How To Avoid Getting Screwed as a New Home Business Owner
Today’s post is a guest post from Erin Atherton of DurtBagz. (You know it’s a guest post because she uses semicolons and we all know how I feel about semicolons.) Go check out her site. As you’re about to find out, it won’t be around for long.
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Five months ago, I launched my first home business; an online bag company called Durtbagz.com. Today, I’ve hardly sold 30 bagz, my web traffic is atrocious, and my website is about to be shut down due to breach of contract by the web designer.
Want to know how you can avoid this situation?
Yeah, I thought so.
On paper, I should never have been put in this position. I’m smart, I have experience locking down vendors, I have a mentor who was in business for himself for 25 years, and I have more financial backing than the typical first-time entrepreneur. So, with all this going for me, how can I be struggling like this?
Bad decision making. The end.
The biggest reason I’m in this situation is the fact that I chose poorly when it came to picking a web design firm. And this has impacted everything.
Could I have known things were going to go this bad with this firm? Hell no. But, where there a few warning signs that I now realize I looked past? Yep.
1. I never really liked these people. You may think this a no-brainer, but keep in mind, this is my first business. It didn’t bother me that much that I didn’t like them; they came across as very capable of getting the job done and that is what I was wanted. I wasn’t looking for new friends.
2. The communication among them was obviously terrible from the get-go. I thought this was due to some turnover that was going on (legit turnover; my project manager left due to a family illness in another state, not because she was unhappy at this firm).
3. Here’s the biggest one: there were no corrections suggested to me during the entire process of designing my site. This is my first site, let alone my first e-commerce site, do you really think I nailed it on the first try? No. Was it their job to edit the content/design to improve the SEO and functionality of the site? Yes, these are actually listed in the contract.
Because I ignored these warning signs, as I’d like to think most newbies would, my site took 7 months to launch, was built about as good as a soapbox derby car, and is now about to be shut down. Why? Because I’m suing my web firm for breach of contract on about 25 different issues. If I get my money back, they get their piece of crap website back.
Other than the threat of shutting down my site, how has this affected me? Pathetic traffic due to pathetic keywords and terrible code. I’ll explain.
1. Turns out, my “blog” on Durtbagz.com isn’t really a blog; there is no code on that page that says “Hey Google, here’s a blog, check it out!” It’s actually just another webpage that they modified for me to write on.
2. The keywords on each page are not the same. A couple of pages have the keywords I gave them, a couple have the craptastic ones they came up with. Oh, and the contract called for 50-70 keywords per page; they gave me 5.
3. The page titles don’t contain the correct keywords.
4. The meta tags don’t contain the correct keywords.
5. The images have no alt-tags. I have MANY images on my site and this could really help with search. Instead, it’s a gaping hole.
What would I do differently if I were starting over, which as it happens, I am?
1. Like the people you decide to work with. Make sure they have a vested interest in your business being successful.
2. Ensure open lines of communication. Put it in the contract that you have the right to physically visit their offices to see progress at any time, during business hours. Also, ask for the links to watch the progress online. Any decent firm will want to show you what your money is going towards.
3. Agree on a reasonable deadline to launch. My deadline was blown without a word from these people. Everyone knows that web design takes time and that deadlines tend to get pushed back. Three months is reasonable; much longer and things aren’t going right.
4. They should be guiding/helping you throughout the process. If they simply do everything you say, with no feedback, bad sign. If they are aware that this is your first rodeo, they should be actively trying to help you design it in the best possible way for traffic, sales, and function.
At this point, things suck. And when our site gets shut down, things will suck even more. HOWEVER, things will be amazing after that. We’ll set up a temporary shopping site and we’ll re-design the site, with new features, better, bigger photos, videos, the works.
I’ve found a couple of firms that are run by people that I have become friends with in the last year. The money that I get back from the botched site will go towards the new-improved Durtbagz.com. And hopefully, this new found education I have on dealing with this will prevent some other first time entrepreneurs out there from going through the same ordeal.
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Want to guest post on IttyBiz? Click here to contact me or send me an email at naomi@ittybiz.com
Image credit: Word Freak
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Wow.
Real and honest.
Thank you for the tips. And good luck with the new website!
Erin -
Things WILL be amazing after this. Keep pluggin’ along and you’ll do great.
Thank you for posting this. I will be passing this along to everyone I know looking to start up a website (and I know quite a few women in this or similar situations).
I’m a blog consultant and web designer, and as I read your story, I got very, very angry.
I’ve been doing this for a long time off an on, but in earnest since last year. In that short but amazing time I can’t even tell you all the crappy websites I’ve seen that were “designed” by supposedly professional web designers for the people who became my clients. Image text. Keywords meta tags, but no description meta tags. Table layouts. Site name before page name in the title tag. No CSS. No headers, just font tags. And no clue whatsoever when it comes to conversion or any sense of the shopping cart or checkout experience.
That morons like this make money simply galls me to no end.
Thanks for sending Erin the love, guys! And Michael! You tell ‘em, tiger! Kick some ass!
Wow. That was a lot of exclamation marks.
Erin, I’m so sorry you had such a rotten year. I hope you totally win the lawsuit and that your new site is amazing. Good luck with the new designer.
Oh man, that’s bad. I’m sorry you had such a hard time. I’m really tired of people like this making a bad image for the whole industry. I read a few weeks ago that people think of web designers about 1 level ahead of used car salesman. No wonder!
I’m not sure what you had worked out and if it’s in the contract, it’s in the contract, but 50-70 keywords per page is actually quite a lot. 5-10 good ones would be a more realistic goal. That may be why they just did 5, but that doesn’t excuse them from agreeing to it in the contract and not explaining why they did that to you.
It looks like this put your site in OSCommerce. It’s an open source shop software that is a huge pain in the butt to customize and puts out very messy code. It’s very likely that either they didn’t want to take the time or they didn’t know how to customize it properly for you. Or, they just recommended a bad solution. There are a lot of other things they could have used that would have been better.
Anyway, good luck to you!
What a sad story, Erin. Thanks for sharing it. The honest life lessons are always the ones worth reading. I once attended a lecture by a chap who’d built a 40 million pound business and lost it all in a week. He had some pretty amazing life lessons to share and was a wonderful reminder that whenever you trip up, there’s always someone who’s tripped up harder!
I think DurtBagz is a great concept and an awesome name. Unfortunately, you’re absolutely right: the people you work with can make or break a business. I hope you don’t let it get you down; it really is possible to find people you get on with and build great business relationships with them.
I always go on recommendation. Then I’ll talk to the recommendee* to make sure we get along. I’ve saved lots of heartache this way in the past — both in business and in renovating houses and fixing cars. As an extra bonus, it’s always easier to hand your hard-earned cash over to people you like!
*Yes, I know. But it should be.
I’m going to step in and defend something:
Graphic designers are digital artists. Someone who can create a beautiful logo or a great banner is not necessarily a coder or programmer, which are two other jobs, or an SEO specialist, which is another job.
I do NOT want people thinking that someone who can make a pretty page is supposed to also code the SEO of that page to hell and back, and if he doesn’t, he isn’t a good designer. This is false.
This is like saying the plumber didn’t put on the toilet seat. No. The plumber makes sure the water works - the plumber does not make sure your ass doesn’t get wet.
It’s great to have a designer that knows how to code meta and alt tags and all that - but don’t mix up apples and bananas.
@ Michael - Same for you. Graphic design is not coding nor programming nor SEO. Don’t confuse the four types of jobs. To each his own specialty, hm?
That said, I’m sorry to hear that your company took you for a ride. It happens more often than you’d like to believe. We do a *lot* of remedial work from people who’ve been burned.
May you live long and prosper with your new site :)
@ James - Spot on.
I’m not confusing different types of jobs. I do all of them except programming, and I do them well enough to leave off the second half of the phrase “jack of all trades…” Teams need to specialize, but I’m essentially an army of one. Not bragging, just sayin’, because to me these are all integrated aspects of a whole. :)
@ Nick — Yes, it should be.
@ James — No, they’re not the same animal, but when they say they offer full service, they gotta offer full service. If the plumber leaves saying he screwed on your toilet seat and it turns out he didn’t, you have a right to be pissed. And if your plumber puts it in his contract that he will screw on your toilet seat and then your customer comes in and gets stuck and the fire department gets called to pull her ass out of your toilet and you lose a fuckload of business because of it, you have the right to sue.
OK, that might not happen with the fire department thing. Maybe it’s only funny if you haven’t had a coffee yet.
@ Naomi - Oh, yes, certainly, no argument there. If someone says he or she can do something, then that person had best follow through and deliver.
I just didn’t want people to start thinking graphic designers were SEO wizards and that SEO in web pages was standard practice for all designers. It’s kind of like saying all writers are fantastic at marketing.
Call me biased. :)
Like I said, I think it’s a shame that Erin was taken for a ride. That’s very wrong and I hope the company that treated her shabby goes out of business.
@ James — You’re biased. (Just caused you asked me to say that. I don’t really know if you are. I just like to publicly do what I’m told.)
I agree with James and Naomi, it’s a pity that you had to deal with such a bad company, and such bad people :(
It’s true that a webdesigner isn’t a coder or SEO specialist, but when you say you do something, you do it, or you’re just messing around with your clients. And if you don’t know how to do it, you can always find someone who can do it for you.
I guess these people thought you didn’t have a clue about what was going on (and maybe you didn’t, at the time), and instead of helping and counseling you they decided to take advantage of that. Which really is a shame for all (supposed) specialists of any subject : we’re here to help and educate people, tell them what they need to become successfull, not take advantage of their needs.
A good way to choose a webdesigner (or anyone else for that matter) is to look at their clients : Do they tend to come back and stick with the guy, or do they just vanish into thin air when the job is done ?
As a young designer I still have a lot to learn, but I take a lot of pride in the fact that all my clients stick with me, like me, and are always eager to give me some more work. That means my work is effective and reaches its goals :)
Oh, and I’m available for freelance jobs by the way :P
Erin, I wish you all the best for your next website, and if you ever need advice or help, you can drop me a line I’ll be happy to give you my insight :)
wow, these comments are great!!
james and naomi bring up a great point. the short of it is this:
1. if you contract with someone to do work, do the friggin’ work. especially if you’ve been paid in FULL. if you say you’ll do it, get paid, and then do not do it, you get sued. just ask them. ha.
2. educate yourself so you don’t get taken for a ride. i don’t know a lot about SEO, but i started educating myself because a) it’s my company, and b) to check that these issues were being taken care of. i don’t know enough to do it entirely myself, but i do know enough to know that things are a wee bit messed up.
@ some other naomi, the platform they used is a joke. i know this because i have since made friends with designers, developers, and SEO folk who’ve been nice enough to get in there and see what can be done. it’s a mess and that platform is old and outdated. good call.
HAPPY ENDING: i’m totally not letting this get me down. this is a big learning experience, and while it sucks, i’ll eventually get a new website out of it…one that seriously kicks ass. and in the meantime, we’re still selling bagz here and there, we’re vendors at more than a few street fairs and music festivals in the western part of the US, from now until october, and i’ve great friends who are helping me out and supporting me thru the nonsense. (like naomi, here). and i have lots of wine, so that coats things well, too.
Erin,
Wow, well at least be consoled with the fact that it looks cool.
As the other Naomi stated, 50 to 75 keywords per page is really not what you want.
OsCommerce was my first foray into the world of shopping carts and CMS’s. It was cool when it started, but it is a nightmare to extend and manage . . . NIGHT - MARE.
I personally like Zencart, a fork off of OSC. It’s much easier to extend.
#1 problem that I see is that you have no mod rewrite on your cart. I have no idea if OsCommerce has a mod for SEF URL’s.
#2 the title is the same on every page, another big no.
#3 It may seem kind of redundant, but you should have Bag in the product title. You want Endover Messenger Bag not ENDOVER-MESSENGER.
If you’re adding products yourself as you go, make sure whoever you’re working with gives you a checklist for each product so you maximize your rankings.
Google Base is always good and another favorite of mine is ThisNext.
Good Luck!
Erin: rotten luck, but good article and good luck with your learnings.
Naomi — great choice for a guest post, thanks for sharing your space and your taste.
Erin — you’ve crafted a swell post that clearly defines the start of a checklist for anyone dealing with contracts, freelancers, web workers, etc., of all sorts. I suspect that your having to hone your terrible loss/hassle/hell into a useful post may have helped you clarify your next steps even more than you thought. (Was it hard not to name names and make sure those frauds never make another damn dime?) And this interesting feedback adds value for us ittyBiz readers and now, to your new readers. Keep us posted — and make sure we can find you somewhere when the site comes down.
Oh man! I’m sorry to hear this erin! Well… I’m glad that I bought a Dirtbagz before they went off the market for a while… We love our ‘bad biker’ dirbag around here.
I’m glad you’re not giving up. As you know, I’ve been following your business since before it was even launched and know that you’re a smart chick with a ton of great ideas. Sorry to hear that you had such a crappy experience - and now you’ll know exactly how to avoid it and will perhaps come out better in the end.
:)
Woah! I’m very very sorry to hear things are not going according to plans Erin… very sad story (but we can all learn from it, which is I guess, the reason for the guest post :) )
Ok, now what coder would not notice this (I mean there’s the w3c validator… it’s free, people should use it):
utf8 “\xA9″ does not map to Unicode
or this?
display box is not a display value : box
the guy probably meant to write “display: block“.. oh well.. who coded this site should get a restraining order, no internet, no computer. Period.
Really looking forward to Durtbagz relaunch though! :) (keep us posted!)
yes, it’s true. Hellen Keller could have done my site better than these guys.
thanks again for all the well wishes, suggestions, and support. as much as this stinks, i cannot wait to get rolling on the new site. as long as we’re up and running by back-to-skool, we’re good to go. and really, this is the worst thing i’ve got going on in my life, so life’s not so bad. just this part is.
and if this article makes some other newbie take another few days or weeks to research and justify a web firm so they find the right one, then this wasn’t all a waste. just mostly. ha! naomi, thanks again for loaning me some space on your blog for a day. your readers are awesome. and i should know since i am one.
Wow, Erin, I’m so sorry for this awful experience. I hope things go well with the next round!
I would add these recommendations:
- you should never pay in full before the site is complete. It’s typical to pay some portion up front and the rest upon completion — or in more payment stages in larger contracts.
- do some basic usability testing. Put the designs, before they’re built, in front of some fresh eyes (on screen, or a print out works too). Ask them to find some important things. Ask them to go find a particular product by name or type. Ask them to interpret the navigation - what do they think they would get if they clicked on that button? Do this with at least a handful of people to note the confusions in the design. Have the design revised. Repeat. I suspect this would have shown ways to make the shopping process on your site far more intuitive.
You can hire usability specialists for this and more in-depth testing, and that’s great if you have the budget, but you can learn a lot by doing this yourself. There’s some good resources at UIE.com on paper testing etc.
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Liking the people you work with — that’s the very reason I can’t drop one of my freelance assignments in which I put off more than anything else. I’m not a procrastinator, but I am with this one. And it’s not something I can’t subcontract out.
Wow as a web designer this gives me hives!!! Really sorry to hear you had to go through that. By the way many of the things you want to change are super easy to do yourself, shoot me an email if you would like an explanation how to change them.
i thought i’d give you all an update on things since so many of you have offered your help. not surprising on here; that’s how naomi rolls (semicolon!).
it looked like these losers were going to refund my money in full, after finally responding to my attorney’s attempts to communicate with them. 24 hours after that communication, they decided that no, in fact, they were not going to give me 100% of my money back in return for their code (believe me, they can have that back).
since i want them to work on the site about as much as i’d like to be a passenger in a car driven by britney spears, that option was not even on the table. so, they are getting served next week with my lawsuit. if we win, which i’m fully expecting we will, they also get to pay my legal fees. fine with me.
i am also in talks with a local company about building a new site (one way or another, the current one will not exist in the future). they are people that i have been friends with before this nonsense began and they know the entire story. they have other clients that have been victims of this same company and are extremely capable of building phenom sites, as well as they are very sympathetic to my situation and actually offered to let me use some of their office space for free to be closer to the action and work outside the house when i want. did i mention i was friends with these people?
so, all is not lost. it sucks to go through, but i’ll get over it. when things get better, they will be WAY better. and in five years, when we have $10 mill in revenues, i laugh my ass of at this.