Nice DayOne Day,One Nice!!!!

When the web was young, a web page was browsed regardless of appearance, regardless of structure or content. It was assumed that a site on the web looked poorly because it was all the web was capable of. But now as the years have gone by, the web has grown – so have the developers and designers, or at least some have.

“Good” web sites today are professionally developed and have a thought out structure. Amateurishly developed sites, are getting less and less effective than those which are professionally built. You can clearly tell the difference between a good-looking, well-organised web site and one that makes your head hurt just by looking at it. Many businesses still have amateurish web sites, usually the reason behind this is that the business owners doesn’t understand or appreciate the benefit of a good web site, and therefore don’t want to spend much money on it. Having a poorly built web site is usually much worse than not even having a web site. As my father always says “if you aren’t going to do it right, don’t do it at all”

What Is A Professional Web Site?

Lets be honest, anybody with a general knowledge of how to use a computer can build a web site. Just read a few tutorials online and after a few days practice you will have a web site. Unfortunately allot of "Cowboy Web Designers" believe this is all that is required. Most web sites built this way are ok for fun, but won’t do anything for your business. Allot of people go out, read a few online tutorials and call themselves web designers, these web sites usually look bad, are poorly structured, and are usually so badly programmed – the search engines barely index them.

Cowboy web designers are well known for using out-dated free web site templates from web sites such as freewebsitetemplates.com, they just see it as a way of earning a quick quid and moving on. These cheaply built web sites won’t do your business any good. The template will most likely be unrelated and/or unsuited to your business, and will quite likely do your business more harm than good. With an out-dated web site, people will assume you have an out-dated product.

Who are the Cowboys?

Finding a cowboy isn’t hard, just keep an eye out for the rope which keeps bringing you in, and the magnitude of excuses as to why something cannot be done. Don’t get me wrong, quite often what you want done may not be possible and/or may not be as good an idea as you may think. Cowboy web designers usually say no and don’t provide any alternatives. Also keep an eye out for the bargain of a lifetime, the £50 web site which is going to make you a millionaire – this just isn’t going to happen. If you want to have a good web site, expect to pay a decent amount of money for this. It brings back the old saying of "you get what you pay for". Don’t get me wrong, quite often there are situations where the designer/developer has little to no say over the functionality or design. I have found myself in this situation more times than I can count.

The Life Line

Thankfully due to the increased knowledge of the day to day internet user, people are able to spot the cowboys right away. For example, if you go into a bar and the glass is dirty, you spot it instantly. Its the same with web sites, it really isn’t hard to spot a badly developed web site these days. Put it like this, would you let a mechanic service your car who didn’t know how to change the oil?