THIS IS A SPECIAL OFFER LIMITED TO THE FIRST FIVE SIGNUPS ONLY. BECAUSE THOSE WHO THINK *TOO MUCH FOR TOO LONG*, THEY KEEP ON THINKING AND THINKING UNTIL IT IS TOO LATE!

What's the first thing that strikes viewers to make them decide *against* trusting a webhosting company?

What's the first thing that makes YOU decide against trusting any company selling services or products online?

IT IS A FACT - The first thing is the design of the company's website! A poorly designed website immediately turns off potential clients... because they simply use common sense in thinking "if this company cannot even afford the services of a simple web designer to create a decent look..."

... aah! You know what they or you think after that, right?

It often doesn't cost much to spruce up the looks of a small website. In fact with today's technology, it costs a fraction of what it used to for even large websites/portals.

This special offer is only for those webhosting companies...

1. who cannot currently afford the services of an expensive webdesigning firm.
2. who would really like to spruce up the current looks of their website asap.
3. who have tried to do their webdesigning themselves and got frustrated in the end.
4. who have a limited budget for designing their new website or redesigning their current website.

How's '$99 only' sound for a professional looking brand new 10 paged website OR for sprucing up your current website (10 pages)?

That's what we charge under this special offer for designing or redesigning 10 webpages. Every page after the first 10 webpages will continue to be charged at this same rate... at $9.99 per page!

So what professional services do you get for $99 under this special offer?

YOU GET within this special offer:

1. An awesome clean professional webdesign having a serious corporate look. No silly blotchy images. All graphics will be custom made or will be royalty-free.

2. A superb navigation system (menu) which is unrestricted. You would be able to add or remove any number of links to other pages at any time without affecting other links. Such navigation systems can be expanded to any limit. Even a non-technical person could customize the system easily.

3. Attractive mouseovers for all main/important links and buttons (as and where necessary).

4. A visually pleasing sitemap.

5. Customized error pages (if necessary).

6. Absolutely no frames! Each page will show up correctly in search engines.

7. Proper generic professional coding techniques. Such coding will make your webpages render faster in browsers... especially on slower PCs. Isn't it surprising that there is so much imperfect code out there that forces the browser to display content only after the entire page has been downloaded!

8. Fully customizable code with help pages! A new service specially from us! Each webpage design will come with its help pages in the form of notes so that you may be able to change a feature/color/size/graphic/text on any webpage any time... customization or editing doesn't get better or easier than this!

9. Professional copywriting services which will render the textual content of your webpages in a much better fashion. You may choose not to opt for this service if you wish. But if you do, you have to provide the main textual content.

10. Price freeze is offered too! We will continue to charge $9.99 per page for the next three months since date of commencement of work should you require more webpages... YES, you read correct... per page!... not per hour!

PAYMENT TERMS for this special offer:

A. You pay us by ordinary bank check in US Dollars only. Bank check should be payable to a bank account inside the USA.

B. You pay us $99 only *after* the first 10 webpages are completed fully.

C. You pay us $9.99 per webpage for any subsequent webpages after the first ten pages are completed. This amount has to be paid in advance.

D. If you are not satisfied with the webdesign of the first 10 webpages (or simply do not wish to pay us!), you don't have to! We don't expect customers to pay for services they don't need or like! However, we expect you not to use any of the webdesigns / graphics / navigation systems / mouseovers done for you by us in any way whatsoever.

E. You may or may not display the name of our webdesigning company on your webpages. Choice is yours!

THIS IS A SPECIAL OFFER LIMITED TO THE FIRST FIVE SIGNUPS ONLY. BECAUSE THOSE WHO THINK *TOO MUCH FOR TOO LONG*, THEY KEEP ON THINKING AND THINKING UNTIL IT IS TOO LATE!

Email contact: changlee2k@yahoo.com - for *personal clarifications* only.
Please post your *generic questions* or *signup confirmation* under this post. Thanks.

Portfolio Chang?

Same question here? portfolio?

Hello Andrew & Martie,

First, let me say this... I just checked out your sites...

Andrew... you current website definitely does not need our services! Also, We think your firm also does great designs. We also really liked the quote on your Design Services page <quote>The best part of the World Wide Web, is that anyone can put up a web page, the worst part being that anyone can put up a webpage. Unfortunately there is a lot of garbage out there. <unquote> We sure would recommend your company to Martie here!

Martie... your website is definitely having a better design than the average webhosting companies we have visited. But yes, you could benefit from a better more serious cleaner look. Your current design is not that bad however. It will do... unless you really are interested to get a more professional look. We would also like to comment that from what we felt after visiting your site, we feel that you definitely know quite a lot about the hosting business, and for this reason we couldn't help feeling that your website really needs to look *better*. What you really need is a better navigation system on your site. Its our humble opinion only. Its something you could easily do yourself and don't necessarily need our services for that... especially if you are creative with JavaScript.

Now... to answer your question about OUR PORTFOLIO. The answer is "We currently do not have a portfolio!" Allow us to introduce ourselves... We are just a group of recently trained ebdesigners fresh out from design school. We are well trained in advanced HTML coding, CSS and JavaScript. One of us is quite creative with JavaScript especially. Another has experience in working as a copy writer for a top class advertising firm. I myself am a Marketing Professional. We all have our own jobs at the moment and we met at design school where we learnt the basics of webdesign. We are currently learning how to program in Flash, but we do not offer Flash based services at the moment till we feel comfortable about doing decent work.

That is the reason why we have decided to offer our collective services on the above payment terms. Clients pay only when they are satisfied with the first 10 completed webpages, or not at all. We thought that this was an excellent way to get a decent portfolio of at least five websites before we can really market ourselves in a bigger way.

This thinking benefits both... forum visitors who sign up for our special offer, and us too. Though we collectively get paid a miniscule amount, but we still get paid! :) Forum visitors also get a chance to have a group of aspiring and well trained web design students who are bursting with creativity and are looking for a real-life chance to design a professional looking website for a very low cost. They have absolutely nothing to lose by signing up for this special offer because the payment terms are very clear... they pay only if they are satisfied... and it is they themselves who decide whether our work is satisfactory... not us!

I hope that the logic behind our special offer is appreciated and our prices thought to be very reasonable. We designed the above offer because we specically wanted to create a feeling of "There's nothing to lose, so why not try these guys out!" in the minds of this forum's visitors.

Andrew: If you have any advice to give us since we are getting into a business in which you already have experience, please feel free to advise.

Thanks.

I think I can give you some friendly advice Chang.
First of all, before starting any job, make yourself a website. Most people won't like to get their site designed by someone who's work they haven't seen yet. It's really hard to get gigs without a portfolio. Some people create free websites for non-profit organisations just to get them in their portfolios. I think that's honorable and helps them getting started.
Second, (IMO) you shouldn't tell anyone they don't need a website. If someone wants their website re-done, that means you're getting business. I sure wouldn't turn any potential clients down.
Third, this
quote ...or simply do not wish to pay us!), you don't have to! /quote
isn't a good idea imho- you're working hard, and getting nothing. Doesn't seem fair to me.
Hope this was somehow helpful; best of luck with your company.

Marc
www.subwaydesigns.net

p.s: I personnaly think hostcater.com needs a redesign... badly. but that's just my opinion...for whatever it's worth.

Hi Mark!

Originally posted by Lazarus
I think I can give you some friendly advice Chang.

Thanks. Friendly well-intended advice is something we yearn for and is always welcome!

First of all, before starting any job, make yourself a website. Most people won't like to get their site designed by someone who's work they haven't seen yet. It's really hard to get gigs without a portfolio.

Yes, we will be putting up a website soon... in fact the main reason for not putting up a website immediately is that we don't have a portfolio to show on our website yet! So we thought that it would be best to do a few great designs for others first. Plus, that would really make us feel proud... being able to do some work via the internet even without having a website! Hence the ridiculously low prices in our special offer!

For example, the efforts we would be collectively putting into just the navigation system would be worth $100 alone in hours spent. I notice that most web designers in this forum do just a template from anywhere between $80 to $200. Yet we decided to charge only a maximum of $99 for a full website... navigation system that absolute rocks... all graphics custom made... even copywritten content... because most sites for new webhosting companies generally fall under this 10-Page category.

We would easily be spending more than 10 hours per page all inclusive... thats about 100 hours for 10 pages! Yet we are charging just $99 for the same! And that's not all... we even offer to work at this rate for the next three months since date of commencement of work... even though we are pretty sure we would be hiking up our rates at least by 5 times after doing a few jobs this month.

Some people create free websites for non-profit organisations just to get them in their portfolios. I think that's honorable and helps them getting started.

Thats definitely a good idea. But again, we do not want to do a whole website for free. We are ready to do a small graphic or logo, but not a whole website. Because such a job would be a collective effort... any client that signs us up gets three talented guys working on his project... not just one!

Second, (IMO) you shouldn't tell anyone they don't need a website. If someone wants their website re-done, that means you're getting business. I sure wouldn't turn any potential clients down.

We didn't ever tell anyone they don't need a website! We just told Andrew above that we didn't think he needed our services for his current website! That's all! That was our honest opinion because he already has a great design at his current site!

Third, this <quote>...or simply do not wish to pay us!, you don't have to! <quote> isn't a good idea... imho- you're working hard, and getting nothing. Doesn't seem fair to me.

I know what you are referring to... you mean good... but the fact is we don't have a portfolio... and we aren't willing to work free of cost for an entire website into which we are going to put our utmost energies and abilities. That is why me made our special offer the way we did. We want prospective clients to really feel that he or she loses nothing in contracting us, because he or she is not forced to pay us if he or she is not *entirely* satisfied. Thats the deal. Even if they like our work, but don't feel like paying... we will not mind at all!

There is no contract too... its just a friendly offer to work for someone to get experience and get paid just a little bit too and be extremely competitive under the circumstances we are currently in. Both should benefit... the client benefits because he or she made the decision to sign us up. We benefit because we get the experience and the portfolio. So both are happy. Big money is the last thing we yearn for at the moment. If we are good, we will go a long way. If we are bad, we won't... as simple as that.

Hope this was somehow helpful; best of luck with your company.

It sure was! Thank you for your time in advising us! We will surely be heeding your advice from our 6th client onwards!

EDIT: Added more below...

Btw, Mark... we checked out your website too and really like what we saw... at http://www.subwaydesigns.net.

Your initial flash pages on your website especially impressed us because we believe first impressions are the most important. Its those first few seconds which either impress or depress a visitor to any site.

In fact we learnt and realized a few things too from the work on your site! Did you do that all by yourself? If you did, we would like to recommend you if clients come to us for Flash work later, something we do not plan on offering Flash based services till January next year because we are still studying Flash at webdesign school.

What we liked at your site:

The colors on your splash page, especially the bright red rectangular mouseover on the blackbackground!

The rotating "S" logo... very cool... very polished! (We also thought it was a great idea to mention that 'it wont take long (to download)' during the Flash downloading message.

Nice idea about using the gigantic %'age symbol too!

The HOME PAGE was swell... in its simplicity... and also the mouseovers at the top links there.

What we thought could be improved at your site:

The darker blue text in the center box wasn't showing up legible enough. The solution is simply to either make the font size larger or make the color a bit brighter, or to change the color altogether. I noticed both my associates squinting at the monitor when they were trying to read it. Hope pointing that out helps.

Everything else is very impressive. The design is modern and immensely attractive.

Thanks once again for your time in replying to our post.

Warm regards...

THank you Chang, all comments about my site, good or bad, are warmly welcomed. I'm actually working on another version of my site, since I'm beginning to find many defaults with this design, some of which you pointed out to me.
I guess the answers to my remarks were founded, so I can't really help anymore.
Anyway, hope you get succesful.
Marc
p.s: just out of curiosity, where di you see a bright red rectangular mouseover? I can't really find any red on my page and if you did, I don't think it was intentionnal. I'd be glad if you could point that out.

Chang,

Thanks for your kind words, I'm glad you like the site. To be honest, I wasn't looking for a new design... I just like to see people's work. :)

Best of luck to you.