Business owners: I have put together a comprehensive guide of the 16 best ways to ensure your web guy never returns your calls again!
See below and act accordingly:
Start a sentence like this: “I have a really good idea but don’t have any money.” Proceed to offer a handsome “equity stake” in exchange for web work.- Design your own version of the web∂site in Powerpoint and show your web guy how it should look.
- Say things like “above the fold” and “SEO oriented” even though you have no idea what they actually mean.
- Be super persistent when you’re requesting changes, and then become strangely difficult to get a hold of when it’s time to settle up on payment.
- Say things like “it’s super easy” when you’re requesting a major structural overhaul. Note, this one required me to write an entire topic on it.
- Spend four months “getting content together” for your website, and then send a Microsoft Word document which contains approximately 4 sentences.
Start a sentence with “when I built our old website using Wix…”- Say “I have GoDaddy web hosting.”
- Say “Can’t we just copy and paste the information from other people’s websites?”
- Say that you have “one more change” in eleven consecutive emails.
- Have a small army individually sending revision requests. Bonus points if you loop in people who have nothing to do with your organization.
- Never agree on any SEO or marketing work, and then bitch about why your website is not #1 in Google.
- Call, email, and text message your web guy at all hours, especially for things that are computer-related but not in anyway website-related. For example, when you get locked out of your AOL mail. Also meets criteria: when your computer has a virus.
- Ask why the website is slow while you have 26 applications open.
- Ask why the site looks like crap in Internet Explorer version 3.
- Expect free updates… forever.
In all seriousness, even though every single one of these things has happened to me in the past, much of it can become a moot point when you have a detailed contract or at the very least, lay it all out in an email – exactly what the expectations are, and even a quick blurb about what you’re not expected to do.
Now excuse me while this jaded web guy goes to slam his head into his desk.