is this a good investment? need honest opinions..

I have been looking in to these web design leads you can buy from sites.. the deal is if i put down $1000 i get 30 leads sent to me.. not all at once but as they come along. each lead is about $35 and these leads are only sent to me and no other designers.

my question is has anyone had experiece with this type of service? all i need to do is get like 2 jobs at $500 a peice out of 30 to get my money back.

Is this a good investment?

Another question, will you guys check out my website and see if you think it looks professional enough to send my leads over to my site and look at my portfolio. Or does it need to be redesigned?

I appreciate all the advice i can get.

my site is adawebdesigners dot com

I would say that investment is good if those are people who really want and need websites, and have a desire to spend $500 on a quality design. if those are leads who want only generic 1-page designs for $50 or $100, then I'd say it's not that good of an investment.

On the other hand, with that portfolio you linked, I doubt anyone would give you a $500 web design job. Google some independent one-man web design studios, and take a look at their web portfolios and previous work, and you will surely see for yourself that you're no match for them, not even in the long run.

You seem to be new to web design.

Your site takes a while to load, probably because of the pictures. I would suggest you take a look at that first.

The site sample you of the car look okay.

I doubt you will get someone to buy a site for $500 from you.

Just my thoughts any ways.

All the best.

I would turn down that investment.

You can buy targeted traffic from expired domains for much much much less!!!!

Go for that. You can get like 100K visitors for $200 or something.

nethead01 - investment is only good if you can set up Escrow or you will get conversions guarantee...

If not then pass it and invest in other type of advertisement.

As far as your site goes, i think it looks good. The leads for $1000 bucks however, sounds shady. I would have to know more about it. Remember a lead is not a customer, its just someone who's in the market for your product and doesn't necessarily mean they will buy. What if all 30 leads decide to pass on your offer? Then thats a $1000 bucks down the drain.

Try adwords for phrases like "web design your city" or "web design your state" you will have much more control of how much you spend.

flock9 said:

I would say that investment is good if those are people who really want and need websites, and have a desire to spend $500 on a quality design. if those are leads who want only generic 1-page designs for $50 or $100, then I'd say it's not that good of an investment.

On the other hand, with that portfolio you linked, I doubt anyone would give you a $500 web design job. Google some independent one-man web design studios, and take a look at their web portfolios and previous work, and you will surely see for yourself that you're no match for them, not even in the long run.

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I appreciate the honest opinion thats what I asked for.. these leads that are going to be sent to me are usually willing to spend $500 + and I have also contacted a guy selling a web design company and he stated that this is how he got most of his business but he was working with a lead company that sent the lead out to like 6 other designers. and i found one that will send the lead to only me. I do think that I need to update I dont think that its all that professional but then again i think its not to bad.

None of the sites in your portfolio are "unique as you are" or worth more than $20. That's the reality. Seriously, google web design studios and see their online portfolio and previous work engagements to see how it should look like. I most certainly wouldn't give you $500 for what you have under previous works on your website.

some of you guys doubt that people would be willing to spend $500 on a website is crazy. That is the least I will even build one for and I currently advertise on craigslist and have no problem getting customers to pay $500 for a site.

my stats on leads to sale ratio is pretty good with craigslist..

lets say out of 5 people that call me from craigslist i sell atlease 1 or 2 sites out of the 5 but not all of them even ask to see my portfolio

Then just hire CL spammer and you are done

And how many websites do you design each month in average based on CL postings?

I would not P4y dollar 500 based on what I have seen. I can create my own blog in two min. that will look much better.

I spent less than 5 min to design this site today.

spectrum-electromagnetic , co , uk.

Try s3LL1ng ur service on other forums or gumtree.

IamNRE said:

I would not P4y dollar 500 based on what I have seen. I can create my own blog in two min. that will look much better.

I spent less than 5 min to design this site today.

spectrum-electromagnetic , co , uk.

Try s3LL1ng ur service on other forums or gumtree.

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of course none of you guys would spend $500 on my websites because you guys are web designers or if your not a web designer you know exacly where to go to get a site for next to nothing.. im taking about a regular customers that knows shit about web design and if you dont think that they will spend 500 on a site then you have no clue what your talking about.

I have tried hiring a craigslist spammer but they all suck and im tired of writing out the different ads and craigslist is just not a great place for me just hasnt worked out that great.. I mean its made me about $3500 in the past few months but its a headace for me and time consuming in my opinion.

nethead01 said:

the deal is if i put down $1000 i get 30 leads sent to me.. not all at once but as they come along. each lead is about $35 and these leads are only sent to me and no other designers.

my question is has anyone had experiece with this type of service? all i need to do is get like 2 jobs at $500 a peice out of 30 to get my money back.

Is this a good investment?

my site is adawebdesigners dot com

Click to expand...

Naturally you're welcome to do what you want and you may even think this advice is harsh but take it from someone who got into this whole mess back in 95-96 as a website designer.

Your website looks fine but nothing I couldn't whip up in 20 minutes myself or save myself the trouble and just download a free or maybe $10 template. Or even use the nulled version of Xsite that is floating around here.

In all honesty, you have no wow factor and I would not give you $500 to make a site and unless you're going to do some custom coding I can't imagine anyone else giving you $500.

Maybe someday but not yet. Hell, these days I'm not even good enough to get paid $500 for a website, not anymore, and I've got plenty of years of experience.

What can you offer that a WordPress theme can't? Exactly.

If you can get a bunch of $50-$150 jobs then I'd say you're doing quite well and if you build up a client based those $50-$150 sites will need upkeep and replacement sooner or later and you can make a nice living off of that. So don't think that I'm trying to discourage you.

As for that "agency" that wants $1000 from you, my very very very strong guess is that they are out to scam you and any other budding web-developer they can snag. This type of hoax has been around since the times of the very first web-designer and not much has changed. In fact if I had $1000 lying around I'd wager it that you'd get taken for a ride by these guys.

I would very strongly urge you to not give these people your money. Most legit agencies will ask to see your body of work or portfolio and then they will have you work as a subcontractor for them. They won't tell you how much their client is paying them but they will pay you, possibly quite decently. It all depends on how good your portfolio is and if you can "WOW" the right person in the agency.

If you want work as a web-developer or designer have you considered going to all your local Temp Agencies? Believe it or not they do get requests for people who can build or modify a website. Also a Temp Agency will actually pay you and the company you end up temping in as a designer might even hire you on full time. You don't know unless you try but please don't give these guys $1k...

One more thing you can do that is very old school but may yield you the type of "noobs" you're looking to make $500 off of.

If you think about this it'll make sense to you. Try advertising in your local newspapers because this way the person hiring you gets to meet you and you can feasibly rattle off some terms that will go right over his head which in the process will convince him that you're God's gift to the Internet. Not only that but if someone isn't very "net savvy" then they will likely be someone who still reads the paper version of your local Newspapers.

This is not my preferred way to do business but it will likely get you the type of results you're looking for.

No1here said:

One more thing you can do that is very old school but may yield you the type of "noobs" you're looking to make $500 off of.

If you think about this it'll make sense to you. Try advertising in your local newspapers because this way the person hiring you gets to meet you and you can feasibly rattle off some terms that will go right over his head which in the process will convince him that you're God's gift to the Internet. Not only that but if someone isn't very "net savvy" then they will likely be someone who still reads the paper version of your local Newspapers.

This is not my preferred way to do business but it will likely get you the type of results you're looking for.

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I live in a pretty small town so I dont think this would be very effective and the closest big town from here is over an hour away so that would not work well for me..

Very good advice I do agree this would work if I lived in a big city.

I rank #1 in my home town for about 3 months now but only got one call so local marketing is not a great choice for me since I want to go bigger than that.

I do outsource most of my work because I like to work on some other projects and im just not that good of a designer anyways. But I do know that there is alot of money to be made in web design.

I just need to find the best marketing methods to getting the customers. CL its ok.. But damn I hate messing with CL its such a pain in the ass.

I have been into IM for a while its like a hobby for me I day over 5 years.. This past january I started this small little web design business for myself because I wanted to quit my job and move back home with my newborn son. Who would want to work out of state and not get to see their kid grow up? NOT ME!

So im about to run out of money I have a few grand saved up but I want to be a full time web designer so I can stay home with my kid..

Im thinking about getting another day job around here and doing web design on the site until I find a good marketing technique.

I figured since I have a little money saved up I want to find the best place to spend it on advertising and if it doesnt work for me and I dont get any ROI then I will take the loss and go back to work for a while till i get things figured out

sorry if it didnt make since because im a little drunk and shit right now but im lovin all the advice and opinions keep em coming!

Hi,

I would like to offer some quite different advice from everyone else here.

If you were dealing with "blackhatters" and experienced internet people who know the world is their oyster, and are comfortable sourcing work from people anywhere in the world, and are savvy buyers, then your sites are a bit basic.

BUT that's not what most small businesses are after. What they want is someone they can build a reassuring business relationship with, who will help them through the process at a reasonable price, including things like registering the domain name for them, adding their email account etc.

I think your $500 price is very reasonable for this type of business of which there are many thousands, and your designs are entirely suitable for that market and quite professional.

What I would suggest is your own site lets you down. Have a re think about it and get the navigation more simple and logical etc, the design more clean, consider what goes above the fold (what people see without scrolling down) etc. I also think your slogan needs changing - something more like "small business websites without the stress" or something else that sells the SERVICE you are offering as a complete package, not just the "coding and graphics" part. Coding and graphics you are reasonable at but not high end, I'm in the same boat. But small business wants more than just coding and graphics, and that's what you can offer.

If you completely overhaul your own site, define your target market better and work out what sales points to push to get that market on board (hint - it's your service and design skills combined, not just the designs themselves) you can do really well.

Remember, your target market does NOT hang out on here. Find out where they do hang out, and then how to connect with them there.

Hope this helps,
Matt