Article 27

Does Anyone Want Normal Websites?

By Amber Weinberg

02 August 2010 | Category: Uncategorized

I’ve noticed an interesting trend in the past few months – simply put, the number of normal website requests I’ve been receiving have plummeted.

Now, I’m a front-end and WordPress developer, so normal sites for me are simple 5 page brochure sites, with or without a blog, a few pieces of jQuery and possibly a few pieces of custom functionality.

It’s been almost a year since I’ve done a static HTML/CSS based website. Everything I’ve done since then has been based on some framework, whether in WordPress or CoreCommerce. Everyone seemed to want some kind of platform and CMS behind their website, which is why I became a WordPress developer.

Now it seems the market is shifting again. Instead of requests for normal breakouts to WordPress, I’m getting the weirdest quote requests:

Requests for custom forms to the DB to a display on the site
Custom plugins
Custom animated jQuery timelines and progress bars
iPhone apps
Custom eCommerce functions

While these might seem normal enough for a backend programmer, they’re strange requests to me, especially since they require services not listed on my site.

So What’s Changed?

So this has got me wondering. What’s changed? Is it the actual market? My position in the market? Or the market’s perception of my business? Or all three?

Devices Breed Variety

I think the market is changing. Clients are becoming more and more informed about web design and development. They now know that Internet Explorer stinks and we shouldn’t hold sites back because of it. They know we now have 26″ monitors, iPads, iPhones and Androids to make sites work in.

So with these devices come variety. No longer is a simple 5 page brochure site enough. It needs to be mobile friendly, progressively enhanced, semantic and accessible. Hence, perhaps I’m not really getting less requests for XHTML to WordPress services because there are less clients wanting this, but perhaps there’s just more variety in their needs.

Appearances Are Everything

Another reason I think the kinds of quote requests I get have changed is because the way I’m positioned in the market has changed. Perhaps it’s because I’ve already done several of these strange projects and word has gotten around, or perhaps it’s because I’ve been writing about a broader range of topics and my search engine rankings have changed.

I’ve also been tweeting about iPhone development, because I’ve been learning Objective-C and Cocoa. Interestingly enough, even though I’ve only tweeted about learning about it and some links, I’ve already received several requests for iPhone apps.

Regardless of this, people know view me as a general developer. It seems our attention spans online get shorter everyday and no one stops to read the content on your site.

More Competition

They say that the majority of businesses are started in a down economy. That goes for freelancers as well and with the new push towards semantics and clean code, it’s no longer enough to just offer basic, hand-written, clean and validated code. You have to set yourself apart from everyone else.

I’ve personally tried to do this by being everyone on the internet. I try to read and comment on blogs, write on several blogs, tweet great links and insights, keep a personal blog and an updated portfolio. I’ve also written an app for developers, and am on several social media sites.

I don’t really do any advertising but instead have tried to position myself as the expert in front-end development and WordPress. But competition is fierce and I’ve noticed an increase in the obtainibility of new projects in the past couple of months.

Personal Shifts

My favorite thing in the world to do is XHTML/CSS and WordPress development. Every site to me is different and I never get bored. But the market is changing and so must we.

Personally, I’m trying to shift myself into getting away from client-centered work and doing more web and mobile apps for myself. Codesnipp.it was my first experiment on a social web app and as soon as we’re out of beta, I plan to try a few iPhone apps.

It’s very important to specialize your services and become an expert in your field. But it’s even more important that you have more than one skill in order to avoid becoming obsolete. That’s why it’s important to continuously learn.

Your Thoughts

Have you noticed the type of work and quote requests you normally receive changing? How so? Are you learning anything new?

Follow @thinkvitamin on Twitter Please check out Treehouse

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Comments

http://www.lukejones.me/ Luke Jones

Everyone’s market is shifting for some reason. Whether it’s the evolution/enhancement of the web in general with some mobile web mixed in there I’m not sure. But I definitely think that clients are becoming more and more self-sufficient and “in-the-know” about what they need and want.

That being said, that may not be the clients evolving, that could just be that different types of clients are finding you.

Do you have any conversion goals set up that will allow you to monitor what keywords people are using to get in touch with you about? If not, they’re really easy to set up and will give you fantastic insight about what keywords are converting more.
http://twitter.com/WeAreGeek WeAreGeek

Instead of learning a CMS (IMHO WordPress isn’t actually a real CMS, but a blogging platform), you might consider learning a development framework such as Zend, Django, or even Drupal (which basically is a CMS, or at least it behaves like one). These are very flexible systems to quickly build any functionality to your website / webapp you want.

Just my two cents.
http://creative-web-designer.com/blog/ Scott@sydneydesign

Hi, Great post thanks for sharing. I started out designing websites, now i have extended to offer full service online marketing. It has been a great learning curve and good for business.
http://twitter.com/cschneider Chris

With sites like “Intuit” and other sites that will help users create their own ‘free’ websites the market is most definitely changing. Most users know that they can go to one of these sites and get a free website (for what it’s worth) but they know if they go to a freelancer or a company they know they can ask for different things and chances are, us freelancers are going to jump on it because we could used the cash. i have been a front-end developer and web designer for 4 years and I have noticed a pretty significant change in the market in my short career. Great article though!
http://hekate-design.pl Helena Świderska

That is SO true. Three years ago request for website with CMS was rare – now everyone want to have one. Even small ones. They update site once a year… and they need CMS for that.
Personally I don’t like this trend. I just hate to watch when client is ruining great web design, because he/she like giant red fonts and fuchsia background for paragraphs.
http://webdesignandsuch.com mike i

I’ve noticed the same thing. I knew it wouldn’t be long before clients started to ask for WordPress sites, for things other than blogs. It seems like almost one out of three people are asking for a WP site, or editing their current WP site, etc.
I think basic XHTML “brochure” sites will go the same way as business cards. Nobody pays for them anymore since all the online sites make it so cheap to do yourself. As designers and developers we need to realize that simple sites may die off and we need pay close attention to what will happen in the future with web / technology, so we don’t get left in the dust.
ms like
http://www.goldenboymedia.co.uk Daniel Pereira

Thanks Amber

Great post!
Sonya

Very interesting that your business is changing almost despite how you position yourself – you sound well on top of it though :-)

Could you please clarify what you mean by this?
“… competition is fierce and I’ve noticed an [i] increase in the obtainibility [/i] of new projects…”

Beautiful website you have, by the way.
http://honestcode.com Robert

I’ve noticed a lot of the same trends, and was seeing myself mirrored in a lot of this post. There was one key difference I’ve noticed, though: While clients *think* they know what they want, they still need guidance as to what they *actually* want.

For example, I had a client that knew they needed a database. “What data are you storing?” I asked. They didn’t know, they said — they just knew that they needed a database. Another client said they wanted to set up a web store. “What are you selling?” I asked. They hadn’t made the product yet, and didn’t yet know even how many units they were making. A third client had a budget ready for an entire team of designers and developers to create custom appointment making software. “Like setster.com?” I asked. “Oh. Wow. Exactly like that. I guess I’ll just sign up for an account there.”

With a little bit of knowledge, clients think they have the upper hand — “ha ha,” they say to themselves, “this web developerizer isn’t going to snow me with his fancy tech talk; I know better!” Knowing they want a CMS doesn’t mean they have a content strategy, knowing they want a shopping cart doesn’t mean they know what it takes to process credit cards on their server. Fully four-fifths of my time as a developer is still client education.

I agree with the idea that little five-page brochure sites aren’t going to be as popular anymore, since people with tight budgets — as other commenters have said — can start their own Google Pages or Tumblr site in about 20 minutes and be done. But instead, as developers, I think we’re being asked to do more with less — a business trend that has been around far longer than any of us have.
http://www.mekonta.co.uk John Cowen

I’m working on a site at the moment that’s very different to the brochure sites I typically do.

It’s centred around a postcode/geo locator with a fair bit of Google maps stuff going on and the groundwork in place for a user community. Nothing outrageous compared to other sites being built – but never something I’d have seen myself doing a year or 2 ago. It’s got me really excited though – probably the project I’ve enjoyed working on most.

So much technology is available in the public domain to enhance our sites, it opens up the possibilities for traditional ‘front end’ designers to happily get involved in areas which would previously have required a programmer.
http://www.amberweinberg.com Amber Weinberg

@WeAreGeek That’s untrue. Most of the websites I do in WordPress have no blog at it. It’s a very powerful CMS and I’m able to do things in it twice as fast as Drupal or *shudder* Joomla.
Rob W

The internet evolves – I think what your prospective clients are asking for are now “normal” websites. Unless it’s a placeholder or pro-bono project, I can’t remember the last time I considered making a static html site. There’s less and less a place for design/html/css as a client solution on its own; it has to be part of a more rounded development skill set or team.

Might want to do a little proofreading too – Appearance(s) Are Everything, the way I’m position(ed). It’s a good article though – thanks for writing about your experience.
http://davidbecerra.com David B.

Agreed! Drupal is great, but for what MOST people want, WordPress is the way to go.
http://davidbecerra.com David B.

BTW: why doesn’t the main nav show up on this site anymore?
Keir Whitaker

Hey David,

We removed the navigation when we moved the site back to http://thinkvitamin.com. You can still find all the other content over at http://carsonified.com.
http://www.pimderks.com Pim Derks

Great article and definitely something I recognize. Clients seem to want a website they can manage themselves. And not just the content. They want to manage layouts, animations, navigation structures, icons in links, the number of fields in a form, the layout of the form etc….

While I understand that people don’t want to pay for a developer to add a simple menu item or a checkbox to a website, I think most clients don’t see how important a good information structure is, how the layout of a form can influence your results, how good clean & lean HTML can influence your searchengine rankings/cross-browser-compatibility/accessibility/etc, what the WCAG-standards exactly are about, what semantic HTML is etc etc.

However, I think there will always be work for a front-end type of guy – especially with the CSS3/HTML5 evolution there’s an endless road of opportunities for us. I’ve yet to meet a back-end developer who can code high quality HTML and CSS and knows about the ins and outs about IE’s misbehaviour, microformats, fluid grids and other stuff. And why should they – it’s not (and should not IMO be) a part of their job.

There will always be a need for a graphical designer, a front-end developer who converts the graphical design to a HTML/Silverlight/Flash/whatever layout and a back-end developer who will make it work properly. But we’ll just have to investigate in learning about other topics too, like jQuery, WCAG, HTML5 and its various APIs etc. etc.
http://www.vmdoh.com Brian Altenhofel

I totally agree. When I read over the list of “weirdest quote requests”, I started wondering why people go with WordPress if the first one (“Requests for custom forms to the DB to a display on the site”) is considered unconventional for that environment.
http://alshunt.wordpress.com/ Al Hunt

Thanks for this timely article. I work full time as an RN and as a ‘hobby’ have been immersed in computing since the very early 1980′s. Recently, I decided to get some formal training so I could start to set myself up for a retirement. After 4 online modules in internet production were completed, the entire course was cancelled by the university this summer and I was left with trying to figure out what to do next.

Those 4 courses helped me realize the tremendous amount of self education one absolutely needs to keep up with just to [attempt] keep current in web development. This article has set me to rethink what’s next for me. I really hope basic HTML and CSS sites aren’t a dead end! If the market is driving customers to CMS, databases and so forth, then that’s what they’ll get.

Perhaps money will be gained from reselling hosting services and providing hands on care and advice for each customer (helping them to get started on managing their web site “when client is ruining great web design”, and trouble shooting for them).

Like mike i says, nothing lasts, and what web developers did yesterday may not be a valid reason for becoming one today.

The question is…..what IS next?

Great words toponer. Thanks again.
Al
http://alshunt.wordpress.com/ Al Hunt

That would be ‘great words to ponder’ haha
http://www.crystal-asia.com Ryan Snowden

Team up with a developer/developer company and subcontract/lead the project. Use their portfolio to win the contract as part of the agreement. Onwards and upwards!

Hardest part: Deciding on rates.
http://www.andrewareoff.com Andrew Areoff

A very interesting article and I like you have found that clients requirements are changing as the internet evolves. This is hardly as revelation if we thinkg about it and is a result of the deluge of information that is available not just to use in the trade but to everybody who is looking at website design for their company.

I have particularly found that most clients in the last couple of years wants a CMS as part of their website design build as they have wisened up to the fact that website developers use the management of content as a fast-buck towards making money for very little work. So when the client wants a comma adding to a page the website designer charges a minimum of 1hr time because “it’s stated in the Terms and Conditions that you signed up to”.

The approach of my company is to develop websites that include CMS whether it be a quasi-CMS like WordPress (actually it’s a bloody good CMS but is still seen as merely a blogging plaform), more structured systems like Expression Engine, or for Corporate Clients, Sharepoint and EpiServer. This puts our clients in control of adding, deleting and editing content on their own websites. This empowerment makes our clients happy because they have control where they they actually need and should have it and ensures they work with us in the long term to further develop and evolve their websites which is where we make profit and stay successful in our role as website developers as opposed to editors at “our standard hourly rate”.
http://www.webcreationuk.com/ WebCreationUK

Times are changing, markets are evolving, it is natural that everyone requires other things, however I still find wordpress best CMS for this. :)
http://abstraktion.co.uk Chris Garrett

I suspect a part of this is actually a result of the way you describe yourself. In our mind, and no doubt many prospective clients/agencies, a “WordPress Developer” is someone proficient in both the WP platform AND PHP/MySQL, therefore very capable of producing bespoke plugins and developing projects agnostic of the WordPress platform.

The services you’ve outlined as your main offering would probably be more suitably described as “WordPress integration” or “Hacking”.

Just my two pennies worth anyway.
http://www.josh-curtis.co.uk Josh Curtis

I think you raise a very good point, I was recently asked to code up some HTML and CSS and it was a bit of a culture shock. I think its just the natural progression of web design and development, we shoot ourselves in the foot really when we develop new systems that are more complicated then the last, clients here about the new tech and they want it!

I’m not complianing though. As Al Hunt expressed the ammount of effort and time we put in to just keep up with the changes in our choses languages, frameworks and CMS’s make accounting for changes part of the job spec.
http://blog.avangelistdesign.com Avangelist

This isn’t a shift of any kind, it is the same issue people have had about their websites since day dot – they want to control content.

WordPress simply put has the quickest brainless way of updating/creating new posts/pages. That is what people want.

I don’t see it as a problem, if anything I encourage it because compared to a more CMS orientated backend such as Drupal it is digestible by the user and the user is either 1 person who doesn’t know what they’re doing but got lumped with ‘keep the site’ as a sub task, or a marketing person/team who knows what they’re doing but is not necessarily technically proficient.
http://bethkelleher.com Beth Kelleher

While WordPress started out as ‘just a blogging platform’, it has been evolving more and more toward a full-featured, if low-end CMS platform for quite some time.

At present it’s absolutely logical to use WordPress as a ‘lightweight’ CMS for many websites, especially small sites that need to get off of the ground quickly and will have a limited number of contributors. Most single-owner, small businesses and mid-sized businesses only really need a set of largely static pages (somewhere between 5 and 50 pages) that are updated quarterly, semi-annually or annually and news, events and jobs pages that need to be updated more frequently. Blog type pages are great for supporting the news and events sections of your average small-to-mid-sized business web site. Jobs can be a little bit more complicated depending on what kind of integration with back end systems is desired, but in some cases, a blog type page with categorization can also be used to power the jobs section of a site.

A few plug-ins and careful attention to the design template for WordPress are really all that’s required to customize a site for delivery to a smartphone and there are also several good plug-ins that allow for easy custom form building. A little bit of PHP and SQL knowhow can get you the rest of the way with those custom DB forms, without having to deal with a larger and more complicated CMS.

The core problem with Drupal is that it is essentially user unfriendly on the front end and especially in the admin screen for a non-technical admin user. The hierarchy of menus in the admin screens is complex and confusing and needs to be redesigned either by hand or modified by applying a free template to it to make it more intuitive to find the core functions for an admin user.

I’ve done implementations of Greymatter (ancient history), MovableType, WordPress, Drupal, Mambo and Joomla as well as enterprise content management systems in the past and hands down WordPress is the easiest to get up and running quickly, even with a custom template and a set of customized forms while also delivering a lot of user-friendly bang for the buck for end users. I only need to point users to the WordPress docs, or do a 1-5 page intro document for them to pick up how to use WordPress tools to maintain the site. For most other tools, the user documentation needs to be longer and the training more extensive to get them up and running.

I think that Drupal is great when you need a highly collaborative site – it handles community-driven sites especially well, fostering all kinds of discussion and back and forth posting, especially with highly web-savvy users. Most small-to-mid-sized business web sites do not need this type of functionality nor do they need to spend big bucks on enterprise content management to have their basic website needs met unless they’re a highly distributed organization with robust workflow needs.

I don’t think that WordPress scales up well yet beyond the small-to-mid-sized business yet, but ultimately the market for larger businesses is already well-saturated with ECM giants that serve a different set of needs than those that WordPress and other open source, smaller scale web publishing tools address.
http://www.coburnenterprises.com Harmony

Hi Al, I’ve been doing this for 11 years now and I highly recommend that you go forth and learn wordpress at least. Your html and css skills are still required – you’ll just be able to produce much BETTER websites if you get into a CMS platform – where you’ll use your html/css is in customizing the “themes” you choose and inserting things on pages or posts that don’t come with WP out of the box.

I say wordpress because it sounds like you want to “keep your service simple” and there is lots of work out there for someone that is willing to do really basic websites on a wordpress platform – just be warned – the more you know the more you’ll need to know :-)

Topics

Learn with Treehouse

Does Anyone Want Normal Websites?

By Amber Weinberg

02 August 2010 | Category: Uncategorized

So What’s Changed?

Devices Breed Variety

Appearances Are Everything

More Competition

Personal Shifts

Your Thoughts

Other Posts You Might Find Interesting

Comments

Think Vitamin Radio
Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Advisory Board

Aarron Walter

Ethan Marcotte

Molly Holzschlag

Paul Boag

Jeff Veen

Ryan Carson

Topics

Learn with Treehouse

Does Anyone Want Normal Websites?

By Amber Weinberg

02 August 2010 | Category: Uncategorized

So What’s Changed?

Devices Breed Variety

Appearances Are Everything

More Competition

Personal Shifts

Your Thoughts

Other Posts You Might Find Interesting

Comments

Think Vitamin RadioEpisode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable

Advisory Board

Aarron Walter

Ethan Marcotte

Molly Holzschlag

Paul Boag

Jeff Veen

Ryan Carson

Think Vitamin Radio
Episode #34: Amazon Fire and Responsive Roundtable