Advice for new Website Developers

[ozeworks]

I have seen some amazingly under-priced projects recently. osCommerce websites wanted for $40 including design. HTML website including full design, logo and implementation for $30.

These are low prices for anywhere in the world once you translate the money to hours.

And the sad thing is that people bid on them.

Yes I know that desparate people will do desparate things and that people do it for the money just to get any money and people do it for the reference just so they have one.

But in my professional opinion, you'd be better off doing work for charity/non-profits and select businesses (e.g. some local company that you know) for free to get a respectable portfolio and then coming back here to bid for "real" money instead of allowing yourself to be exploited.

Working for free by choice is much better than working for $40 for a porn site if you ever intend to break into the world of website development.

[webous]

When someone needs feedbacks to start scriptlance history they are ready to do work for ridiculous fees.

Also there is a lot of webmaster who are looking for low prices only - they know about people eager for feedbacks and these webmaster get what they are looking for - checp work for low price, usually of a poor quality.

[coeus]

Usually those same webmasters never end up getting what they want or end up paying more (by reposting the project over and over). And the poor work is usually due to one or both of two things:

a) Inexperienced programmer needing reviews
b) Once into the project the programmer realizes he took a big job for little pay and begins to hack up the job or leaves the job.

In a recent project posted here, a webmaster is asking for a complete custom made auction script for $50, and the webmaster has 10 good reviews. :confused:

I remember one webmaster wanted a programmer to program actual Artificial Intelligence, I think his budget was $30 :)

[market]

good valid points and observations

and at any point in time, each might be true

it all depends on the exact circumstance / project / programmer / webmaster

I'm a webmaster and the main thing I look for is [A] number of projects completed - this indicates the programer has a continued interest in freelance work, that they may be available again in the future. [B] Positive reviews [C] Price History [D] Completed projects similar to the one you need, as in experience with a paticular script

I can see how dirt cheap programmer bids seem out of place, but on the other hand it may be worth more to a new programmer to get a positive review and a completed project than it would be if he were paid a fair amount. So many new folks are trying to gain position and any biz has startup cost.

I've worked with lots of programmers / designers from about a dozen or 20 countries (not that many here) and I can say that price has not been indicative of competency or dependability. I still get took once in a while.

Folks can have slick websites, talk all the right talk and seem to know their stuff, and the end they sometimes cannot or will not deliver. It's just part of doing business, sometimes you make poor choices.

If I were a programmer I'd be making more use of this forum. It may not look like much right now, it got a late start. But I'd be willing to bet that 2 years from now this forum will be very active. Just by offering courteous, helpful answers (not saying let us do your job) you can build a great reputation. Help webmasters and programmers alike. If you don't know the answer, try to point them in the right direction.

You'll become the go-to guy, the voice of reason, the helpful, useful person ... you'll eventually have more business than you can keep up with:)

[techcode]

All good points. And I agree with most of them.

I actualy made a few bids on couple of those projects. I simply either bided real price or something like several 1000's :)

I belive someone posted a project on making a clone of google, yahoo or something similar :)

Anyway. I belive that people should start working on their own projects. Like make a site about some hoby of theirs, put google ads on it. Make a site for your friends business and such things. Web developer could create some smaller scripts (contact forms, tell-a-friend) and give them for free (backlink required for instance). There are many ideas depending on area of their work (programming, design ...etc).

But of course, when he comes to SL. And doesnt have any/much finished projects on it. It is a bit problematic. Still, doing it too cheap simply doesnt pay off (unless you allready have finished script with just minor changes needed for instance).

In my knowledge you simply need to convince the webmaster that you can understand what he needs (just like in any other field of work) and you should get the job. At least it worked with me. Unless you have realy bad feedback behind you, of course.

But then, in some cases I just happend to be on the right place in the right time. My first project for instance.

http://www.scriptlance.com/projects/1065392398.shtml

Here's the PMB communication (copy/paste with all the typos) :)

So how much would you pay ?
I can do it right away !

Design looks nice but how come nobody knows where to cut pics, and how to assemble them ?
Obvisly they didnt worjed on old style computers
with just KB of RAM :)

ps. I'm only 20, but started early around 14 yrs ago ...

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Well, I was hoping I could get it done for less the fifty bucks.

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... Yet she choosed me as no-one else was around I guess ...

Few months latter I found out that Dreamweaver has an automatic option (Clean Word HTML or similar) that does what I did by hand, and it took me few hours - oh well ...