Clients just do not know what is best

Potential client backs out....

[PCInk]

Ah well. I quoted a friend about 10% of the normal price for a website design and surprisingly they have backed out and gone with someone they have no experience with. The demo site has the following features (the demo is the template for the main site and cannot be changed by the client except for minor issues such as new product entry and fonts and colours):

1) frames
2) redirect for the home page
3) every page has a session ID
4) some low quality graphics
5) splash page introduction
6) terrible navigation
7) page inline CSS instead of external CSS
8) meta tags on every page. Sorry, only one meta tag. The NoIndex,NoFollow meta tag!
9) some javascript essential navigation
10) formatted by table layout
11) forced registration to order
12) pop-ups for product information

Ah well. They know best. (!)

I love the NoIndex,NoFollow tag as they are paying a lot of money (monthly fee) to have this site and do not have much of a marketing/advertising budget!

How does this happen? Would I get more business by being a useless web designer? Should I start to design tacky, poor websites?

[Staffa]

10% of the normal price for a website design

Maybe a case of the 'expensive syndrome' = if it's not expensive it can't be good?

[ginagina]

PCInk, you'll laugh last when they come in 6 months and try to hire you to fix the mess this other company created.

And won't you enjoy pointing out all the things you mentioned above.

[john_k]

NoIndex,NoFollow

lol - now that's creative!

So after a few months of no business, the designer can sell their "optimization" service to improve search engine listings.

[jetboy_70]

Would I get more business by being a useless web designer?

Then you'd just be a small fish in a big pool. ;)

[PCInk]

> you'll laugh last when they come in 6 months and try to hire you to fix the mess this other company created.

I know. Isn't it great! Only they won't get a discount next time. LOL! They've signed a 12-month contract, so it'll be a bit longer, but even so...

[danieljean]

NoIndex,NoFollow

LOL, wow I have never seen anything that stupid! :)

The unfortunate part of this is that a lot of small business owners hire incompetent designers, then when we go and pitch them a new site / upgrade they think the web is just a lot of hype.

[Janet]

Apart from the other obvious faults perhaps the noindex/nofollow is there temporarily to stop Google picking up any of the pages while it is under construction. I have known unfinished sites to begin appearing in google SERPs before any submission or incoming links are in place. The Google toolbar is the culprit (I believe).

[crashomon]

Charging 10% of your normal rates? What kind of friend takes advantage of someone like that? If my friend's insisted on such a low rate, I'd dump them.

Seriously, though, what you need to do is start billing FULL RATE (and THEN you can list discounts to the full rate). This way the client knows that you're top notch AND they're saving money to boot.

Good luck.

Patrick Elward