Customer Reviews

How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Web Site Design Business: With Companion CD - ROM

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The title of this book is How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Web Site Design Business, but it contains so much more that can apply to any entrepreneur starting a new business. The first thing you want to know is this book will not teach you how to design websites, the book assumes that you are already good at that. This book tells you how to turn that skill into a viable business.

My favorite part of the book is the add-on services section. It makes perfect sense, you already have the skill and know-how to create great web sites, you have a list of businesses that trust (and more importantly pay) you for that service, so why not expand your business with complementary services like search engine optimization and pay-per-click marketing programs. You can tell that the authors of this book have already gone through the difficulties of starting and operating a web site design business. They have already had success and the failures in the business and they give the reader a roadmap to the success while avoiding the failures. It is like getting the answer to the test! This is one of those books that you will find yourself pulling off your shelf from time to time as you grow your business.

Simply - I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The content is well organized in a progression of information that makes sense when starting any business. There are relative and applicable links or references at the end of each chapter as well as questions to ask yourself before moving onto the next step in your business.

This book will help me greatly in my own endeavors to start a web design business. I recommend it highly!

I was extremely disappointed with this book. It is almost 400 pages and most of it is what I can best describe as "annoying fluff" that provides vague suggestions that provide no real value to the reader. Here is an example of a paragraph in the book:

P.210 "The success of your marketing is also going to depend, in part, on how well you deal with people who follow up on your ads. There is no point in creating and paying for good advertisements only to fall short in the follow up process. You can present whatever information you want about your business, but if you do not have good follow-up, your marketing efforts will be wasted."

The author constantly repeats themselves throughout the book across chapters and in the above case, within the same paragraph. The above paragraph could have been widdled down to 1 sentence or bullet point. It feels as though the author is babbling to make the book as long as possible (like I used to do in college to reach the minimum page requirement for my essays). The book was written by two different people and it feels very in-cohesive, as if they just divided up topics and started writing with poor organization. I doubt the author(s) has any special skill or training in teaching.

The book wanders off for chapters talking about general business topics that are not specific to web design businesses. For example, there are pages and pages about how to conduct yourself in an interview. The author is suggesting you are interviewing with your clients when it is actually more similar to a sales presentation. There is a paragraph just about the perfect handshake and the author stresses that it could be the key to whether you get your client or not. Pretty ridiculous to me.

Overall, the book provides some relevant information but not a lot of specific calls to action about web design-specific topics. Neither of the authors even have a web site of their own to show for. I don't think they are qualified to write a how-to book on web design. I have a little background in business and web design and this book was 90% useless. For some reason I decided I had to read some sort of how-to book to make myself feel prepared before I went on my own. This book was very painful to read and made me feel stupid for wasting my time on it. People who are really directionless and lost might find this book more useful, but it is probably a waste of money for people who are already savvy and don't need to be babied about the obvious. This book is ridiculously overpriced and wasn't even edited (several grammatical errors) and the printing and binding is even lopsided! This is an amateur book in all respects.

How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Web Site Design Business is a 'must' for any who would turn a talent for web design into a business. Either a part-time or a full-time job can be started in your own home: this gives the nuts and bolts of building your own such design business quickly, offering a comprehensive study of the business side of web site design suitable for both business and general-interest collections.

I purchased this item as a gift for my son. He requested this specific item on a referral from one of his professors.

Good mix of reviews that seem appropriate for this book. Yes, the book is responsibly in need of editing. Lot's of redundancy, but that wasn't too difficult for me. Perhaps a bit overpriced (subjective). The stuff on the CD seems of marginal value like the Chapter Resources (subjective). But, still, fairly useful for the intended audience I think. For me the most valuable part of the book was the case studies. I found that I went back and "earmarked" several of these cases that had a specific valuable take away for me. I actually went out to the website of the case author (most were still in business, which is a good sign). Good list of "Additional Recommended Resources" (i.e., books and links), although the list of links is just that - a list of links with no descriptions (kind of lazy? - gives that "rush to complete the book" impression as someone else pointed out).

As I said, the survey of reviews exhibited for this book would seem expected for the intended audience, which would come with a mix of business experience. In my opinion, this book best serves the less experienced of that group (e.g., the lower 50 percent on that scale), but suspect that most of the intended market would find some useful takeaways. For the population of the intended audience (folks wanting to start their own web design business) I would rate this as 4 out of 5 stars. You will probably get your money's worth, as the content seems comprehensive - something here for most everyone. There certainly was something there for me to go ahead and recommend this book with the aforementioned caveats.

Most website designers have technical and creative abilities, but may not possess, or even be aware of, the other skills necessary to start and run a business. This book includes a comprehensive guide to topics relevant to any business, such as competitor research, pricing, bookkeeping, and marketing strategies, but goes beyond that by suggesting complementary services which may be offered to website clients to generate additional income.

The helpful information is supplemented by useful worksheets and checklists which appear throughout the book and on the companion CD-ROM, making this a valuable reference book for new and experienced website designers alike.

How to Open & Operate a Financially Successful Web Site Design Business is a complete step-by-step business plan for web site design entrepreneurs. It's a phenomenal guide for the novice and a great companion for the designer who needs some savvy business advice. Authors, Charlotte Evans and Bruce Brown, cover the challenges, pitfalls, and successful secrets of the trade, as well as offering motivation, thought provoking questions and pertinent checklists.
The emphasis of the book is the business aspect of web site design. The main focus is marketing, finance, customer service, and development, with references to specific programs and computer hardware to help enhance one's business. From selecting a domain name to page layout to market analysis, no question is left unanswered. It is the proverbial "right hand" that will give the reader an edge in their field. As an added bonus, a percentage of the proceeds go to The Humane Society.

With more and more people losing their jobs everyday, entrepreneurs are popping up everywhere. Web design is big business, every business out there has a website and if they don't they need one. Many businesses are working on improving their websites and marketing due to the bad economy, so web designers are needed everywhere.
Just like starting any business, when you start a web-design business you need to have a plan and some idea about business and the internet. This book is great for anyone even thinking about starting a web design business, you will learn how to figure out what your objectives are, just what a web designer does, and setting realistic expectations.
The best part about this book is it helps you to write your business plan and your marketing plan, many business owners don't do this and they fail. Using this book you can write your personalized business plan and take the specific steps needed to make your web design business successful.
Read about what the challenges are in this business, how you can be different and stand out, tools of the trade and what you need to do to license and register your business. If you follow the steps in this book and do your research you can have your web design business up and running in no time!

Read about 50 pages of the book then skimmed over the rest. I was very unimpressed with the book. I'm a seasoned designer though with a deep background in Web Design so most of the information was common sense to me. I would recommend this book to beginners to design and business who are considering getting into this field. The Author i felt though wasn't very experienced and most likely doesn't run a studio with employees. So after a brief read i stopped.