I think I’ve become allergic to ‘Internet Marketers’
In general I love almost all my clients. They’re a great and creative bunch and I absolutely love to watch them succeed with the custom websites I’ve designed for them.
However there is one group of people who, for the most part, I hope I never hear from again. They call themselves “Internet Marketers.”
These are the people who think they’re going to get rich off the internet by creating sites full of affiliate links, reprinted articles written by others (who also call themselves “internet marketers”) and huge blocks of Adsense ads cunningly designed so that it’s almost impossible to distinguish the ads from “real” links. These “internet marketers” often have content fed in from RSS feeds, and in fact rarely have any real self-generated content at all. 80% of them have their pictures plastered in their header, sporting a Colgate Smile and Serious Business Attire. The name “Google” appears in these “internet marketing” sites so often I’m surprised it doesn’t beat out the Google site in google’s own listings.
These sites all have one thing in common. The only thing original about them is the photo plastered on top. Everything else is interchangeable with every other “Internet Marketing” site out there.
All these “Internet Marketers” say they want a “Web 2.0″ site without having a clue what that really means. Their sites always end up with more flashing, annoying ads than any other site out there, not to mention every bit of screen real estate covered from top to bottom, right to left. Whitespace? Yeah, right.
The “Internet Marketers” all need such an excessive amount of handholding that I’ve started to write stringent limits into my quotes re consultation apart from design work, and a top limit on the amount of revision included in the dollar amount quoted,and number of plugin customizations. “Internet Marketers” all want to talk on the phone, which I find to be a huge timewaster, and a convenient way for them to forget what was specified since it isn’t in writing. “Internet Marketers” all want sites that look like every other damn internet marketing site out there, which should make it easy but doesn’t, since a tendency to be anal retentive and controlling seems to go hand in hand with this type of client. In fact, most “Internet Marketers” want so much control that the end result usually looks NOTHING like my concept, and the site is usually a total coding abortion within a week or so of me handing it over, since even though they hired me to do what they can’t, they still insist on sticking their well manicured fingers into the code they know diddly about. Which means these sites almost never get listed in my portfolio.
Despite my repeated warnings to these “Internet Marketers” that Wordpress plugins can sometimes conflict with each other and need to be used sparingly in a Wordpress site, and need to be added one at a time, these “Internet Marketers” routinely and instantly install in excess of 50, turn them all on at once, then can’t understand why their site doesn’t work.
I’ve had “internet marketers” who have asked me to do certain work, and then erased it from their servers the next day, and then can’t understand why I’m a bit . . . annoyed. I’ve had “internet marketers” who have changed ftp logins on me in mid-job more than once (this happened last week. Again.) The simple instructions I write out for other clients and which generally seem to result in only a question or two from them, usually don’t work at all for “internet marketers”, who end up not understanding anything, and then try to waste more of my time by trying to talk me into giving them “wordpress lessons”.
Now, I know there are exceptions to every rule. Maybe one day I’ll meet the exception to this one.
In the meantime, if I get a quote request and the example sites are all “internet marketing” sites, my pricing is immediately doubled. Or maybe I should triple it . . .
Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing Website Design
