UPSCALE WEB DESIGN COMPANY NOW CATERING TO PROVIDERS

[Ansley]

Originally Posted by 247 Whispers

Why flash is not dead and can actually earn more revenue if done correctly,

Would you please explain how flash is able to earn a woman more revenue.

[247 Whispers]

Ansley, I just PM you with the answer

[Arandomniceguy]

Hey 247, Im sorry if this hurts your feelings, but Im just providing my advice to benefit the most number of people here. If there are problems with your own website, thats just on you. Small business people in general, including providers dont have the technical ability to properly evaluate a web service provider's quality. They just have the pitches from the web service provider themselves. Its like judging how good a car is by just seeing their commercials. All you can really tell is how pretty the outside is. There should be something like Consumer Reports for the web but I guess there isnt. I share my advice with whoever good people care to hear it. I really do know about this, and I'm not trying to sell you something.
247, I did say that your website was pretty and Im sure you just want to make an honest living, and that's fine but the fact that even now your website has no nonflash content at all says a lot about your experience and the quality of your service. Not even your business name and telephone number is there. Dont be mad at me, just read your code. I dont make this up. Im just pointing it out. There is not even a redirect for mobile just nothing. Your own website should be a shining example of what you can do for a client. In my opinion, a provider shouldnt spend a dime on any website that is not accessible to the mobile monger, many of whom are using iPhones. I cannot tell you how specifically important this is for a provider. For someone building a new site today, building two websites - one for big screens and one for small is dumb. If you already have this, that is great - get your use out if it!! Otherwise, for new stuff unless you have deep corporate pockets or a really good reason for it, spend your money on one good website that adapts to whatever your clients have - and definitely including iPhone thats definitely a no-brainer. Dark Passenger posts a great example. But also check out these two lugs' websites: http://media.smashingmagazine.com/wp...mitt-sites.png (as seen on large and small screens). They didnt make 2 sites, just one good one. Get the most bang for your buck. Keep it easy for clients to reach your marketing materials, dont put up technical barriers. Think about a site that wont have to be scrapped too soon because fewer people have the plugin the site requires. You can google: "responsive web design" and just read. Providers: I know its hard to separate the wheat from the chaff in the tech land, but hopefully that gets better!

[Arandomniceguy]

..and also, yes 5 or so lame posts recently for me, but I havent been active on this site for a long time and my old activity is just gone flame on

[Arandomniceguy]

the link I posted is a picture of two responsive sites: barakobama.com and mittromney.com websites on different sized screens (though Eccie links it to an ad). Mitt's site has been replaced with just contact info, but check out BO's site. Resize your window from small and bacl to large and see how it's smartly converts into different states that fit the size of the screen better. Thats the idea. Flash sites are better than nothing and can be pretty (HTML sites can be just as), but there are ways of doing Flash so that at least there is something non-flash. At least thats what competent web developers do.

[247 Whispers]

Arandomniceguy - My feelings are not hurt at all. I have no problem with anyone sharing his or her opinion. I rather not have it on my thread, but understand it…to a point.

I did hit at you…as you hit at me questioning my company’s abilities. That is were I was coming from, that is were I draw the line. I don’t know you and have no need to “flame” you. Or a flame war

In fact, I think you ARE a programmer. You talk like a programmer and probably are saying what you feel. I have no problem with that at all. Leave what you don’t know about me and my company out of it. Because then you are just speculating. Thoughts on tech stuff open

Only time will tell if you are right or if I am right. I FEEL with my experience that I am right with this.

[Arandomniceguy]

Oh, I saw the line differently. There are sections of the forum where there is explicitly no reviews for a good reason. I didnt think this was one of those - since its normally spelled out. Now I see, to you its like 'this thread is supposed to be about my services' and I saw it as a post on a site where people review services and give each other advice. I see why you feel like I attacked you. That wasnt intentional and I regret that.

I was just impressed by how clients share and rate experiences, providers help each other and newbie clients. Ive seen so much good advice get shared and it makes things better for everyone and helps keep folks safe and saves em money and time. Thats why I came to these forums. When I saw pitches to providers, I just thought to offer advice on what I know in that same spirit.

I know how to check under the hood and kick the tires (and I know that kicking tires on a car doesnt tell you anything meaningful too). I dont pretend to know anything about your company other than what you put out yourself. I know how to evaluate websites. I can see you have a pretty website on computer, but it shows a lack of general knowledge about the web craft and it has real implications to your clients. I was doing my review for the providers. Their coin is just as hard earned as mine if not more so and I was really thinking of them.

Honestly not trying to be a dick, but I have advice for you too. I think you might consider partnering with someone that has complementary skills. Might be killer. I can PM you specific things easy things you can do to patch your website for iOS if your interested.

I stand by all my observations and advice, but maybe I shoulda just kept it to myself? My bad if advice/reviews werent welcome here. Think I did it for the right reason. Think girls do care about the things like having her tel/info on her website even on an iPhone

[247 Whispers]

Arandomniceguy - I REALLY dig what you just wrote. I am a newbie on this site, and you are 100% correct how I feel. You should stand by your observations. I respect what you said. PM me, I will tell you a great story with one of my programmers that is very similar to this story. Maybe we will do business together. I am very happy the way this turned out

[straightshooter30]

I hope it's ok to join the conversation... I'm a photographer in the early stages of building a glamor web site, a long time adobe user, sad to see flash getting bypassed. I 'think', from my research, the way to go is wordpress / CMS but my skill set is largely on the other side of the camera and with Photoshop / Lightroom. Not meaning to hijack, Any advice of help willing to be offered is appreciated!

PS the only lady I know using flash on her site is for a gallery to give her a bit of 'right-click' protection.

[The Dark Passenger]

Originally Posted by straightshooter30

I hope it's ok to join the conversation... I'm a photographer in the early stages of building a glamor web site, a long time adobe user, sad to see flash getting bypassed. I 'think', from my research, the way to go is wordpress / CMS but my skill set is largely on the other side of the camera and with Photoshop / Lightroom. Not meaning to hijack, Any advice of help willing to be offered is appreciated!

A Wordpress site is a good choice, as long as you choose the right theme. As stated before, make sure that the theme you choose is responsive. You can find some really nice themes for less than $100 and sometimes you can even find them for free.

Here's a good example of one:

http://graphpaperpress.com/themes/full-frame/

And it's live demo (test it on various mobile devices or resize your browser window):

http://demo.graphpaperpress.com/full-frame/

And here's a free theme that has a Pinterest layout:

http://www.eleventhemes.com/gridly-theme/

And it's demo (test it on mobile devices or resize your browser window):

http://www.eleventhemes.com/gridly/

Hope that helps.

[The Dark Passenger]

Originally Posted by straightshooter30

PS the only lady I know using flash on her site is for a gallery to give her a bit of 'right-click' protection.

That's a horrible reason to choose a Flash site and her we developer should have advised against it.

A Flash site won't protect her images. If anyone wanted to take the images from a "right-click disabled" Flash site, they could simply take a screenshot. Along with other methods.

[Guest082318]

Originally Posted by The Dark Passenger

A Wordpress site is a good choice, as long as you choose the right theme. As stated before, make sure that the theme you choose is responsive. You can find some really nice themes for less than $100 and sometimes you can even find them for free.
Hope that helps.

WordPress would be a great choice for a provider. I have been contemplating releasing a provider / modeling theme for a long time but have never got around to it. No disrespect to 247 Whispers as I'm sure he does great work but limiting yourself to the confines of a flash based site is probably not a very good idea.

[Bella_HHD]

Having been a designer for the escort industry for nearly ten years, and in the straight world for much longer, I think I can safely say that a Flash-based website for escorts is non-runner.

Ladies want to update their own site - VERY difficult with Flash.

Ladies want their sites to be viewable by anyone at any time - VERY difficult with Flash.

There are escort designers who offer both of those very important points, as well as beautiful design for a comparable number of "roses".

[straightshooter30]

Thanks to all for responding and sharing this info!

[Arandomniceguy]

Bella_HHD puts it succinctly.

My web background has not been focused on WordPress but agree with TDP and HnF about WordPress though users should know its cons. For this type of project, its pretty ideal with pros easily outweighing the cons.

pros: regular people can set it up and use it! its free and includes a website for you (provider) to update your own site. WordPress is so popular that there are thousands of compatible themes (to change the appearance and design of your site), and plugins (to add extra feature like stores, galleries, subscriptions, without programming!)

cons: so your website will be running on free community-written code, while that makes it wonderfully free, it also means the bad guys eventually learn how to break it / hack it. Not just the WordPress code itself, but also all those fabulous plugins that allow non-computer-gods to add tons of functions, those too - they all have to be constantly updated. If you use too many or even just a few plugins that have crappy code (and how do non-geeks tell if a plugin has crap code?) then every time you upgrade WP or a plugin, something can break. It might break just parts of your site or sometimes just break it completely ... so basically you either do this careful upgrade process where you back everything up before you upgrade, then upgrade with the ability to roll back if something breaks - OR - you just let the code get older and older and more vulnerable. there are other cons, but they matter less in small business sites - nothing beats a custom website made by experts. you can get top performance, advanced features, and with the right geeks, everything just the way you want them or need them to be. that level of control isnt necessary for a small business website.

you should know: out of the box, the WP site that lets you manage your site (called the WP Admin) isnt as easy to use as it could be - its useable but it takes time to learn how to control everything. You may find a theme you like, but you might want to change it a bit or maybe want a custom design. Thats when you benefit from hiring web developers who can really tailor your WPAdmin to be easy to use, upgrade the code periodically and be able to fix things if they break, and really customize that WP site of yours. WP is great because it lets almost anyone (non-geeks) launch and maintain real websites but if you can afford to, I recommend getting the right geek to keep it up to date and really tailor / trick it out just the way you want it.