Lost on a Webmaster Search

[rapgar]

Here's hoping that some of you, that are smarter than me, will help shed some light on Webmaster relationships...

Quite accidentally I find myself responsible for managing 4 or 5 separate websites. Now I can throw up a couple of static pages like the next guy, but websites really aren't my game. Consequently, I have been searching for a relationship with a designer/webmaster who will get to know our business and modify/design our websites to grow our business. I have had seriously lukewarm results.

Based in Cancun, Mexico I have tried the local web designers and basically gotten back a template which I could have downloaded myself from any number of free websites. I have begun to experiment outsourcing projects to India and I believe my outsource designer is probably outsourcing...perhaps to the same designer in Mexico. I have tried putting up pages myself with reliable results if not uninspiring. Given 36 hours a day and two years to learn Flash though, this might be the best way to go.

Now as I mentioned before, I am no rocket surgeon, but this just shouldn't be so difficult. Do outsourcing relationships work? Are there areas of the world that are better than others in terms of reliability and ethics? Do I just need to bring this person in-house? Or do I just need to pick up my book on Flash and bite the bullet?

Signed,
Lost

PS I did say Cancun, Mexico so those of you who are getting the ice scrapers and snow shovels ready might want to discuss your thoughts directly.

[davebarnes]

Hire Matt Gilliatt. http://www.gilliatt.com/
He is very good.
When I needed help, I hired Matt and he was: fast, good and followed directions.

I would hire Matt in a heartbeat if I needed extra help.

,dave

[slideri812]

hey,

sorry to hear of your woes. We have several clients that in our case are ad agencies. They help their clients in a number of ways to not just market but to build the business. For their smaller clients, like you, who do not have the internal IT staff to deal with it they outsource the work to us. We work hand in hand with the agencies and their clients as needed.

Like you, most of our client shave had lukewarm experiences with outsourcing. Often the problem is that people are technically capable but do not understand the user experience or vise versa.

Also, now that we have several projects behind us with these clients, there is an attained level of trust. They know that we are not going to pull any dirty stunts and hijack clients (why cut our own throats?).

On the issue of outsourcing I would try Guru. We have used them many times and have developed 1 - 2 key relationships that are to a point that we deal with them directly. These are mainly in the areas of specialized programming. We have had our best results with those in other European countries. in particular the Scandinavians and the Swiss. The Dutch also do some very nice work and have good work ethic as a general rule.

There are also many many small companies, like ours, here in the states that can do what you need. But as we say to our groups that we speak to; please, please hire a professional, you'll save time, money and the headache of trying to do it yourself.

Cheers