Ricky’s Online Business Blog

One year ago, a customer who had been hosting with me for a few years, decided to hire a new web designer.  The web design company was a reputable one and customer was very satisfied with their work.

However, this web design company insisted the customer use their web hosting service.  Web hosting was part of their web development package for the customer.  Not being a technical person and not having been briefed clearly, the customer unknowingly agreed to the deal.

Later the web design company called me up to get my “cooperation” to transfer hosting to their server.  I sought clarification from customer but he said he never wanted to switch hosting provider.  He still wanted to host with me.

But the web design company was very adamant that the customer must host with them.  They claimed that they had set up everything about customer’s web site and database on their own in-house server, and so it was very troublesome to move their work to my server.  They said it was “easier” for them to develop the web site by hosting on their server.

Luck was on my side, though.  Customer insisted to host with me and gave them official notification to the web design company to host their works on my server.  Long story cut short, the customer is still happily hosting with me until now.

By some discovery later on, I found out that the web design company was actually using hosting from third-party hosting provider.  So they had not been very honest by saying the customer must host on their own “in-house server”.

From my experience, it is generally not true that you must host your web site with your web design company.  No matter where you host, as long as they get hold of the details on how to log on to the server, they can do their work.

It is also generally not true that it’s “easier” for them to develop your web site on their server.  No matter where you host, they work on your web site using pretty much the same ways - uploading and downloading by FTP, web-based administration using cPanel and PhpMyAdmin, and so on.

But I know of some cases where a customer’s web site makes use of special features available only on the web designer’s server.  Then in such cases, you have no choice but host with them.  But these cases are rare.

Web design and web hosting are two different services.  These two services can be separated and provided by different providers. But a web design company often bundle web hosting in their service, and this is perfectly good strategy.  But it is not good when they are not being honest and transparent with you.

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A customer often needs to share files for his clients.  The clients need to see the photos of his products before deciding to buy.  The photo files are often large in file size.

He has been using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software for this purpose.  He created a specific directory on his web server, uploads the files into that directory, and asks clients to download from that directory.

While this has been working for his purpose so far, it is not a very good way for file sharing.  For one, non-technical users may not know how to download files using FTP.  Either they need to know what to type on the address bar in Windows Explorer (such as ftp://user@ftp.domain.com), or they need to install and use some FTP software to download the files.  Worse, some companies do not allow employees to install new program without proper authorization.

Also, if the files are to be shared among more than one client, a client who can access the directory can often see the files shared to other clients.  Of course, my customer can create different directories for different clients.  But it’s simply more work.

Also, his clients just want to look at the photos.  By using FTP, they need to first download the files in order to view the photos.  But download wastes time, especially for large files.

FTP as its name suggests, is used for “file transfer”, that is to upload and download files from and to a server.  It is not really meant for “file sharing”, which is to share files between and among more than one user.

Since my customer needs to share photos, instead of using the more technical FTP, why not use Flickr instead?  Just upload the photos to Flickr, decide who can view the photos, and share the web address which contains the photos to the clients.  The clients will be able to view the photos without needing to download.

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I was called in by a company to attend a meeting together with their outsource web designer.  My job was to give advice on their server hosting requirements.  But as I followed their conversation, I found something that may indicate how some people perceive web designers.

The customer saw web design as a lowly job.  It seems they considered a web designer nothing more than someone who get paid to simply put up their company photos online and finish her job.

They insisted a whole Flash-only web site to be done up for less than RM1,000.  But I think the market rate is at least RM5,000 if not more!

But what surprised me most was that, the pitiful freelance part-time web designer, though obviously being looked down on, accepted the job at such dirt-cheap rate!  I don’t know what quality of work she is going to deliver.

Are the web designers out there doing work just to “cari makan” (earn a little money here and there to feed stomach)?  Good and passionate web designers like Danny Foo will be the first to disagree.  Nowadays web designers are not just designers.  They are artists, engineers, strategists, marketeers and business consultants!  The good designers are in for long-term business.

Unfortunately how the market perceive web designers may not be so noble.  This maybe something for web designers to ponder on.  Why such a bad reputation?

For me I don’t see web design as a lowly job.  I know web design in general, though it’s not my choice for business.  I know the time and effort a dedicated web designer put in to show up a quality work, though not well recognized and appreciated by others.

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