Experts vs Amateurs - Irish Web Industry

When you take your car into the garage you expect certain things. You do not need to explicitly ask for them, nor would you expect them to be actually verbalised. What would you expect? Well, naturally, you would expect your car to be serviced to an acceptable standard. If the tyres need to be pumped, for example, then you would expect them to be pumped to the pressure that suits your car's make and model. Of course the person conducting the work on your car is qualified. You don't even have to ask about that!! Or if you were getting your house renovated... Would you ask the plumber to do the wiring? In the internet industry things shouldn't be that different, though I sometimes feel like I am working in an industry peppered with snake oil salesmen. How many times have I seen amateur web "designers" offering "competitive" prices? What about the web companies that are supposedly experts in web design, graphic design, web development, marketing, hosting, seo and search engine marketing? And all this with a staff of two and for under €600 / year? Why am I suspicious? Am I naturally cynical? Possibly, but I've actually been around long enough to know what is and isn't possible. Remember that old adage? "Jack of all trades - master of none" While that maybe fine in some contexts would you really want to entrust your website to Jack? (Not that I have a thing against anyone called Jack..) If you put the costs of a website in tangible terms then you should be comparing it with other "real world" costs.. For example if you were to run a medium sized advert in the Sunday Business Post for one issue you would pay anything from €600 to €1200 depending on where it was placed and how big it was etc., If you are running print adverts with any degree of frequency then your marketing spend can spiral quickly. So what do you put on your ad? Your contact details are bound to feature. While an email address and phone number is perfectly acceptable a website might impress. Of course if the website was done on the cheap you might as well toss the money down the toilet. Another cliche for you - build it and they will come. In the online world that simply won't happen unless you have both a search engine strategy and possibly an online marketing one as well. Should you entrust that work to one of these polyvalent web professionals who supposedly is not only a competent designer, can debug your email problems AND can keep track of the latest trends and quirks in the SEO world? I'd recommend against it If you want a tasty design use a designer who can actually design. You don't see Coca Cola changing their logo every 6 months do you? Why would they? They got it designed properly in the first instance. If you are setting up a company or business of some kind then skimping on the design / identity could cost you a fortune in lost sales. Is it really worth it? Coming back to SEO.... If you invest properly in SEO and use an experienced professional with a proven track record ie. not a good salesman who can sell himself well even though he can't actually deliver, then every cent you spend will be a worthwhile investment. Sorry about the rant :)