martinibuster - 3:49 am on Dec 21, 2003 (gmt 0)

>>I'm considering having a freelancer do the site for now and I'll continue learning so I can manage the site.

Best decision you can make. Make sure they write clean code. I know a dot com casualty who took his stock option funds and bought a brick and mortar business from an acquaintance in San Francisco.

The new owner thought the existing website looked unprofessional so he redesigned did it himself. His current website blows up in 800x600 and has the garish colors of a late-nineties crack site. I've been told that new clients have virtually disappeared, and the business is limping along on past clients.

Amazing how fast someone can come in and destroy a 25 year old business with a highly visible brand name by "doing it himeself."

Be wary of graphic designers who also do web design, as their methodology often revolves around comping something in Photoshop then slicing it up into a graphics heavy disaster.

The sad thing about the more expensive web design shops is that these people are trained for PRINT, not web. Even worse, pick up most any web design or web redesign book today and it's quite often written by Graphic Designers who were trained for print design.

A florist came to me last year. She had a beautiful website- trouble was, all her text was in gifs. I told her to demand a refund from the GD or have him redo it at his expense. The graphic designer redid the entire website.