to help build your business. You can check out the Warriors for Hire section in this forum to find plenty of good people.
    Signature

    Cheers, Laurence.
    Writer/Editor/Proofreader.

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  • Outsourcing would be the way to go. If the bulk of the work you don't want to do would require writing, then hiring a full-time writer or virtual assistant would make sense. For the design stuff, you can outsource that to sites that specialize in short term, freelance jobs.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikec513
    The quality of your websites you turn out will be reflected whether you use just the theme (template) or if you have someone do some slight customizations to it. For $25-50 you can get some amazing design work added to a template and will look like a $1000 website then, instead of a godaddy tonight site. Don't cheap it on design.
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    • Profile picture of the author sitekrafters
      Originally Posted by mikec513 View Post

      The quality of your websites you turn out will be reflected whether you use just the theme (template) or if you have someone do some slight customizations to it. For $25-50 you can get some amazing design work added to a template and will look like a $1000 website then, instead of a godaddy tonight site. Don't cheap it on design.
      Do you know where I can get such service for $25-50?
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      • Profile picture of the author Soulstreak
        Originally Posted by sitekrafters View Post

        Do you know where I can get such service for $25-50?
        I will answer this for him. If you look around you should be able to find some places that cost "around" that much. You can try fiverr or you can just go to google and search for freelancers.

        It is more likely that you will find someone foreign willing to do it for cheap, but there are people that provide these types of services for practically pocket change.
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  • Profile picture of the author Arzak
    A web design company should have someone that can, at the minimum, code. You're going to run into problems very quickly when you're trying to sell something you have no knowledge about. Templates aren't going to have options for everything, not all of them are coded well, and your clients will want some customization or simple changes/features you can't implement.

    People will tell you to outsource it to some cheap hire because it's cheap. Yes, it's cheap. But the results suck, and some will argue that the results can be good or.. *cringe* professional, but that's because they have no skill or expertise in the subject. There's a reason why web design and graphic design is so commoditized. Outsource if you want crappy work or work that looks like 80% of everyone else's.
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    • Profile picture of the author payoman
      Originally Posted by Arzak View Post

      A web design company should have someone that can, at the minimum, code. You're going to run into problems very quickly when you're trying to sell something you have no knowledge about. Templates aren't going to have options for everything, not all of them are coded well, and your clients will want some customization or simple changes/features you can't implement.

      People will tell you to outsource it to some cheap hire because it's cheap. Yes, it's cheap. But the results suck, and some will argue that the results can be good or.. *cringe* professional, but that's because they have no skill or expertise in the subject. There's a reason why web design and graphic design is so commoditized. Outsource if you want crappy work or work that looks like 80% of everyone else's.
      This is the typical response of a web designer. A web designer believes that a websites success is 90% how pretty and unique it looks.

      For a web designer, a "win" is having the client say "wow, this website looks great, thanks!". They don't have to hear the complaints 6 months down the track when the site receives no traffic because the designer didn't bother explaining how traffic works because in his mind, the client got what he paid for : a pretty website.

      This is the problem : The client doesn't know what he doesn't know. He doesn't know his website NEEDS TARGETED TRAFFIC to succeed.

      The client thinks a "win" is having a snazzy looking website. They don't realise they are buying a nice, big, pretty ad for a newspaper that will never be circulated.

      The real "win" is having hundreds of visitors per month to that website, who opt-in to download a free report, therefore giving the client more opportunities to market their services to the visitor over time, or to provide a call to action that is irresistible to visitors and thus increases conversions by 3%.

      So, save the money on top notch web designers and spend it on top notch SEO services, or a great copywriter, or something that actually has a more significant impact than if the site is 30-40% prettier than a perfectly fine template.

      Obviously, this is just my opinion. But in my experience, clients that moan about the way the site looks are actually few and far between these days. I get asked more about Google and exposure FAR FAR more than how my sites look. Clients are smartening up : designers should too.
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      • Profile picture of the author Arzak
        I'm not a web designer nor did I talk about how great the website should look. The OP was talking about web design and graphics so that's what I responded to, but it's good that you mentioned the purpose of a website - something extremely important for him to consider .

        Originally Posted by payoman View Post

        This is the typical response of a web designer. A web designer believes that a websites success is 90% how pretty and unique it looks.

        For a web designer, a "win" is having the client say "wow, this website looks great, thanks!". They don't have to hear the complaints 6 months down the track when the site receives no traffic because the designer didn't bother explaining how traffic works because in his mind, the client got what he paid for : a pretty website.

        This is the problem : The client doesn't know what he doesn't know. He doesn't know his website NEEDS TARGETED TRAFFIC to succeed.

        The client thinks a "win" is having a snazzy looking website. They don't realise they are buying a nice, big, pretty ad for a newspaper that will never be circulated.

        The real "win" is having hundreds of visitors per month to that website, who opt-in to download a free report, therefore giving the client more opportunities to market their services to the visitor over time, or to provide a call to action that is irresistible to visitors and thus increases conversions by 3%.

        So, save the money on top notch web designers and spend it on top notch SEO services, or a great copywriter, or something that actually has a more significant impact than if the site is 30-40% prettier than a perfectly fine template.

        Obviously, this is just my opinion. But in my experience, clients that moan about the way the site looks are actually few and far between these days. I get asked more about Google and exposure FAR FAR more than how my sites look. Clients are smartening up : designers should too.
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