It’s the FitGeek – Tim Goodwin again with a little story to tell you. A fellow fitness professional, lets call him Paul, called me up the other day and was in a bit of a panic. He said:
‘My website is not appearing on Google anymore and my web guy has gone AWOL, what am I going to do!’
The statement my ‘web-guy’ has gone AWOL is one I hear so much!
Are they really that unreliable?
Fitness professionals are not geeks (generally), so when stuff goes wrong and your web-guy is not answering your calls you end up being really stuck. These guys have you over a barrel too because they know you are stuck. Being at the mercy of some nerd behind their thick rimmed glasses is not your idea of good business, when your business relies on the internet.
In 2009, your web presence is essential, your clients expect more than just a shoddy web page thrown together using FrontPage or your brothers mates idea of what looks good.
At the same time you still want to obtain some level of control over the content on your web page, so you are not at the mercy of the geeks.
Fortunately the technology is moving in your favour, I am seeing tools that are much more accessible to the normal human being! All this is good, but you do still need to get a handle on a little HTML.
There are some great books out there that will help out. On my personal page on the Personal Trainer Success I have put a list of my books that I recommend. The Visual QuickStart HTML book is one that is on my desk next to my monitor permanently. It’ll get you started in less than a few hours, and act as a reference you can come back to time and time again.
So get over to http://personaltrainersuccess.ning.com now and check out my book list.
Let me know how you get on with the book, drop me a message on twitter or at the Personal Trainer Success site.
Tim
PS. I know what its like to be held to ransom by a geek who knew more about my site than I did. I should never get in that position again, hopefully the information in this post will stop you getting in to this situation as well!
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About Fit Geek
I’m a web guy myself, and I’ve heard that line one time too many. Usually my customers have bounced three or four times with other developers, before they get too me. And by that time they are reluctant, have a small budget, and they still want the world. Once they see results and reliability, then it becomes a long term deal, and they are happy and want to spend more. Relying on books to get you up to speed is too cumbersome, although it may pay in the long run. Too often an automated website tool lacks the personality factor, and customers always want that one thing the webtool does no provide. A programmer is always needed.