Choosing Honest Web Professionals

I saw this posted recently on a networking site and had to respond. I think a lot of small business owners have had the same kinds of bad experiences as the person who posted it, so I decided to publish my response here.

I am of the opinion that the market is oversaturated with website gurus. I have been taken advantage of more than once, paid over $1,000 in the past 12 months, not including GoDaddy charges, and I presently I have a dysfunctional site. 

How do we know, how can we decide?

Can anyone out there offer guidelines to hiring an honest, reputable webmaster that is not taking advantage?

Some standards are needed to prevent small businesses from being taken advantage of.

1. What is a reasonable price for hosting? What is included?

2. What is a fair price for ongoing basic maintenance? And what does that include?

3. How do we measure work done at $150 an hour (often done in a few clicks)?

4. At what point do you justify a monthly and an hourly rate?

Some standards, principles and baselines are needed.

Once I have paid, there is no recourse. My money is gone and my site is....

These problems/questions are exactly why I started my business 20 years ago. It’s much too easy for hacks to get away with highway robbery when the average person has no idea how to do it for themselves. They give honest service providers a bad name and worse, it’s getting harder and harder for regular people to start and maintain a business online. Here are my answers to your questions, plus a little extra advice.

1. Hosting: I think it should cost $10/month. You should be able to have as many email addresses as you want. You should be able to add on other domain names, provided you stay within the parameters of the space provided. You should never have to deal with your ISP being on a blacklist because of a spammer web site that used to reside at that ISP. Your hosting account should provide web site statistics and you should be able to reach customer service without having to spend an hour or more on the phone. Remember, GoDaddy advertises on network television and maintains a huge operation with a lot of overhead. Who do you think pays for that? Smaller hosting companies will give you better service for better prices.

2. Ongoing Basic Maintenance: This basically means updating WordPress and plugins – this takes maybe 30 minutes a month.

3. Measuring Work: I do not charge $150/hour because I want the ability to make money online to be accessible for regular people and that rate is prohibitive. I charge $75 and when I invoice a client, all of my time is itemized so they know exactly what they’re getting for their money. My clients are generally reassured by my transparency and also impressed at how quickly I can complete tasks as a result of my many years of experience.

4. Monthly vs. Hourly Rate: One might pay a monthly rate for services, like MailChimp or a shopping cart, but I prefer to charge hourly for all projects and web site work. Some of my colleagues charge per project, and it’s nice to have a ball park number to give a prospective client, but I want my clients to know what it takes to complete their project and how much of my time they are getting.

How can you know or decide which web professionals will treat you fairly? Don’t ever enter into a contract with one without talking to them first, and I don’t mean email. Have a conversation with them, and if they don’t offer a free opportunity to do this, don’t work with them. Yes, recommendations and testimonials can be good indicators, but talking to them about their pricing and business ethic will give you a much better sense of who they are and what it will be like to actually work with them. If you’ve been mistreated in the past, start with a small, inexpensive project to truly evaluate their performance as opposed to their promises.

“Once I have paid, there is no recourse.” Pay with PayPal. Their strong dispute resolution policies will protect you and give you recourse if you can show the provider did not live up to their end of the deal.

Also, web sites DO NOT have to cost $6-10k (wow!) as another group member claimed. I’ve built a wide variety of beautiful and even complex small business web sites for less than $3000. In the last year, I’ve even created a couple of one page WordPress sites for less than $1000. And there is no need to spend $100 per month on a web site that’s complete. I’ve worked with business owners on a budget by breaking the work down into manageable chunks or offering short term payment plans. There are honest and helpful web professionals out there who truly want to see small business succeed.