Building My First Site and Not Going Well

by Tommyg123

Posted: 10 years ago 14 replies

WEB DESIGN

Hi all,

I could really do with some guidance.

I am launching my first online company. I am providing expert tuition in my niche. The site will consist of an attractive looking homepage/sales page. Then 3 membership options. 1 to download the first half of my ebook for free. A lower priced option to receive the full ebook (as securely as possible to avoid piracy as much as I can). And a higher priced members area with videos showing me in action (obviously these hosted as securely as possible also).

But its going nowhere!

I have all my material done and am ready to launch. I hired a web developer off of Freelancer to build a Wordpress site and its going terribly. My biggest issue is I cant envision what the end site will look like. I am no artist. I expected a web "designer" to take my brief and DESIGN something that looks good as a framework and then I build on it adding my copy and pictures in.

But he has no artistic flair, he just asks me what he should do its like the blind leading the blind. Everytime I come up with an idea he says "ok" and goes away and figures out how to do it (doesnt seem to have any ideas ready to go). Has spent about 2 weeks figuring out how to add a members area. I assume a professional could do that in an hour tops? Most of the suggestions I have are met with "ok i will get back to you" and a day later a shoddy version that clearly doesnt match the site appears. And when I ask advice on "how do you think this should be done" (such as deliver it as an ebook or actually upload the pages onto the site as a click through read online course) he gives no opinion or insight.

He has had some personal issues which I total am respectful of but he has gone AWOL whilst he deals with them.

There is no point having a webdesigner building something so in depth I am not able to make adjustments myself either.

My perfect scenario is I just buy a template (not a theme because I have to rebuild all of them and I have no idea how to use wordpress) but get a template that I like then add my own text etc into the boxes.

I looked at Wix.com and it looked good but I already have hosting and they said I have to host with them.

Sorry for the rant. I had just hoped considering I have a lot of enthusiasm and willing to put a bit of money behind this and all the content ready to go i should be able to get version 1 off the ground at least pretty quickly.

Yours frustratedly... Tom

cheers guys

#building #site

clickbump 10 years ago

Hi Tommy, sorry to hear about your troubles. I can empathize with your apparent frustration over getting your idea out of your head and into reality. Perhaps your "designer" is just not up to doing what you are asking.

To be honest, its perhaps a bit much to expect a designer to be able to do all the things that you may be asking. However, from a "design" perspective, the designer should certainly be able to present you with some concrete examples of what the end product will be.

However, the nuts and bolts of how your app will work, is often beyond the scope of "design". For that, you may need a "developer". There are guys and gals who can do both, but they are rare.

To begin with, I believe you may want to find an existing design or website that you like and present that to a designer as something similar to what you are going for. That will provide the designer with an expectation of what you are looking for them to provide in terms of quality, style and scope.

Best of luck to you, but I think that's where you need to start.
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- driveyourtech 10 years ago
  
  You definitely need a developer on this. Far more important than a designer to get a site up and running quickly. For the design, just show the developer examples of what you like and they should be able to add some style to it.
  
  Theme:
  A simple theme can be modified and custom post fields added to make it super easy for you to add content. Basically the styles are set and you can just swap text and images as you see fit.
  
  Member Site:
  Use Wishlist Member ($99). Provides an awesome membership framework - everything you need to get started. You can also do your purchases through this as well or interface with another shopping cart.
  
  I've set up a TON of these sites - feel free to contact me if you would like further assistance.
  
  Thanks
  
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Tommyg123 10 years ago

Thanks for the feedback so far, i had no idea there was a difference between a website developer and a designer.

I just find Wordpress so confusing, i am looking at themes and see some I like and when I install them all I see is a blank box i have no idea what to do with it. I thought when I installed a theme I would see a page appear and I could just type in the boxes
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- kilgore 10 years ago
  
  The other lesson here is that you get what you pay for. I know I'm biased since as a US-based web-developer I was able to charge my clients $60 - $75/hour, but I definitely think people like me are worth the money (not that I'm looking for work!)
  
  Top talent codes faster and better and will actually put some thought into what they're trying to build rather than just following directions blindly. In the end, I think you end up with a much, much better product and though the hourly rate is higher, when you factor in the total time it takes us to do the job, maintenance costs and your time (which is valuable too!), I don't think the price differential is as great as you might think.
  
  And just to be clear: I'm not at all saying that US developers are superior, just that good quality costs good money. India, for example, has developers every bit as good as those in the US. But they have jobs that pay almost as much -- if not as much -- as US-based developers get paid working for state-of-the-art companies like Infosys. You certainly won't find them working on Freelancer for $5/hour.
  
  Thanks
  
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  << This is not a sales pitch >>
  
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Tommyg123

10 years ago

Thanks everyone for the input.

I take your point about you get what you pay for. But shelling out thousands on a site I think would be a poor risk to reward proposition. I want to test there is interest first on a basic site then if there is throw everything at it.

But all good honest advice

Thanks
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kilgore

10 years ago

Originally Posted by Tommyg123

But shelling out thousands on a site I think would be a poor risk to reward proposition. I want to test there is interest first on a basic site then if there is throw everything at it.

I can definitely sympathize with this view -- I've been there myself! In my first attempt starting a business, my partners and I hired a bunch of outsourced help via oDesk. They were cheap and though I knew they weren't rockstars, they seemed decent. I was wrong.

Their technical ability was minimal. Their code quality was poor. And they were slow. I ended up staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning every day after working a full-time day job so that I could meet with the development team over Skype to nicely tell them all the problems they had with their code and give them ideas on how to fix their code and do better. Essentially, I was paying them to be my web development students.

I did this with two different teams (yeah, yeah "fool me once...") before finally giving up and going into frantic code-it-myself mode. In about two weeks I had accomplished more than the other two teams had done in three months combined. This was at least promising, but by that time I was already so burnt out from the whole experience that the project more or less fizzled and died.

For my next (and so far successful) business, we scaled back expectations and instead chose a project that I could complete by myself. We based it on free and open source tools and had something out the door from concept to launch in about two months.

No, this new site won't get sold to Google or Facebook for millions, but it's launched and it's making enough money that I was able to quit my day job and work solely on this site.

The point of this long (OK, really, really long) story is that sometimes if you can't afford to do something right, you might be better off changing the scope of your project or your entire project to something that you CAN afford to do right.

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IskaDev 10 years ago

best of luck to you
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Landman 10 years ago

Hey Tommyg123, Unfortunately alot people seem to get screwed over on Freelancer when hiring developers/designers that are "cheap". Many of my mates have experienced this.

The thing is, if you want quality, you do need to pay for it. I'd be happy to lend a hand if you want to setup a wordpress template. I mean for nothing, I'll install one that you've purchased etc. If you'd like a custom one PM me and we can chat. My portfolio is in my sig just so you know I'm not a dodgie dude. Haha.
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Tommyg123 10 years ago

Thanks Landman. I'll give my freelancer a kick up the arse and see what happens and get in touch. Thanks mate
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Jenna7 10 years ago

Here are some videos that I used to create an income-generating online business. It has some great information when you are starting out. The best part, however, for me, was the free bonus that is included. It's a set of videos that take you step by step through creating a WordPress site. The step by step approach is so helpful. You can do it yourself using this video set. I knew nothing about WordPress when I started either so it must be easy if I could follow these video instructions.

The Genesis theme is one I'd recommend to use.

How to do Online Marketing - a blueprint for beginners
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ghoulryan 10 years ago

Hello Tommyg123,

The problem with hiring at freelancer is that they might not have the necessary skills available to plan the project to your requirements. In order for your online business to be successful a plan of Entity Relationships for your database, required hosting, scripts and technologies should be already ready before you hire.

You wouldn't hire an architect without seeing their blueprint? The developer is the architect building for you. A professional would probably be using Gantt charting in order to provide efficient and timely services and would not be accepting clients without knowing how to proceed forward.

A bit of project management knowledge would save you much hassle in the future, you could even do the requirements specification and send it over to a developer that is not ready to do this for themselves.

If I were you I would be looking online for a framework (Wordpress)?
A wordpress role/access-list plugin.
A wordpress download management plugin.
A wordpress membership plugin.
A good looking template for wordpress.
A sales page plugin for wordpress.

Perhaps an upsell script and a PDF viewing script.

Decide whether or not I need a commercial or free plugins, then hire a developer to merge them all together. It should be easy enough for anybody with a little time on their hands to get a wordpress blog up and running with installed plugins, hosting providers often already have a set number of frameworks readily available from their control panel.
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elusian 10 years ago

Hi

We have all been through this at one time or another.

As for the design portion, go online and find sites in your niche that you like the look of. Have that list ready for whoever handles the design portion of your site. Tell them what you like and dislike about each.
This will save you a ton of time.

As for the functionality, have a list of the functions that you want in a site ahead of time. Write it out. Take the time to really think about what you need your site to do.

When hiring a designer or a programmer, always look at their reviews and the amount of experience that they have. You might even give them a small test job to make sure that they are as qualified as they say that they are.

Also, always get on Skype with them before hiring them. You want to make sure that you are on the same page and that you can communicate clearly with him.

And put everything in writing before the job begins.

Finally always use a site that puts your money into escrow and document every step. If the person that you hired is not as qualified for the job as they let on, then you want to be able to go to the freelance company that you hired them from and show proof if the job is not being done properly.

I hope that that helps.

Sincerely,
Caterina
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Isabella 10 years ago

I think what's lacking here is the relationship between you and your designer. Sure your designer should know what to do or suggest but at the same time, if you can't envision how your site would look like then there's nowhere for the designer to go. I'm not saying all this is on you, of course.

Why don't you research some pegs or sample website that the designer can base on for his/her design (please don't copy them!!). You may not be a designer but you should know what you want or not or what appeals to you. A designer needs your input too. You can't just depend all of it on the designer you should give them something to work on. What you want to see and all that because if you don't and just let the designer do their thing, then there will be a lot of time wasted because what if the design made isn't something you like?

So try to give sample sites. If you see a site with a nav bar that you like or a layout you like, show it and tell your designer and that way he'll know what direction to build the site from.
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Tommyg123 10 years ago

Thanks everyone. That's very helpful
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Building My First Site and Not Going Well

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