What Sets Me Apart

Why I’m different than the average “web designer” out there.

1. I started at the top.

I got my start building and managing some of the highest-traffic web sites in the world during the dot-com boom years. When I helped build PC Week Online back in 1996, putting news on the web was still new. CNN, the Wall Street Journal, everybody — we were all experimenting, all trying to figure it out. How often should news updates be posted? Should there be an archive? How should it all work? Of course, then the bust came and we all got laid off, but those were great years, to be there right at the beginning. That was before most web designers working today were even building one-page sites for their families and friends. The point is, my experience is long.

2. I’m all about empowerment. Yours.

I can’t tell you how many small business clients I’ve worked with who have no idea where their domain is registered, how long before it expires, and who the contact is. I sometimes get panicked calls when a site goes offline because the domain expired and no one knew it was coming, followed by a wild goose chase tracking down the logins and passwords they need to get back up and running. It’s even more common to find clients with no ability to update their own website. This leaves them utterly dependent on whoever designed their site years earlier for even the tiniest of updates.

Part and parcel of my work with clients is to make sure the contact info on their domain registration is up to date and they know how to access it, and that they at least have a written “cheat sheet” with all the necessary URLs and logins for their domain, hosting and FTP setups. That’s the minimum every content owner should have. Beyond that, I work with each client on their maintenance plan for the site once it’s designed or re-designed. If a client would like to make their own updates, I build that into the process. Many organizations would love to make minor text updates without having to go back to the developer for help, and are willing to dedicate a resource (either an involved business owner or an admin) to do it.

The barrier to that in the past, of course, has been a lack of technology to allow a completely non-technical person to easily update a site, without having to learn HTML or new software. This is my personal Holy Grail — I’ve spent the last decade trying out new content management systems, looking for the one that will let content owners edit a web site the same way they’d edit a Word doc. I don’t think the technology is completely there yet, but it’s made huge gains in the last several years. These days, there’s no reason you can’t make most updates to your own site, when you want, without paying a developer to do it for you.

3. I’m affordable.

All the information on my web site speaks to my long experience with big corporate sites, so it might seem to a potential small business client that my services are out of reach financially. But I’m very transparent in this area — there’s no secret: I charge a fixed hourly rate of $80, and I work fast. It helps that I have as much project management in my background as I do web development. I’ve been refining and improving my design process for a decade or more, so I’m very efficient at what I do.

I provide a written estimate prior to the start of work, and keep detailed records of work performed in 15-minute increments. Terms typically specify a deposit of 50% of the estimated project cost around the time work begins, with the balance due within 30 days of site launch.

Learn more: Portfolio | What to Expect

For questions, comments or to schedule a consultation, please contact me at laurie@lauriebryce.com.