The solutions your “friendly” web developer will suggest will often be their excellent in house content management system (or CMS). Having been exposed to some of these in my time, exactly NONE of them have been particularly useful for all the things suggested in the first paragraph!

If your developer suggests their CMS, politely decline!

The only one I have come across that is any good is Wordpress. Having already discussed wordpress in previous posts you’ll get the idea that I do like this software.

I like it a lot!

Not only do we get some cool wordpress themes, some top class wordpress plugins, but also the best CMS you’ll ever find.

The wordpress CMS has gone through many iterations and is now considered a “mature” software, meaning it is relatively bug free, extremely user friendly and has a really easy learning curve.

The fact that there are literally thousands of add ons and themes for this software tells you it is really well liked by the “geeks” of the world too and is certainly here to stay for at least the next few years, which is more than you can say for the CMS from your developer!

I’ve set up quite a few BLOGs now for my own business and other peoples businesses, and the CMS back end is easily adopted by my clients, which makes my life really simple too!

One other thing with Wordpress, it is not restricted to just BLOGs, you can set up actual websites with it too! Whilst a little cumbersome for a simple website, more complex sites can happily thrive on a Wordpress back end, making updating and managing you web site an absolute doddle!

So the next time you are wanting to get a BLOG or a website built, consider using Wordpress, or asking your developer to build it using wordpress, so that you have much more control over the management of the site.

Now before you go crazy and start creating dozens of little BLOGs for each part of your personal training business, using Wordpress or Blogger’s free tool there are a few things you should consider.

Whilst the “free” tool on wordpress.com and blogger.com is excellent there are some limitations with it.

1. You have a limitation with the themes you can use, most of the standard wordpress ones look awful.
2. On a standard wordpress BLOG I am yet to find a way of inserting the code required to put an opt-in form, to allow you to collect names and email addresses.
3. There are a number of really important “plugins” (clever add-ons for Wordpress) that cannot be used on the “free” site. The plugins I am talking about are ones that will accelerate your search engine rankings and optimise your site better.
4. The standard domain name you use with the free site is not very pretty or easy to remember. For example TimIsAFatLossGod.wordpress.com compared to TimIsAFatLossGod.com (although it is possible to set up with a redirect it is not particularly search engine friendly.)

These issues may not seem like a long list of problems BUT they are significant enough if you want massive success with your BLOG.

The solution is relatively simply, but as always not necessarily easy if you are a bit wary of the tech stuff. It is likely you will need a geek to help you out on this, but it is possible to do yourself. You’ll need the following…

• A domain name, buy it from GoDaddy.com
• A web site host with the ability to install wordpress on it. HostGator does have this, as do I on my own server.
• … erm that’s it! For the moment.

You may want to find a theme to use on the site as well, there are plenty of free themes out there as well as ones you can purchase. I can recommend TemplateMonster.com for some fantastic paid for themes…

As it happens, you have a lot going for you if you want to compete with a geek fitness professional. All this HTML, FTP, JS voodoo that geeks band about to confuse non-geeks is simply a cover for our own inadequacies!

So what follows is the five steps to successfully getting one up on a geek fitness professsional.

Step 1. Know what you want in a website and stick to your guns. Geeks get too easily distracted by the latest widget, gadget and cool technology. We are pulled off track from what we really wanted our site to do in the first place.

Step 2. Once you get your website built, be happy with the being ignorant to how it works and how to change stuff. Geeks want to fiddle with bits of code to make them “better”. We are too fussy and forget to actually USE the site for its main purpose of marketing and attracting new clients.

Step 3. Have an eye for design. I have the artistic talent of an one eyed wombat, trapped in a paper bag! Techically, geeks are stunning, graphically we suck!

Step 4. Concentrate on providing high quality content that your web site visitors will love you for. Geeks have ZERO attention span (that’s why it took your web-guy months to make that really simple change!). We hate to actually sit and write anything intelligent, witty or vaguely entertaining.

Step 5. Communicate with real people in the real world. Geeks are generally social failures and cannot relate to ordinary non-geeks. You biggest advantage is your charisma and ability to be a real human being on the other side of the internet. Pick up the phone talk and meet your clients in the real world.

I both hate and love the label of being a “geek”.

I am a geek trying to beat off the stigma and personal traits that make it difficult to compete with you!

Rather than let technology and geeks beat you, embrace the technology and use your advantages to beat us.

When I saw his site I felt really sorry for the guy, it was really not very good, and to make matters worse he had no ability to change it!

He was stuck with it!

1500 British Pounds, which at the time, was about 3000 US dollars for a 7 page website that looked C**P and couldn’t be found on by the search engines.

I understand why Paul had gone down this route to get his site built.

FEAR.

Fear of the unknown, fear of not having control, fear of being screwed, fear of ending up with a bad site. The route he took, he thought, was the ’safe’ option.

It was a local business with an impressive portfolio with some big name businesses on their books, it was the ’safe’ option in Paul’s eyes, but it turned out to be not a great choice.

Today, I had an email from a personal trainer wanting my opinion on the quote he had got for his new website… without going in to the details the quote was in the same ballpark as Paul’s site. My advise was simple, say thanks but no thanks, then walk away.

To give you an idea of what sites SHOULD cost, I am currently managing a project for a new website, it is highly complex with many different aspects. Getting a quote for this site in the developed world would stretch in to 5,000 dollars and more!

I am getting the site done for just 1000 dollars.

One of the fears is dealing with developers or businesses that are not within our locality. What we think are large projects are not to expert teams of developers in India, Pakistan or Eastern European countries. They are simply bread and butter projects to these guys.

As Fitness Professionals we should be taking advantage of the best developers in the world at a price that is much more realistic to our budgets…

It is my opinion you are more likely to be screwed by the guy in your high street, rather the Indian developer trying to make a better living for himself and his family.

Outsource, outsource, outsource.

What is your biggest fear with hiring a developer who is not in the same country, or even the same continent as you? Tell me drop me a comment on this BLOG.

I will try and reply to the comments and questions as best as I can in the coming emails. Whatever you do keep the questions coming.

There was a time when doing web stuff was really, really complicated. I mean, there was no such thing as FrontPage or any of the other WYSIWYG editors (What You See Is What You Get). You needed to write code from scratch, there was no templates, or easy to use drag and drop utilities.

Getting your web page up on the net required a IT degree and the ability to write obscure command line stuff… nasty.

Now it is much much easier…

The concept to grasp here is how a website actually appears on the internet. Very simply when you prepare a web page on your computer, no one can see it but you.

Web pages only appear when you place them on a recognised web server. This is like a special computer that is permanently on and can be viewed by anyone at any time.

“Hosting” companies are everywhere, you can pick up a hosting account for as little as a couple of bucks a month. When you do you will be given information of how to access the area where  you place your web pages.

At the risk of being dull and geekie… this is probably the most tedious post this week… This is important information as it will allow you to get back control of your website!!!

Connecting to your area on your server is done through a little  application called an FTP program. Normally you can find FTP applications which will cost you nothing.

Once you have this, and have accessed your server, it is just  like copying files from one part of your hard drive to another, in this case you are copying files from your hard drive to the web server.

That’s it…

As I stated in a previous post, you don’t need to take the  hosting service of your web developer, in fact it is preferable NOT to, so you maintain control over your site.

Many fitness professionals have zero control over their site, which if you have a good developer then this is not an issue, but it can be problematic further down the line.

Whilst I maintain that as fitness professionals we keep our  heads away from this geek stuff, basic concepts like this are fundamental to not being held at gun point by a nerd!

I for one have spent (read wasted) more than my fair share of time and money on web site development and design work that has not met my expectations! I have outsourced locally, and internationally and found that both routes are fraught with danger, deception and a lot of frustration.

Dealing with geeks is not an easy task at the best of times, but over the last few years I have developed tactics to get what I want, when I want.

What follows is my 15 reasons why we, as fitness professionals, are scared of geeks, and what we can do to get over it.
1. The geeks think they are in charge – This is based upon the fact they have the knowledge you don’t. to counter this remember you are employing them for a fee, if they do not deliver they should not get paid.

2. You know nothing about web development - Worry not, you simply need to know what kind of website you want, write this down and ask for it!

3. You don’t know how much it should cost - This is an easy one, you’ll find that most websites can be built for much less than you think. A 3 page site should be less than 250 dollars, a fully featured personal trainer site can be designed and coded for less than 600 dollars! Often MUCH much less!

4. I don’t know where to find a developer - Another easy one, Elance.com, Guru.com, ScriptLance.com, RentaCoder.com, Guru.com, Odesk.com. Probably the easiest one to start with is Elance.com it is where most of my projects are based, and I have found some fantastic companies through this.

5. Web developer or Designer? - Your best bet is to find a web DESIGNER who can also code, if you want a pretty professional looking site. If you need more function find a DEVELOPER. Many of the companies I deal with have both designers and developers in their team. The one man operations are cheaper but probably limited in ability.

6. What if they ask a question I don’t understand? – The problem with geeks is they possess the ability to talk down to non geeks with their “Borg style” language. Ask them to explain difficult technical questions, remember you are in charge.

7. What if they don’t deliver? - I operate, like other experienced Elance users, a 2 strikes rule… If they miss a deadline, mess with your original ideas, don’t deliver good enough products then ditch them… this may mean losing a couple of dollars on the outlay but it’ll save you headaches.

8. They try to tell you what you REALLY want? – Do not be swayed by someone telling you what you want. Write a strong, detailed specification and ask your web guy not to deviate from it.

9. How do I know if I have chosen the right geek? – Whilst it is tempting to go for the cheapest bid on your project, DON’T! Pick someone who has reacted to your project, asked you questions, shown an active interest in what you are doing, and communicates well to your questions… All this can be done during the bidding process.

10. How many bids do I need? - When using Elance or another site, fix the bidding time to just 3 days, any longer and you’ll spend hours sifting through bids. You want to select those that react quickly and fulfil the criteria in number 9.

11. How long should it take? - It has almost been programmed in to us that web site stuff takes a long time. In fact this is WRONG! I have companies who can deliver a site with 2-3 days once the specification is agreed.

12. They want me to take some hosting package with the site what is this? – My suggestion would be not to take the developers hosting package. Your site will always be with them, even when you fall out with them and you’ll never have access to the site to transfer or ask a different developer to do the work on it. Hosting packages start from a couple of bucks a month… I can recommend a few that are more expensive but offer all you’ll ever need from a host.

13. What if I just need to make a small change? - I always suggest that fitness professionals get a site built using HTML/CSS, this is a coding langauage you could learn in a few hours, and I can show you how to edit in less than 20 minutes! Geeks always want to use the latest technology and coding language, DO NOT let them, otherwise you’ll never have any control over your site.

14. How can I ensure my site gets done quickly? - Make sure you have typed up EVERYTHING you want on each page of your site, gather all the images, logos, videos, audio together before you start the bidding process. Ensure you also have the login details for aweber, paypal, clickbank or other services you want included on the site. When you find the developer, give it all to them at the start.

15. How can I explain what it should look like? - Gather a list of ALL the websites you like, and they fit with the kind of design you like… Also useful to gather a list of sites you hate and the reasons why you hate them. Give your geek all this information right at the start.

Hopefully these pointers should set you off in the right direction with your website project. I strongly recommend that once you have got all the information you want to relay on your site, get on Elance immediately and post your project.

Don’t be scared of these guys, they are almost human ;o)

Tim

PS. Please comment on this post with your biggest fears of outsourcing your web site stuff… If you liked the post please DIGG and Stumble and all that stuff.