I entered the web design industry quite late on (despite making websites for years before!) and something I've noticed in my limited employment in it has been the prevalence of content management systems.

 

It makes sense from a sales point of view, as the company doesn't have to sell (and charge for) content population, and on the surface, from a customer's point of view, if they don't have to pay a web designer to update their website.

 

But I've encountered several customers who can barely use a computer and take up hours and hours of time (and time is money) on support queries and/or, when let loose on a CMS, fill in the designer's cafefully designed spaces in bright red comic sans copied and pasted from MS word which was plagiarised from a competitor's website.

 

Which leads me to think, content management: great in theory, but it's not for everyone.

 

Is it pretty much de facto these days?

 

Does anyone still pay for on-going website maintenance? There seems to be a trend now where cleints think this is a 'waste of money'. But if the client does a shoddy job of updating their website, surely that has the potential to be more detrimental to their business than the impact of paying for updates.

 

Freelancers and people who work in web sales, do you ever suggest content writing/content population when the potential client doesn't sound like they will be up to the job?

 

Interested in anyone elses thoughts...

A fellow web designer friend of mine has been battling with exactly the same problems you mentioned. His solution? Pay by the month websites. No upfront charges for the site, but you pay a monthly fee that covers your site, hosting and an allocated amount of support (30mins, 1hr, etc). You never "own" the site, but you own all of your data, media, comments, mailing list, etc. The packages are priced so that in around two years you've made the payments that would cover the standard upfront charge. At that point, he's happy to re-skin the site at no charge if you continue on with the payment plan.

 

There are a couple of reasons he went down this path. Mainly so that he could have a steady stream of regular income coming in each month. Rather than working from job to job, and getting paid in stages, often months apart, he knows that, for example, he has 50 clients on a £100 package, which gives him £5000 every month. The other main reason was because people were constantly calling up asking for fixes, edits and tweaks, usually because of a cock up that they had made. Now that everyone is paying for support, he can provide that service without worrying about losing time on other jobs.

 

Understandably, not for everyone, but seems to be working well for him.

I think that prevention goes a long way.

 

It helps to kwow what the client is capable of before proposing a CMS. Usually there are ways of limiting the backend interface (I only have experience with Wordpress but imagine the others are the same) so that the client has fewer options in the visual editor

and is less likely to make a mess of things.

 

A proper training also helps and should be billed accordingly. If you state upfront your fees for fixes and tweaks or offer an option for site maintenace the client is less likely to bother you for every little thing. I think most serious clients who are willing to pay for a decent site using a CMS will realise what it takes to maintain a good-looking, well functioning site. Or they can retroactively choose a site maintenace option.

 

If someone isn't willing to pay much and just want a starter type CMS I tell them to choose a payable theme from Wordpress and charge for installation and setup if they can't manage.

 

@chris

A fellow web designer friend of mine has been battling with exactly the same problems you mentioned. His solution? Pay by the month websites. No upfront charges for the site, but you pay a monthly fee that covers your site, hosting and an allocated amount of support (30mins, 1hr, etc). You never "own" the site, but you own all of your data, media, comments, mailing list, etc. The packages are priced so that in around two years you've made the payments that would cover the standard upfront charge. At that point, he's happy to re-skin the site at no charge if you continue on with the payment plan.

 

I'm curious how that works. Do you have a link to his site?

If I were you I'd offer so much support per month included in the original price, then change any extra after that. You could use a "credits" system, so say the client starts off with 100 support credits per month and that works out to X hours (whatever you decide).

 

Then they can buy another 100 credits for whatever amount you decide.

 

That way people know they have support but won't tie you up with stupid support tasks because they are eating up their credits...

Thing is, once you've crafted that beautiful site out of the CMS of your choice and demonstrated your skills and professionalism, those same clients will always contact you wanting added extras and support so you never really lose out.

Let's not forget a lot of these people will want a new theme in a year so you've got returning customers.

Back up, Back up and Back up!

 

At least then once the client has destroyed the beautiful creation you can put it back to how it was lol.

 

I've noticed a lot more people enquire about CMS now because someone they know has a website they can update themselves. We normally check they can use something like Word to a decent level but we do also have a user guide on modX and the features we use within. It's then normally just a case of altering/adding anything specific to the individual clients and also making sure access levels are set properly.

"making sure access levels are set properly"

 

Definitely don't give the users access to more things than they need! ie dont give everyone "admin" access because you can almost guarantee someone will screw something up "by mistake" whilst "having a play"....

Oops, bit late coming back to this.

 

The same clients do come back and ask for added extras and support, but a lot of the time, seem to expect it for free!

It doesn't affect me that directly because I'm just a cog in an organisation, I'm just interested really.

 

The ongoining payments thing is an interesting one, there seems to be a lot of it around, for people who don't want to/can't invest a big lump sum into a website. I made a website recently for a friend who was initially leaning towards something called Shopify, which to be fair, looked ok. But in the end I think she was swayed by the portability/one-off cost of having a standalone ecom system.

Monthly fee packages seem potentially very lucrative from a freelance point of view too, as with a business model like that, there's no way customers could blag things for free!

Guaranteed income is always good too...

I entered the web design industry quite late on (despite making websites for years before!) and something I've noticed in my limited employment in it has been the prevalence of content management systems.

 

It makes sense from a sales point of view, as the company doesn't have to sell (and charge for) content population, and on the surface, from a customer's point of view, if they don't have to pay a web designer to update their website.

 

But I've encountered several customers who can barely use a computer and take up hours and hours of time (and time is money) on support queries and/or, when let loose on a CMS, fill in the designer's cafefully designed spaces in bright red comic sans copied and pasted from MS word which was plagiarised from a competitor's website.

 

Which leads me to think, content management: great in theory, but it's not for everyone.

 

Is it pretty much de facto these days?

 

Does anyone still pay for on-going website maintenance? There seems to be a trend now where cleints think this is a 'waste of money'. But if the client does a shoddy job of updating their website, surely that has the potential to be more detrimental to their business than the impact of paying for updates.

 

Freelancers and people who work in web sales, do you ever suggest content writing/content population when the potential client doesn't sound like they will be up to the job?

 

Interested in anyone elses thoughts...

 

Having been a relative youngster when the Internet first started out, I originally started off with DreamWeaver in the early 00's and this was the norm up until customers began to understand more about websites, and in turn, understand more clearly what they specifically want their website to do. That's when discussion boards/forums started popping up in force, and then CMS editors, and eventually full-blown CMS platforms.

 

I don't ever open DreamWeaver now, I use WordPress and/or Notepad ++. First of all because customers demand easy access to their websites and full control. Secondly anyone who can predict trends can see mobile browsing is the future, and CMS platforms such as WordPress/Drupal/Joomla suit that perfectly.

 

If I ever had a client who knew absolutely nothing about computers, I wouldn't assume they want something that is backwards compatible. I'd assume they want something up to date, and using anything other then CMS's (in my opinion) just isn't the way to go.

 

Regarding manual updates though, I have a couple of clients who I've built WP sites for, but still insist I do their updates simply because they're too busy.

Edited November 13, 201213 yr by Silverbolt

 

 

Having been a relative youngster when the Internet first started out, I originally started off with DreamWeaver in the early 00's and this was the norm up until customers began to understand more about websites, and in turn, understand more clearly what they specifically want their website to do. That's when discussion boards/forums started popping up in force, and then CMS editors, and eventually full-blown CMS platforms.

 

I don't ever open DreamWeaver now, I use WordPress and/or Notepad ++. First of all because customers demand easy access to their websites and full control. Secondly anyone who can predict trends can see mobile browsing is the future, and CMS platforms such as WordPress/Drupal/Joomla suit that perfectly.

 

If I ever had a client who knew absolutely nothing about computers, I wouldn't assume they want something that is backwards compatible. I'd assume they want something up to date, and using anything other then CMS's (in my opinion) just isn't the way to go.

 

Regarding manual updates though, I have a couple of clients who I've built WP sites for, but still insist I do their updates simply because they're too busy.

Hi.

Having recently completed a Dreamweaver course creating static sites I am now faced with what seems to be a new world of CMS. I understand from your post that you do not use DW in preference to Wordpress. In another post on this site I have been advised to use Wordpress. Having no knowledge of this, what I am asking you is, if this is the way forward for me, is there no interaction with DW and WP regarding CMS and can anybody advise me on where to start with WP (sites, books, any learning resources).

If you want to take your business further then CMS knowledge is a must but it is by no means the only way of running a web design business.

Where a fair chunk of my business is CMS related, there are also a hell of a lot of customers out there that either don't want or don't need a CMS.

 

The worst of those are the ones that want a CMS when they have absolutely no reason for one.

 

It's your job as the professional to talk to potential clients and work out and recommend the best way forward for them. Often budget is the deciding factor.

A credits system is a good idea as mentioned above..

 

Your clients will soon come running when they realize they need you for updates/maintenence

Repeat this mantra....."contract, charge, cleanup"

 

Make it a strict contract stipulation right at the start that client screw ups whilst handling the CMS will be fixed at a set hourly rate. That said, I will go through sites every so often and clean up the more glaring abuses off my own back, such as lots of inline CSS. You can cure the rampant comic sans by limiting whichever text editor options are available. Leaving something like JCK editor with out of the box settings is the equivalent of saying "Have 20 fonts. Make us all dance".

Hi.

Having recently completed a Dreamweaver course creating static sites I am now faced with what seems to be a new world of CMS. I understand from your post that you do not use DW in preference to Wordpress. In another post on this site I have been advised to use Wordpress. Having no knowledge of this, what I am asking you is, if this is the way forward for me, is there no interaction with DW and WP regarding CMS and can anybody advise me on where to start with WP (sites, books, any learning resources).

 

Dreamweaver still has its place in the web masters armoury. There always comes a time when I can't quite remember this syntax or that, so I will often jump into dreamweaver, create what it is I want to create, then rip the code out the coding window and paste into my CMS.

 

Its handy for doing stuff like importing adsense ads and putting them somewhere they wouldn't normally be. Or for fine tuning formatting of text and images.

 

Every CMS gives you an HTML window to write code directly into, so dreamweaver will get you by when you are feeling lazy or perhaps dont know how to code a particular facet of the website.

 

Its a great bit of software. I love it.