Joining the “global economy” – outsourcing my site

At last, I’ve gotten around to hiring a professional web design company to create a website for me. After examining many, many options, I decided to go with Sean McPheat’s outfit, LifeCoachWebSolutions. Sean is in England. He is a coach and entrepreneur with all sorts of websites and businesses out there. This is probably the best overall value I’ve seen, and they’ve made a lot of sites specifically for coaches. I’ve looked at this company for a long time. Initially, I didn’t want to use them because they include the hosting and domain name, and it seemed that was a big part of how they make their money. I already have hosting and more domain names than I know what to do with. I learned from writing to Sean McPheat that I could use my existing hosting, “no problem.”

Once I paid up ($297 plus the “Value Added Tax” (“VAT”) that European countries charge, totaling about $318), I learned, to my surprise, that the sites are actually created by a company named WebArtIndia, based somewhere in India. I soon received an e-mail from a man with an unpronounceable name, letting me know he was leading my project, and requesting me to look at their websites or any other sites I liked, let him know what buttons, links, elements, colors or other layout considerations I had in mind, and informing me that a team would be assembled to put this website together.

It took several days for me to look at many sites and collect my thoughts. I sent my many requests to WebIndiaArt, and within three days they came up with a mock-up of my new site. I’ll post a link to it here, although at some point this will be taken down.  I saved the image to my computer for posterity and uploaded it here for any comments:

Coach Andrew’s new website mock-up

I’m submitting my changes this weekend. Once the design and layout is done, I have the fun part of writing all my copy for the various pages. This company gives you 90 days until they sign off on the site. After that, it’s $30 an hour, or I can finish it myself. The good news is $30 an hour is pretty cheap. The better news is that they give you Front Page extensions, so you can edit and maintain your own site if you are up for it.

I’m pretty excited about creating my new site. I like having a “team in India,” even if they are 10 1/2 hours away. When I looked at the developer’s own site, I saw they can do virtually anything I want, including SEO and logos, etc. I’m now part of the global economy.