The Trials and Tribulations of Trying to Design your Own Web Site

We’ve all heard that online ads can make you money, but even with good content to share with the millions of people who spend some time online each day, not a lot of people can say that they’ve moved beyond the “hobby” Web site to a viable, money-making professional Web site.

My boyfriend and I decided we wanted to put up a Web site for his original online comic strip. He couldn’t spend a lot of money, but my cousin was an amateur Web site designer, so we asked if she would do the job for a “discounted” fee. She agreed, but suffice it to say, it was good that she never asked for payment up front.

After three months of delays and repeated deadline extensions, we got one Web page of bare minimum work—a nice logo that was nonetheless not quite what we wanted and the first comic strip slapped on a page. It was hardly the multiple-page, easy-to-update Web site we had discussed with her. Most disappointing was the lack of a necessary ad system so that we stood a chance of recovering our cost for the Web hosting.

The Web comic was launching two months after we had hoped, and we had even paid for Web hosting for two weeks before this “Web site” was up, losing valuable paid time. That was lesson #1 in trying to get a good Web site on the Internet for minimum cost. Amateur Web designers, as skillful as they may be, are under no contractual obligation to do anything for you! Even if you thought you could trust an amateur Web designer to do his or her work, things come up, you get pushed to the bottom of the priority list, and there’s nothing you can do but wait on the sidelines.

Luckily, this same cousin had taught me the basics of HTML some years before and I made the Web site myself. I don’t think it’s too bad for someone without any special training in computers, but I couldn’t help but look at it and think that something was lacking.

We wanted this complex PVP ad system that would let us pick and choose from our advertisers, but as much as I tried to get it up and running, it was totally above my head. We did manage to put up Google’s AdSense, which, to its credit, is easy-to-install, but the layout of the ads fell to me and the content we advertised was up to Google. It still wasn’t the dynamic Web site or ad system we had in mind!

We tried hiring a freelance “professional” Web designer but were told our budget was way too low. Even though all of the content was already up and all our Web designer would have to do it make it look more appealing and help us install better ads, the freelancers laughed at our “less than $250” budget and told us they would do the job for $500, $1000, and $1500. I don’t think the understood that we are a very small operation and have no idea when we would even make that kind of money back with the Web site for those prices to be worthwhile!

I’ve been looking for a professional Web site design company to help us get the kind of traffic we need to make money off of ads and have been amazed by The Executive Business Center’s Web site design packages at www.theebc.com. TheEBC.com has five complete Web site design packages for everyone from the tiniest of online enterprises like us to major online store Web sites, starting at only $299! TheEBC.com even has individual services like Web hosting, logo design, Flash elements, and updates to existing Web sites that start at $35 an hour!

After having invested so much of our time in designing the Web site and still having such a low budget, I think we might start with TheEBC.com’s individual services to tweak the design and ad system of our Web site. I wish we had known about TheEBC.com’s Basic Starter Web design package before we had started!

Take my advice. If you hope to gain as much Web traffic as possible, don’t ask an amateur or a freelancer to get your Web site up and running. Look for a professional Web site design company like TheEBC.com!