Professional freelancing advice needed
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
Hi PCSpectra, I saw your website. It is a website designed for users to get help in developing php websites. I am a freelance website developer. I can foffer you advice and develop the website. Please send me details of what you want and the amount of money you can pay for me for that. My email address is rajeshvi)@yahoo.co.in V RAJESH
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Pete O'Hanlon wrote:
It reads like a B3 page (and for those who don't know what B3 is, it means bullsh*t Baffles Brains).
Requesting permission to use this quote in my signature. :-D
Permission granted.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
That's why I suggested you need to get face to face with potential customers so you can sound them out on what their problems are. At the very least, it could save you from wasting your funds on ineffective marketing.
That is essentially what I did when I handed the informaiton kits out directly...admittedly I had a few warm responses but ultimately no one called back. :( Follow up calls seem so "forward" almost spammish. :P
Blog Entry: 7 Software development best practices to make you more effective and productive PCSpectra :: Professional, Affordable PHP Programming, Web Development and Documentation
PCSpectra wrote:
That is essentially what I did when I handed the informaiton kits out directly...admittedly I had a few warm responses but ultimately no one called back.
At the time, were you able to learn anything about the sort of problems and pain points those potential clients had? That's the starting point, really.
PCSpectra wrote:
Follow up calls seem so "forward" almost spammish.
Unfortunately you'll have to get over that. Sales are part of the game, and without them you won't gain any customers unless you can find a niche where your product or service can sell itself. One very important thing to learn is that as a small business owner you now have to come to terms with the fact that marketing, sales and customer support are just as important as development. It's a tough lesson to learn for a developer, believe me.
Anna :rose: Having a bad bug day? Tech Blog | Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Anna-Jayne Metcalfe wrote:
My suggestion would be to join Business Link
I second that. Joining a local Chamber of Commerce or something like that is helpful.
"The clue train passed his station without stopping." - John Simmons / outlaw programmer "Real programmers just throw a bunch of 1s and 0s at the computer to see what sticks" - Pete O'Hanlon "Not only do you continue to babble nonsense, you can't even correctly remember the nonsense you babbled just minutes ago." - Rob Graham
Totally agree. My web site has attracted one client in total in the entire time its been up (about 4 years). But it has been incredibly useful to direct a quick contact to from a chance meeting at some networking event. From that I have had many of those people contact me once they've had a chance to read what I do (something I would never be able to get clear to them in a 2 minute conversation). From those contacts I have turned quite a number into clients. HTH
The only thing unpredictable about me is just how predictable I'm going to be.
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
I do not normally respond to blogs since they take time both to read and write. And, this is the main issue -- time and energy and how we should expend both. However, your title caught my eye, and except for Anna's advice, and one or two others, most of the responses are not very helpful. You are really changing your career from a programmming to small business owner. You want to run, manage, and handle clients. You need to advertise, keep books, market, solicit business, become known, etc. Once you have done this, your work should make your customers happy. They will tell their friends and competitors and suppliers, who will then come to you for more work and the cycles will support your business. The trouble is, it takes a lot of hard work and effort to get from where you are to where you want to go. YOu have to create all of this business. This takes time and energy. The web is not a magic sales place. it does not create new businesses without a lot of work and effort. Join local business groups. Offer to put on seminars, talk, talk, talk. Become known. Make your name rememberable. Place ads in places where the buinesses you desire hang out. Not where developers live! Who are you marketing too? Your web site really reads as though you are marketing to other techies. The world, much to our surprise, does not know what PHP is. The world has no idea about Content Management Systems, much less CMS. YOu need to go to where your customers live so you need to decide who your customers are. You have some area of expertise. Who uses it? What industry, or group of businessme? You cannot market to the entire world, so narrow you customer base, at least to start. Go to them. You mentioned sitepoint - thye use to sell a kit on marketing yourself as an independent web developer. Buy something like this and read it and then do it. Also change your web -- at least the moe page. The business world does not know php or cms from adam. YOu need to sell concepts and yourself and why you are different from anyone else. Go out on the web and browse sites of those who would be your competition and then create a website that is better than their. The web will not support a new business becasue the web is to broad and unfocused. You need to create the local interest, direct them to your web for more info and then sell them. Make your web a sales force, not an information location. Make it personal about you. Whoever made the comments about corporate and shining versus small and local hit the nail right on the head. Your si
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
Target graphic designers in your area and offer them a service whereby they design the site for their clients, offering them a content management system tailored to their needs and you then program the back end for it. My former employer made a tasty profit doing this. We would work directly with the graphic designers. They would design the website, we would then draw up a design spec in plain english for the client, detailing the layout of the site, what pages they would be able to edit etc. Then for each customer we would tailor a backend for them with a database holding their text, images etc. It was very loosely based on products like joomla etc, but much more simplistic, giving them only what they needed to manage the pages they wanted to edit. If you can place yourself as a backend provider for a number of graphic designers then you will probably end up turning away work once word gets out in the area.
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By all means show me these few tweaks cause the fellow's at the site I visited surely didn't...when I asked them to review my site. :) I'm not sure what browsers you guys are using but FF3 rendered the page almost flawlessy, except for the fact that the gutter borders are mis-aligned and a little more obvious when the images are scaled. Everything else (when enlarging anyways) aligned up fine. IE7 has a little quirky behavior...but that is no surprise as it's standards complaince has never been ideal. I tried it Google Chrome which uses the WebKit (as does Safari) and it's rendering engine does not play nice with fixed width/height designs. That was a design choice I made -- similar results can be expected in IE6 I believe. The problem with those engines, is they don't scale images and the two horizontal menu bars are fixed height images and the silver gradient menubar, if I did make it scale (the DIV or UL) the gradient would look nasty buckled underneath itself. As for the light blue semi-translucent menu bar that has the "Web development", etc...that could be a DIV with a PNG background (requires a hack for IE6) or it could be DIV that uses the alpha blend. So what solution would you propose?
Blog Entry: 7 Software development best practices to make you more effective and productive PCSpectra :: Professional, Affordable PHP Programming, Web Development and Documentation
I'll take a closer look later today if I have time or tomorrow and let you know what I would do. Sorry, I'm just in a bit of a crunch right now to deliver something for an out-of-town meeting later today, and after the meeting I have my birthday celebrations :) WebKit's layout engine shouldn't be too hard to work around. For IE6, what I do (and you may or may not want to do this, but I certainly recommend it due to the vast percentage of IE6 users still out there) is make a copy of my CSS file once I'm done making it look pretty on everything else and append "_ie6" to the filename. I then proceed to butcher the crap out of it until it shows up in an acceptable fashion on IE6. I then use the very handy conditional IE statements to use that stylesheet instead of the regular one on IE6 systems only. Often times I make compromises on the way it looks on IE6 systems, but it always looks acceptable. You can throw in a message that informs the user they are using an outdated web browser so the experience may not be optimal, and give them an upgrade link.
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Permission granted.
Deja View - the feeling that you've seen this post before.
Well thank you! :)
"It reads like a B3 page (and for those who don't know what B3 is, it means bullsh*t Baffles Brains)" - Pete O'Hanlon
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
I took a look at you site and I caught a few things that would make me thing twice about hiring you. First, you do not really appear to know your target group. While you are targeting both web design firms needing to outsource work, you are also targeting individual business owners. Your message will be understood by design firms, it is way over the heads of most business owners seeking web exposure. It is the business owners you should be directing your message towards since there are way more of them than there are design firms. Over all, these clients do not care about "elegant code" or "beautiful code". They do not care about technical details. Those wikipedia links just confuse the issue. You need to keep your message simple...how can you help their business grow. Second, you do not explain why your way of doing things is good. You just say how you do them. What you need to do is adjust your message to how does your way of doing things help the potential client. How does your way solve their problems and help them sleep at night. Lets look at the section of page one about "Standards". Clients really do not care about customer experience or faster downloads. Just look at all the crappy, hard to use web sites out there. What you should be saying is that abiding by standards allows their web page to be seen functioning correctly by more customers using many different browsers, and that a well functioning web site leads customers to a perception of competence and confidence in the business, which leads to orders etc, etc.... You might want to also say standards also permits making future modifications easier/simpler and therefore less expensive to their bottom line. Lastly, incorrect grammar. Simple grammar mistakes are killer. For example, your line "Software doesn't need to suck but it usually does, because it's to complex." The final "to" should be "too". When you are in a technical field, where attention must be paid to detail, you can not afford to make these kind of mistakes. They indicate sloppiness and ineptitude. If you can not take the time to make your web site perfect why should your clients believe anything you say about making theirs perfect?
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I took a look at you site and I caught a few things that would make me thing twice about hiring you. First, you do not really appear to know your target group. While you are targeting both web design firms needing to outsource work, you are also targeting individual business owners. Your message will be understood by design firms, it is way over the heads of most business owners seeking web exposure. It is the business owners you should be directing your message towards since there are way more of them than there are design firms. Over all, these clients do not care about "elegant code" or "beautiful code". They do not care about technical details. Those wikipedia links just confuse the issue. You need to keep your message simple...how can you help their business grow. Second, you do not explain why your way of doing things is good. You just say how you do them. What you need to do is adjust your message to how does your way of doing things help the potential client. How does your way solve their problems and help them sleep at night. Lets look at the section of page one about "Standards". Clients really do not care about customer experience or faster downloads. Just look at all the crappy, hard to use web sites out there. What you should be saying is that abiding by standards allows their web page to be seen functioning correctly by more customers using many different browsers, and that a well functioning web site leads customers to a perception of competence and confidence in the business, which leads to orders etc, etc.... You might want to also say standards also permits making future modifications easier/simpler and therefore less expensive to their bottom line. Lastly, incorrect grammar. Simple grammar mistakes are killer. For example, your line "Software doesn't need to suck but it usually does, because it's to complex." The final "to" should be "too". When you are in a technical field, where attention must be paid to detail, you can not afford to make these kind of mistakes. They indicate sloppiness and ineptitude. If you can not take the time to make your web site perfect why should your clients believe anything you say about making theirs perfect?
In addition to the grammatical mistakes ("it's" instead of "its", run-on sentences), your text includes phrases with words like "suck" and "hell". Among programmers and web folks, that's no big deal; small businesses may consider that kind of language as unprofessional. Your web site is an advertisement. You should avoid anything that might offend people in a sales pitch. And they're going to think, "If he put that on his web site, what's he going to put on mine?" You have several unattributed quote blocks. If somebody else didn't say them, they shouldn't be in quotes. If someone else did, you should say who said it - and you should have their permission. If they won't give you permission to use their name, you shouldn't use the quotes. I'd recommend separate sections. Aim one at the web-design market, which can be less formal. A separate section targeting specific small business solutions can be more formal, confident and serious. The small business section should also use far less IT jargon and include specific examples. You said you've used designers in the past. I like your layout. Others have criticized your design as too generic but simple is best for small businesses. I would also recommend networking with one or more copy writers in your area to go over your copy. You can offer to trade web work for writing/editing work. If you already had someone else write your web content, I'd find someone else.
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
Hi. It looks like you have received lots of advice here, some good, some bad. As someone that has been doing a combination of freelancing (random clients for days through to years) and contracting (where I am onsite for months at a time) for the past 18 years I thought I would add my 2 cents. The first (and I think most important) thing that I would say that I don't think anyone else has said, is do you have a specialist area? I wouldn't really consider developing websites a specialist area, there are millions of people who do that. But if you have worked with a particular market previously then that is often a good market to keep working with. If you have developed a website for say a real estate agent then it is going to be a lot easier to get another real estate client than to get say a dentist. Make sure your previous clients know you are looking for work, it would be unusual for a previous client not to know others in their field that can be your future clients. Very easy for someone to go "Your website is good, who did that for you" and then you have a potential new client. In terms of meeting people I would be very impressed with anyone that goes to conferences and walks away with clients. That is hard work networking. However going to a local business meeting (Business Link, Chamber of Commerce - I've worked in four or five countries and they all have something), and then going a few times and making friends with people is easy, and much easier to convert into business. Once people there know what you do they will be interested in using you. Part of this is also that people are very lazy. I have seen people walked off company sites for gross negligence and then turn up again a week later because the boss didn't know (ie couldn't be bothered) anyone else to call. I wouldn't worry about your own website too much, most people will never look past the first few words. If you really want to pull random surfers you need something more eye catching, anyone else I cannot believe will read it. Also don't push terms like PHP, Hosting, Marketing and SEO. People want a website, you can introduce them to all those terms (and make money from implementing them) afterwards, most people don't have a clue what they mean. I like to think of clients as being like my dad - they know what they need it to do, but that is about the end of it, don't confuse them before you've started I could keep writing for hours on this, but this is already quite a long post, so my last piece of advice would be to think seriously abou
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How did you choose your (commercial) software that you wrote? Was it a conscious decision, or did you just kind of stumble onto it?
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
It was in a field I was working and interested in. It's hard to write good software unless it's something you are interested in already and know a fair amount about. Note: tomato and watermelon and blue cheese salad is delicious. :)
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don't say it." -Sam Levenson
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
I see nothing to separate you from the other two million PHP freelancers out there. Here's your problem- you're focusing FAR too much on a single technology/language, and not enough on a specific industry that you've already worked in. When it comes right down to getting the contract, knowing your customer's industry is much more important than if you use PHP, ASP.NET, or some other scripting language of the week. What you really need on your site is a resume and links to past work.
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
Oh. And a 5 for sticking around and listening to others after asking for help. Not seen often enough. Good luck.
"It reads like a B3 page (and for those who don't know what B3 is, it means bullsh*t Baffles Brains)" - Pete O'Hanlon
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I'll take a closer look later today if I have time or tomorrow and let you know what I would do. Sorry, I'm just in a bit of a crunch right now to deliver something for an out-of-town meeting later today, and after the meeting I have my birthday celebrations :) WebKit's layout engine shouldn't be too hard to work around. For IE6, what I do (and you may or may not want to do this, but I certainly recommend it due to the vast percentage of IE6 users still out there) is make a copy of my CSS file once I'm done making it look pretty on everything else and append "_ie6" to the filename. I then proceed to butcher the crap out of it until it shows up in an acceptable fashion on IE6. I then use the very handy conditional IE statements to use that stylesheet instead of the regular one on IE6 systems only. Often times I make compromises on the way it looks on IE6 systems, but it always looks acceptable. You can throw in a message that informs the user they are using an outdated web browser so the experience may not be optimal, and give them an upgrade link.
I already use a conditional hack for IE6... Thats not the issue...I think the problem is due to the fact that IE does not scale bitmapped graphics...so while the text increases (being vector drawn) the background images do not hence the text looks far larger than it should and everything loses it's layout. I would have to use variable height graphics for the meuu bar and the background header image which would require changing my design drastically or hacking like made using JS and alphablend. Cheers, Alex
Blog Entry: 7 Software development best practices to make you more effective and productive PCSpectra :: Professional, Affordable PHP Programming, Web Development and Documentation
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Oh. And a 5 for sticking around and listening to others after asking for help. Not seen often enough. Good luck.
"It reads like a B3 page (and for those who don't know what B3 is, it means bullsh*t Baffles Brains)" - Pete O'Hanlon
Haha. What would be the point of asking for help if you don't stick around to listen to the replies? ;P I agree with much of what has been said and disagree with some as well. Those that stung most are probably most relevant so that is what I am gong to work on first... Cheers, Alex
Blog Entry: 7 Software development best practices to make you more effective and productive PCSpectra :: Professional, Affordable PHP Programming, Web Development and Documentation
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Haha. What would be the point of asking for help if you don't stick around to listen to the replies? ;P I agree with much of what has been said and disagree with some as well. Those that stung most are probably most relevant so that is what I am gong to work on first... Cheers, Alex
Blog Entry: 7 Software development best practices to make you more effective and productive PCSpectra :: Professional, Affordable PHP Programming, Web Development and Documentation
Ok, maybe I should have said 'show' that you stick around... :)
"It reads like a B3 page (and for those who don't know what B3 is, it means bullsh*t Baffles Brains)" - Pete O'Hanlon
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
Mr. PCSpectra, Sorry your site dosent't look much more than A GIANT CONTACT US FORM. What I can Suggest u is build the site with Joomla or Droopal CMS. Since u r your self PHP expert or have expertise of some level. Can book on any of the CMS get the basics and build on your own. There are numerous help sites, in case u r in trouble. 1. Have yr own Blogs [first ask yr friends to blog, it often helps ] 2. get goggle adds on 3. Add your site path XML to Google.com [it will increase yr hits] 4. Add a separate section for code hosting. 5. ..... I hope u under stand the rest.... Rajarshi
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I have had a web site under the name PCSpectra (either .ca or .com) for almost ten years but I really only ever used it as a place to host source code, ideas and remotely store files of importance and backups. A couple of months ago I decided to put some serious effort into it and promote my services through my web site and not just some random PHP developer guy. I've been linking back to my site from various places (mostly forums and programming communities, Linux, Web design, etc) and I'm getting only about 50 unique hits a day. Sadly none of my online marketing efforts have transpired into any lead or contact, etc. What I do get a lot of is bogus emails coming in through my contact form, of people telling me how much my blog sucks or how much my site sucks, etc... X| :laugh: Some comments are actually funny. :) Unfortunately none have made me any money. I am gradually changing all my forum aliases to PCSpectra from Hockey and linking to my site from my sig and promoting my blog on other related blogs. It's all quite a lot of work when all you want to do is develop software. :P For the last year or so I've been developing a newsletter/email marketing software package to compete with the big guns and now I need extra cash to pay for the hosting and advertising fees, hence the serious effort in promoting my web site/business -- if you can call it that. :) So my question is, clearly I'm advertising in the wrong places, probably mostly developers or other tech savvy people viewing my site and borrowing ideas or trying to hack it. I have joined a few business networks like Ryze and tried promoting my services there as well with little or no success and yet I see others who do the same thing, with no web site (or one of poor quality, in terms of design, layout and validation, etc) and they apparently do find busiess on these sites. It's frustrating to say the least. What I would like to ask the CP community, especially those who have any experience doing freelance/contract work on a full time scale (something I've never been able to do -- simply cause I couldn't find enough business) can you please look at my site, tell me what you think and more importantly tell me how I can improve what I already have. More content? More blog entries? Where and/or how can I find leads? My webiste: PCSpectra p.s-Please do not recommend those PHP freelancing web sites. I am aware of them and despise them.
There are a lot of good responses here, but there's one that can't be reiterated too much: REMEMBER YOUR AUDIENCE. Most, if not all, of your potential clients are not technically inclined and don't care to be. Involve non-technical friends and family in creating the text of your home page; keep simplifying it until you can get your basic message across without explanation. If you do still want to keep the technical stuff on your site (which can be a good idea), move it to a separate page - those that are technically-inclined will look for it. Other comments: * Like someone else said, don't be afraid to be a small shop! You are what you are, and any potential clients will find that out sooner or later. It can also be a benefit - a lot of small businesses prefer to do business with other small businesses. (Besides, if the potential client is looking for a 100-person consultancy, you don't want their project, anyway.) * Move the Contact Us part to a separate page. It deserves to have lots of space. I would also eliminate the "required" and "optional" field labels (if they're filling out the contact form, they want you to contact them and will fill it in appropriately) and change the label on the last field to use more active language (something like "How can we help you" or "What kind of service do you need"). * Have a friend who's a very good writer check your grammar. There are several errors, and those will stick out to many business owners looking for the small things to judge your quality. * Eliminate non-professional language. A perfect example is the quote that ends with "it sucks." Even if that is accurate, it can also have the effect of driving away business owners who value professionalism. Remember: the first impression is vital, especially if you are relying on marketing materials to make that impression. * I'm not crazy about the first-person quotes, either. The concepts presented in them are fine, though, so I would work them into your prose. Good luck!
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There are a lot of good responses here, but there's one that can't be reiterated too much: REMEMBER YOUR AUDIENCE. Most, if not all, of your potential clients are not technically inclined and don't care to be. Involve non-technical friends and family in creating the text of your home page; keep simplifying it until you can get your basic message across without explanation. If you do still want to keep the technical stuff on your site (which can be a good idea), move it to a separate page - those that are technically-inclined will look for it. Other comments: * Like someone else said, don't be afraid to be a small shop! You are what you are, and any potential clients will find that out sooner or later. It can also be a benefit - a lot of small businesses prefer to do business with other small businesses. (Besides, if the potential client is looking for a 100-person consultancy, you don't want their project, anyway.) * Move the Contact Us part to a separate page. It deserves to have lots of space. I would also eliminate the "required" and "optional" field labels (if they're filling out the contact form, they want you to contact them and will fill it in appropriately) and change the label on the last field to use more active language (something like "How can we help you" or "What kind of service do you need"). * Have a friend who's a very good writer check your grammar. There are several errors, and those will stick out to many business owners looking for the small things to judge your quality. * Eliminate non-professional language. A perfect example is the quote that ends with "it sucks." Even if that is accurate, it can also have the effect of driving away business owners who value professionalism. Remember: the first impression is vital, especially if you are relying on marketing materials to make that impression. * I'm not crazy about the first-person quotes, either. The concepts presented in them are fine, though, so I would work them into your prose. Good luck!
Great advice, thanks. I agree there is much that needs to change from a business perspective. This has probably been one of the most eye opening experiences in my life. It's clear to me I don't understand the world of business. Interestingly, today I I visited my doctor who acts like a psuedo-shrink to me. I vent and he listens and offers non-biased constructive feedback. Anyways, while venting today, it clicked as to what "sales" really is. I have always disliked sales. Why? The concept of paying someone commission (large portion of the overall fee of the project) just didn't sit well with me. Like I was ripping off the client or something, had they only researched and found me, they could have saved that $500 fee. I guess what a sales/marketing guy does is bring value added services to an existing service, by saving the business man of having to do the research themselves. Although obviously a sales man is going to be biased. As a techie, to me everything is about being critical, even of myself. When I do something wrong I want someone to tell me, even if it hurts my feelings, how else to do you ever plan on striving to become the best? Apparently that same mentality doesn't transcend into business, so I can't tell a business man his current software sucks and this is why. :P Thankfully I've been on contact with a sales savvy programmer with an interest in PR, something I will never be good at. Sounds like he's interested in being the front man to PCSpectra for a fairly large commission mind you, but I guess I'll just include that onto the client's bill. :P Thanks again, to you and everyone for all the advice given. Some sucked, some was constructive and very helpful in making me realize where I went wrong and have likely been going wrong for the last 10 years as I attempted to start my own gig. Unfortunately most of my previous work has been with companies I would consider "competition" which is why I decided to go at it alone, experience has taught me I can do it better, in some case a lot better. Here is where that "greatest widget in the world" story comes in I guess. Anyways, thanks again, keep the advice coming, obviously I need it. :-O :laugh: :) Cheers, Alex
Blog Entry: 7 Software development best practices to make you more effective and productive PCSpectra :: Professional, Affordable PHP Progr