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From web designers ghosting clients to

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marketing pre built websites as custom built

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to really understanding the tech behind a website build.

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This week I am talking all about the industry

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practices that people hate. And when I say people,

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I'm talking about web designers.

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Hi, I'm Holly Christie. I'm from Website Made Simple. I am

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a website designer. I am also a mentor to you lovely website

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designers designers and I am here to make sure you get to have

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a career that you absolutely love without being

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driven into the ground by it. So,

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ready to get started?

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I asked on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago what web

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designers hated about our industry.

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Whilst the post itself got something like 130 comments,

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a lot of them were very similar and I grouped

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them into what will become this episode and one other episode

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and thought that we could talk them through together. Let's get

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started. The very first one that people said were pre

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built websites being marketed as custom websites.

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And I have to say I absolutely agree with this.

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And if you've been following this podcast for a while, you will

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know I am not a fan of Elementor.

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Every single thing that we ever needed to do on this

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website, we had to find a workaround for it because Elementor just didn't like the

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theme. The theme didn't like it. And I think some of

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my early experience of Elementor coming to the market because I'd been

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a web designer way before Elementor was a thing, is

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that people use these Elementor templates and they

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market it as a custom built website and it

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is not. And I worked with a really lovely client who she came

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to me, she said she'd spent £5,000 on a

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website where the developer had

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just dropped the content into an Elementor pre built template.

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And she came to me and said that she was really

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feeling that she wasn't getting a return on the investment. And when we looked into

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it, there wasn't any SEO structure on the website, there wasn't really

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any personality on the website. And there was a lot that we ended up

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pulling around and doing differently. And it

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kind of brings us into the second point, which is,

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it kind of brings us into the second point which is

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over promising and under delivering. And someone

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said, especially on timelines as well, that

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often a web designer or developer will say, oh, we can get this done

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in three weeks and it can be months and months later

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and the client still doesn't have anything that they can show

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for their investment. And this does happen on both sides. You know, we do,

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as web developers, we do get clients ghost us and not give us the content.

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And I usually find that people get very, very stuck around

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the copywriting stages of their kind of content

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creation there as well. But the developers who kind

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of take the money and they disappear off with the design and they don't have

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a solid process in place, they're the ones who are really giving the industry

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a bad name. Now, if you're thinking, oh God, I don't mean

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this to feel like me, but it does feel like me. I just get a

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bit overwhelmed and I'm not very good at allocating my time to it. I am

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here to help you with that. I have my website designers contract

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pack which you can get from the website.

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Websitesmadesimple.co.uk init has every

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type of contract you can ever possibly need for running a website design process,

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but it has, most importantly the one that you are going to give your

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clients. It has the timelines in there with a breakdown of what

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will happen week by week. And it's really good for

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helping keep you on task with your builds. And pretty soon you'll

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get into a routine with this as well and then you will wonder how you

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lived without it, because trust me, this is is a piece of gold and you

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can get it from websitesmadesimple.co.uk.

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the other part of that was the lack of transparency and

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communication. That also is covered in the website

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designer's contract pack because it says when the client will be hearing

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from them and you're contracted to do that. But people also said

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about this over promising and under delivering that

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sometimes web designers will say anything

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to try and make the sale and they say, yeah, yeah, I can do this

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and I can do that. And when it actually comes down to it, they

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can't and they do a really poor job of it. What

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they need to do at that point is look at upskilling. They maybe need to

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look at collaborating with someone, maybe have someone finish off

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the design or I offer website designers mentoring

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so that we can work through the design together so that we can get that

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user journey right in give something client's going to be really happy with.

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It also means that they're going to be upskilled as well. So it's a good

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investment to make there as well.

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The next point from web designers were not understanding the

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tech, the security and what goes into a good

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website. Totally agree with that one. And

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people can find that they offer a certain tech stack because they know

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it rather than it being the absolute right best way to one for the client

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as well, and it's really important that we keep skills up, that we

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keep looking at what's new, that we look at better ways that we can do

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the websites. And one of the ways of doing that as well is

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looking at streamlining. You know, I often have websites that have

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five plugins or less and that's including SEO and security and speed

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optimizer plugins. So it's really important that we do understand what

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we're actually offering for the client and that we are learning this stuff because

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this tech is evolving all of the time and it's really important that

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you keep up with that as well.

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And people said, as well as not understanding the tech and the

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security and stuff, that they focus on pretty rather than the

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actual important things like conversion and whether

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the website's actually getting any leads through it. Because anyone can

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design something pretty. If that was the case, we'd all be using Canva websites.

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Yeah, because it's great for that sort of thing. But pretty websites don't convert.

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Websites which have been put together by a skilled professional with a deep

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understanding of the industry, that's what converts.

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One of the most hated ones in the web designers industry

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is hijacking other people's posts for work.

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And someone else said anytime there is a post advertising a

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job opportunity, web devs are crawling all over it. Now

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I had my own experience with this last week actually looking for a branding

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designer and I put A post on LinkedIn said, Could people recommend branding

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designers? The post is standing at 15,000 impressions. It's got over

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130 comments. I have had people contacting

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my personal mobile at home during the evenings. I've had people

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contacting my personal email address, people on LinkedIn, people

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sending really quite aggressive follow ups as well.

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And web designers do this as well. I just personally don't

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advertise web designers. If I choose to work with someone, they'll usually be known

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to me or they'll always be known to me. And it's a really bad practice,

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but it's also a really bad way of getting

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work. I mean, on my post I was asking people

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to recommend someone they had worked with and someone that they knew rather than people

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recommending themselves. And that didn't stop people saying, you know, I would like to

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recommend me. It's not a way to stand out, it's not a way to

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market your business. You'll find load of resources on this podcast website

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websites made simple.co.uk which will help you get

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clients for your business. I always say there's A seat at the table for everyone

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here, but is learning about which seat you actually want to sit at

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and what type of websites you want to be building and which type

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of client you want to build them for. Just chucking your pat in

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the ring on another web dev's post, not the way of doing it

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really. Look at getting your messaging out there and be confident in what you're

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putting out there rather than relying on other people's posts because

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at the best it will look rude, at worst you'll get blocked

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by the person whose post it is.

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One bonus one and this is a big one actually in this

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industry and it is AI built website sites and

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vibe coding. Yeah, let's not do that,

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let's not do this at all. Yes, you can build websites using AI. Yes. You

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can put a bit of info in there and you get AI to build your

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website. Will the website convert? No. Will it bring in leads?

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No. Will it be a good representation of your business? No. Will

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you get really fed up and lose faith in the website that you've

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got? Absolutely, yes. Look, I'll be the first to say you don't need to code

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to be a web design designer and I actively

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prefer page builder websites because I like clients to

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be able to have control of their website and the

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only way they can do that. Particularly I work with lots of coaches and

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HR professionals and people who are looking at changing their

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offers and they want to be able to build their own pages, they want to

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edit pages, they can't do that with a hardcoded website.

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So you know, we've all got different places that we stand on this. But for

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me I'm absolutely fine. As long as people know what the user journey should

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be, what the UX experience is on the website, they understand how to

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optimize the website, how to actually make it really, really tight

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into Google like it, that's fine by me. But vibe

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coding, it just, just feels a bit

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hipster and it's not a great way to code. AI code is

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not good code. I mean sometimes it's okay to chuck something in AI and say

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can you debug this for, for me. But I think websites

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are still a long way away

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from AI giving you the absolute ultimate thing that you

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or ultimate result that you want from websites. So I really would

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recommend that you get a good old fashioned human in the

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website. A human who is building it properly, who is

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building. And you know when I said about people had a real issue with

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pre builts being marketed as customs, that's not to say, don't use

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pre built. If that's where your skill set lies, that's absolutely fine. But don't try

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and pretend and pass it off as something that it's not.

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Now, if you haven't connected with me on LinkedIn, do come and find me. I'm

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Holly C. Christie. If you would like to

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add your comments to things in the industry that really annoy

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you as a web designer, drop me a line

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hello at websites made simple.co.uk or look me up on

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LinkedIn and I will look forward to hearing from you. Until next time, see

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you again.