CHEAP! CUSTOM! GUARANTEE! U.S.A!
Somehow, magically, web design and SEO are the only industries where people still advertise with those buzzwords all in the same sentence.
Sadly, most of the companies that advertise with those buzzwords are also frauds, cheats, and criminals.
Let’s start with cheap. You remember the old saying,””You get what you pay for””? It’s true, even for web design. Cheap usually means limited understanding of the complexities of HTML/CSS/PHP/C+ and the other various relevant coding to web design and development. A lot of times, they have no idea what makes a website secure. Usually, cheap means one of three things- a guy, living in his parent’s basement who only knows the basics of HTML and CSS or uses templates from Drupal and Joomla. OR it might mean a US salesperson who outsources all of the work to India, where there is no standards or legal guarantees of compliance. OR it just means an Indian company altogether, not even bothering to hide the fact that they are fraudsters and charlatans.
Custom? Yes, websites should be custom coded. But most companies that advertise custom don’t mean custom coded. They mean customized. They downloaded a free template, without looking at the source code, and now are going to put your colors, your fonts, your logo, and your pictures in it. Its not custom. Its custom in the way mobile homes are custom. And since they don’t know how to write real custom code, they have no idea whether or not the template has built in security flaws, viruses, or referral links that could damage you, your reputation, your clients, or your site in the long run. If your web designer can’t guarantee, in writing, they are custom coding your website, they’re just customizing free templates (that is what you’re getting for $99 to $999- we’ve competitively reviewed many work and we can show you the evidence).
What about guarantees? Those are always good, right? When was the last time you got a guarantee where it didn’t clearly spell out the obligations of one party to another? Even my ‘guarantee’ on my iPod has four pages of legal explanations for what Apple will or will not cover. But most of the time you see a ‘guarantee’ in web design, its very loosely worded, and there isn’t any explanation of real expectations that you can hold the web designer legally accountable for. (If there even is a web designer in the states to hold legally accountable). Add to that, Google explicitly warns against hiring SEO companies that offer guarantees. Google says they are most likely relying on illegal tactics that will get your website banned in the long run.
But the good old, U S of A, that can’t be wrong right? What state do they have a license in? What is the actual company name? What’s their physical address? What’s your local contacts’ name and local phone number? Do they have a resume that tells you what their experience and education is? What do their Yelp reviews say about them? Sadly, most of the people selling cheap and USA don’t know what they’re doing or they are just an independent contractor for an Indian company (that you can’t hold legally liable when you site crashes or your client data is stolen and the FCC wants you to pay a fine).
Obviously, these warnings are a bit scary, but it is just to knock some sense into you. I have never seen an industry where so many people get ripped off by ‘companies’ advertising using Cheap, U.S., Custom, Guarantee in the same sentence. No other industry manages to put together those terms without running a scam.
If someone is advertising with those terms, dig deep and do your research before hiring the lowest price. And when it doesn’t work out, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Who are we? We’re a company called Coalition Technologies. We have physical addresses in the states of California, and in western Washington. We are registered and licensed in both states. We are not ever going to claim to be cheap. We are an excellent value. Why? We create truly custom products, with security, reliability, and forward thinking feature sets. We are educated, experienced, and extremely eager to help our clients succeed. If that sounds like someone you might want to work with, call 310.827.3890.
