Just wondering what some of you guys/gals do to help potential customers get a site put together. Specifically, in my case, I know what I'm doing (pretty much ;) ) around the servers, but my design skills are quite lacking! I find that many people I talk to about getting a site online are interested, but need someone to design the site for them first - a hosting account does them no good if they don't have a site to put there!

I guess an option would be to team with a designer that could make the sites for them and then I would provide the hosting space. Any other suggestions, or at least comments about how you do it?

Same here. I have no artistic ability whatsoever. I can help them coding their site, I'm pretty proficient in PHP/SQL and Perl, but do NOT ask me to go near PSP, Photoshop, or 3dsm. Heck, MSPaint confuses me :)

right now we don't offer webdesign, but I will help them if they have any problems setuping up the site if need be.

My web design skills are ok but not good enough to design professional custom websites. I use microlinq (http://www.microlinq.com) for my web hosting, and they also do web design. I have a lot of associates that have needed web design services and I have referred them to microlinq. They are very professional and do great work. They worked out a a refferal plan for me so that I get paid everytime I send them someone. They also can partner with you and stay Anonymous. That way you can offer design services and just contract the work out. Your customer never has to know. Hope this helps.

I have talked to a lot of people in the web hosting business, and they say that the majority of thier potential customers want web hosting, and web design services all together. They don't want to have to go several places (prefer one stop shop) so to speak. If you are a web hosting provider you would definatley help yourself (your company) out by offering web design services in one form or another.

Same here

I can code really well.

Graphics and design I am usless at.

gadget,

I have always done graphic design work myself, but I know of plenty of companies that employ full-time artists. Often, these employees are hired to work on general marketing materials, but as long as they are proficient inAdobe Photoshop and Illustrator, their work can generally be adapted to the web pretty easily. Unfortunately, finding good, affordable design talent is difficult, since the stereotype of the rebellious (read "difficult to manage") artist is sometimes true.

I do graphics design, HTML (wow), and PHP/mySQL. I'm not to be trusted with root access to a server. Not because I'm not trustworthy, but because I don't know many commands other than mySQL commands and the du (disk usage) command, so it probably wouldn't take long for me to break something.

My recommendation would be to find someone who you know personally and team up with them. It's easier to work with a designer you know than someone who you just employ over the internet.

Originally posted by Avail
My recommendation would be to find someone who you know personally and team up with them. It's easier to work with a designer you know than someone who you just employ over the internet.

I agree... Or partner with a web design company, you can both make out by referring customers.

our small company has people that do all aspects from admin to photshop to dreamweaver etc.

before our group started hosting we would never rent space from a host that offered design services-we felt like it was in conflict of interest as we did get biz from hosts that we used.

on the other side of the coin we feel by NOT offering design we attract many more designers and programmers because they do not feel conflict of interest-same as we did.

in the end our philosophy is there is more money in hosting than design and design clients are a pain in the a** anyway..


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