Blogging is not for Dummies
Posted on 11 March, 2009 at 14:57 PM There are already 19 Comments

Rob MacKay    11 Mar, 2009 15:20:40 PM

This is one of the main reasons why I think that web guys underestimate their value so much. A lot of us just don't realise that most people don't know what for example FTP is... for us its everyday, easy, kinda like making that morning brew. HTML/CSS whats the problem? Its not like its Javascript or PHP...

"If I charge too much for this these guys will figure me out as a fraud, this stuff is far too easy..."

Web Designers I feel can sometimes live in a bubble of other web designers, and because there are always people who are more advanced, or have more experience than you do (or alteast it seems that way), you think you are average. Sit next to someone who has no clue about how the web works and they will look at you as some kind of god, because you can understand what is...

I think its a good think for that kinda experience to happen to us now and again, yea there isn't much for laymen as to say on the web, but that shows us that the skills we actually have are worth something :)

We are valuable, so the next time you feel you are charging too much - look at what you offer them, they wouldn't know a selector from an ID...

Another great vid guys :)

Ross    11 Mar, 2009 15:21:32 PM

Hey guys, I agree and disagree with you at the same time.

Creating a blog is not a layman task if you want a custom appearance, and I don't think it really should be either.

Personally I charge considerably more than that to set one up and when it comes to things like hosting, setup, theme choice (or preferably custom design) it will take you a few more than 4hrs.

If everything is configured correctly, you should be able to hand over a system where the client can publish content easily and without too much trouble. If they want a new theme or a mod to the existing one... they should call their developer. I think this isn't likely to change any time soon.

My advice (for your blood pressure's sake): 1. establish client's requirements & expectations 2. take a deposit and do some research into their needs 3. design & develop 4. test and bug fix 5. test some more 6. test with the client (offline or on a staging server preferably) 7. test a bit more 8. get paid and go live 9. test some more :)

wickass    11 Mar, 2009 15:34:48 PM

I think the important thing to remember is that you you are not just getting paid for making a change to the css,html or what ever the case may be, but also for knowing what to change and knowing how to change it

Marc Perel    11 Mar, 2009 16:05:34 PM

Wow, great responses :)

@Rob - You're right, it's exactly why we shouldn't be shy to charge

@Ross - Some nice points there ;)

@Wickass - Exactly, it's not just about the changes, it's also your knowledge that you're charging for.

Hugh Collier    11 Mar, 2009 17:42:04 PM

Vitriolic! What you say is true mind. Let's not make it too simple though eh? As a freelancer just starting out I need all the work I can get.

Hosting wise, I recommend dreamhost. It's cheap and there is a one click installation option for Drupal and WP and a bunch of other stuff as well which is cool. No arsing about with config files and databases.

Anyway, an enjoyable episode. Keep it up guys.

Talya Goldberg    11 Mar, 2009 19:40:57 PM

This little rant made me laugh so very hard, because I can totally identify with your poor friend. When I started doing work for Christel House, I was like rad will set up a blog for you, have it up and running. Simple as 1, 2, 3.. However if you've only ever been using Wordpress.com, its definitely not that simple.

Was so happy that Matt was helping me out, it was the first site I had to get a domain and hosting for, which was all fine, but then you phone them to see why the domain still hasn't been registered and he starts with all this techno speak and I sit there as if Im been spoken to in German. Then setting up the blog theme..Float left. Float Right. Ja Right!

Hopefully I will learn all this, and be able to understand tech jargon one day, because I hate feeling that stupid, as soon as it looked pretty I was very happy, aesthetic over functionality for me. For now ;) ha

Mark    11 Mar, 2009 20:30:25 PM

Man O Man! I am a graphic designer, specializing in print but do some web design...design mind you not development and I don't know how to do all that stuff. I understand how CSS works, but just don't know how to do it. But thanks to guys like you I am starting to learn.

As far as blogging goes, I installed a blog on my site prepping for my redesign and now I'm scared. More CSS tutorials please...please...please!

Thanks, you guys are great

Julie    11 Mar, 2009 20:55:15 PM

What a piss off eh. Glad you sorted everything out.

In terms of how much to charge people, I see it as basing it in terms of your skills. How fast are you, how efficient are you, what languages are you using in your code, etc etc. (Even the area you live in might factor in.) For myself being a newbie, just out of college, I've based it off of my experience, which is not as much as you fellows or millions of other web designers....so I figured I should be fair and charge my clients for what they get. As my experience adds on and I'm able to do other things I up the payment. I know darn well I'm charging way less than I should, but I don't want to charge more for less than I can offer, you know? Would I be ripping them off, I don't know. There's my two cents, nice rant guys.

Cheers, Julie

David Leggett    11 Mar, 2009 22:06:06 PM

Lots of truth in this video. Got an email today from someone who wants to learn how to blog, and is frustrated because no one is taking the time to help her. I think she believes it's just developers being greedy and afraid of losing work, when in fact I think it has more to do with the fact that we're so busy with our time. Like you said, there are tons of potential customers out there - we are not in a shortage of work by any means.

Teaching this stuff isn't easy, just like blogging isn't easy. It just takes a lot of time at this point, and a lot of knowledge unless you have training wheels or a guide helping you along the way. The simple fact of the matter is that developers don't have the time to guide laymen usually, and they don't have the time to install training wheels in their themes/software/whatever for absolutely everyone. Devs can only do so much with their time constraints.

It's a culture clash, and one where neither side necessarily understands the other very well. It'll be interesting to see if it ever turns out to be any other way.

Tony Gines    11 Mar, 2009 23:22:43 PM

Refreshing rant guys... so true about everything you described. It's a wonder the web ever evolved out of what it was in 1996: web.archive.org/web/19961220154856/http://www.aol.com/

Ricardo    11 Mar, 2009 23:36:21 PM

This raises some good points... See, my philosophy here is being completely honest to the customer: "The things we will be using for your website, software wise, are freely available over the web. So I am not charging you for them, I am charging you for getting them customized to meet your needs."

It's like going to the doctor's office. You do not know why your stomach hurts, so you go to a specialist. He/She will talk to you to get some information, he'll then do some tests, prepare a diagnostic and propose a course of action. Should you agree to follow it through, you'll see results. If the doctor is wrong, you will go again to the office and provide more information, that will in fact provide you with a better course of action or a more detailed one. Do you need to know why this food gives you an upset stomach? Maybe not, maybe you just need to know it does and that it's best to avoid it.

The same happens to a Website client. And we need to learn from doctors, they have their own "language set" when it comes to speak to another doctor about your upset stomach. Since you might not have gone to medical school, they explain it to you on an "easy language subset" where they are precise, concise and understandable.

More often than not we, as programmers, designers or both, need to develop further this skill to communicate to the client in terms that they understand. This posture doesn't diminish the clients, just as it happens to those of us not knowing much about medical science when speaking to a doctor. A sort of dictionary that can help you meet your client half way.

To do this one must learn their language a bit. When you do that successfully you also learn how to write for general audiences and thus will be able to create stuff (scripts, services, documents, manuals, web forms, etc) that will be easier to understand to general audiences.

I'm not anywhere near it yet (and I have been at it for 5 years) but I guess I am at least walking in the right direciton.

Chris M    11 Mar, 2009 23:43:53 PM

Rob MacKay is on the money, great comment! So many of us under estimate what we actually know by taking it all for granted. Working online, sourcing great material and maintaining, what is close of a seperate business takes a huge amount of skill!

Cynthia    11 Mar, 2009 23:47:59 PM

I'm a graphic designer and I know pretty much nothing about web development. A month ago I decided to start a blog. I knew I wanted a customized blog but if I was going to do it myself, I would need to find a theme I liked and modify it (given my lack of experience/knowledge). I downloaded Wordpress, found a theme, and began creating my own graphics, changing fonts, etc. Before I knew it I was way in over my head. After a good 30 hours I got it looking pretty good but I still haven't got the bugs worked out in IE6 (I've pretty much given up).

LESSON LEARNED: I have a new found respect for web developers! and even though I love learning and figuring things out for myself... next time I'm paying a professional!

You have been copied!!!!    12 Mar, 2009 09:30:51 AM

Adam    12 Mar, 2009 10:14:18 AM

I'd like to expand wickass' thought and say you are not only paid for your time, effort and knowledge, but just CEO's - for making decisions, which I find to be one of the most hard tasks for human beings in any field, especially these days with all those options we have.

I like to keep the whole FTP / Hosting / CSS stuff "hidden" away from my clients, unless they ask. There's no reason a layman should know what CSS is or even that it exists, exactly like I don't need to know what a [Insert car part here] is to buy or drive a Jeep. My toolbox contains a hosting service that I like, Photoshop, TextMate, and Wordpress. Now tell me what you need, mam, and get yourself a cup of tea while it's being built...:)

Alex    16 Mar, 2009 09:15:34 AM

It's true, there's a ton of co-workers that come up to me and are totally clueless on how to start a website. Anyone as a master will think that the work is easy, but when I first started css, I was totally clueless and stuff that takes me 10 seconds to fix used to be so complicated I'd spend a whole day and a half working on it.

I've also worked with customers getting a wordpress setup and I can understand exactly what you're going through. It's a pain most of the times. I set up an admin account and for some reason she changed the password on me, but still insists that it's the same. I had to go into the database itself and set myself up as an admin. So irritating.

Wordpress as a whole really pisses me off because it's gotten so complex that making a theme was a huge project for me.

Well in any case, I enjoyed your rant video and hope you liked mine as well. Keep me posted on your videos!

A matter of perspective    17 Apr, 2009 11:02:22 AM

@RobMackay I don't think web devs justify their prices by their technical skills. Web development looks like child's play to say, a software developer. An experienced software engineer with knowledge of C or Java for example will look like a god in the eyes of a web developer. Software engineers see HTLM, CSS, PHP, Javascript etc as nothing more than trivial markup and scripting languages. But a highly technical software engineer may not have the artistic design skills or time on his hands to develop their own website. It's simple market forces. Demand and supply balance to determine the appropriate price.

Ross    17 Apr, 2009 11:40:09 AM

@A Matter of Perspective I'm afraid, I quite *strongly* disagree with you. I have a friend and colleague that came from a software development background (and a damn good, extremely highly paid developer at that). On the outset, he actually struggled quite considerably with web development due to the complicated nature of getting your head around all the variables (browsers, under-developed infrastructure of the languages etc.)

I think a good PHP or ASP.NET developer is directly comparable to a Java programmer in value.

At the end of the day, it's a skill you need to learn, it provides value to the client in the form of an end result that benefits them, and as such, it's worth what a good developer charges.

Of course markets dictate what people can charge certain industries, but I've often told developers that I outsource to that I'll pay them MORE than they quote me, because I feel they're shooting at their own feet and I don't want them to lose steam/urgency on a project.

Rob MacKay    17 Apr, 2009 12:02:49 PM

@Mr Perspective

I agree completely, but you also have to remember that to average joe the business man, he looks at CSS, HTML, jQuery and goes What?! Most people don't even know what FTP is let alone how to use it... So i think they should justify there price by their technical skills too. All the superstar coders are making video games or writing programs - they have no interest in what we do, we arnt even in the same market.

Plus knowing a bit of HTML or CSS is all well and good, knowing how to use it properly/effectively to maximise your sites potential/compatibility and SEO is another thing all together. I know too many people who "dabble" with it, yea they know it, but their code is a mess, they incorrectly styling and end up with terrible cross browser problems... we wont even start talking about web standards...

Its all relative, normally I am not coding sites for programmers, they could probably do it themselves better than I could... doesn't mean they know how to design, like you said.

Its always a balance to determine the appropriate price, and I am not suggesting overcharging. Actually the same argument could be put to any profession, undervaluing yourself because you find something easy.