Dreamweaver - Where do middle ground designers go?

Author

Where do middle ground designers go?

mattyman0

2006-02-07, 10:40 pm

I am calling out to all middle ground web developers to rise up and find a
solution!! I am not an expert web designer but I am a hard worker. Until now my
gravy work has been real estate agents, but one after another, they have been
signing up with these update it yourself places, they even come in and train
the agents on how to use their software! I am not criticizing them, obviously
it is a good idea, but it is becoming a big problem. What should we do??

Linda Rathgeber

2006-02-07, 10:40 pm

mattyman0 wrote:
> I am calling out to all middle ground web developers to rise up and find a
> solution!! I am not an expert web designer but I am a hard worker. Until now my
> gravy work has been real estate agents, but one after another, they have been
> signing up with these update it yourself places, they even come in and train
> the agents on how to use their software! I am not criticizing them, obviously
> it is a good idea, but it is becoming a big problem. What should we do??

How about following the trend and creating sites your clients can update
themselves, but without you having to personally train them? One
possibility would be to offer them offering a cobranded version of
Macromedia Contribute. It's such a simple program, you could walk them
through how to use it over the phone.

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Sonjay

2006-02-07, 10:40 pm

Real estate sites are one of my bread-and-butter niches. I live in a pretty
hot real estate market where I could probably stay busy for the rest of my
life building real estate web sites.

We have a ton of agents here that use those ready-made, update-it-yourself
sites. They make it easy for a non-internet-savvy agent to get online at a
relatively inexpensive cost.

My solution? Build better sites.

The sites I see from the handful of big companies that most of the agents
use are ugly, tacky, not user-friendly, not search-engine friendly, not
cross-browser compatible, and just plain not very well done. It's a piece of
cake to build better sites than those.

Granted, a lot of agents are surprisingly cheap, but most of them understand
the value of hiring a professional who offers a custom service. After all,
it's what their own livelihood is based on.

--
Sonjay

On 1/27/06 10:39 PM, "mattyman0" wrote:

> I am calling out to all middle ground web developers to rise up and find a
> solution!! I am not an expert web designer but I am a hard worker. Until now
> my
> gravy work has been real estate agents, but one after another, they have been
> signing up with these update it yourself places, they even come in and train
> the agents on how to use their software! I am not criticizing them, obviously
> it is a good idea, but it is becoming a big problem. What should we do??
>

Donna Casey

2006-02-07, 10:41 pm

mattyman0 wrote:
> I am calling out to all middle ground web developers to rise up and find a
> solution!! I am not an expert web designer but I am a hard worker. Until now my
> gravy work has been real estate agents, but one after another, they have been
> signing up with these update it yourself places, they even come in and train
> the agents on how to use their software! I am not criticizing them, obviously
> it is a good idea, but it is becoming a big problem. What should we do??
>

become an expert designer so your services are always in demand?

Frankly, I can do without the type of client that is happy with a boxed
solution run of the mill website. There's certainly enough work out
there without those.

If you have skills that are cutting edge, up-to-date, and you have a
great design eye, you should have all the work you need. Happy clients
spread the word.

Maybe learn to build blogging style sites, where the users get a great
interface for updating their own sites. Wordpress, Textpattern... It's
not easy to paint your own template or site onto such sites, especially
ones using css-layout and that don't just look like the average blogsite.

Anyway, I keep building my skillset (graphics, markup, css, scripting)
and I offer a wide range of services (writing skills, digital
photography, content management). Word of mouth advertising works for me.

Donna

P@tty Ayers

2006-02-07, 10:41 pm

"Donna Casey" <infoREMOVETHIS@n2dreamweaver.com> wrote in message
news:drghid$65p$1@forums.macromedia.com...

> If you have skills that are cutting edge, up-to-date, and you have a great
> design eye, you should have all the work you need..

...if you also have a great business sense, are extremely determined and
hard-working, and don't mind spending many, many hours doing marketing and
sales, bookkeeping, accounting, business management and lots of menial
secretarial work. :-\

I'm just pointing that out, because those cutting-skills aren't worth much
without the above..

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