Building a Web-Site For Cheap!

“You get what you pay for,” tends to have a negative connotation. You always hear people saying, “If it sounds to good to be true then it probably is.” I beg to differ: “If you get the right college kid who needs money for beer he’ll work hard for the doe.” Don’t you remember being in college? My friends were always willing to provide their scholastic talents to earn extra spending money for another case of beer. Today, things haven’t changed much!

You can obtain professional-quality web work at low cost by working with college students. Most college students, earning degrees in programming, IT, and/or web-design have acquired many of the design or programming skills that they'll use when they eventually graduate, but they often will work for less money in order to build their portfolios.

Even if you have, a well-established brick-and-mortar jewelry store and you don’t want to sell on the web you should still have an informational web site to let your clients know who you are, where you are, and what your product is…and you don’t need to pay big bucks to have it done well. Working with students can be a way to audition potential hires or at least get some fresh perspective from some up-and-comers in the web design world.

To work successfully with college students, you need to know how to find talented students and what to expect.

Contact the right places.

• Find student contractors by contacting colleges, university, and or technical schools computer science departments and career centers.
• Graphic design and journalism departments such as film and photography also train students in multimedia and can be a good place to look for designers and writers.
• Other ways to find student contractors include advertising in there school newspaper, asking friends for recommendations, or browsing by university bulletins.

Factors to be aware of.

• Although a student’s rate will be lower than those of an established contractor, expect to pay a competitive rate and perhaps quite a bit for skills in high demand. Offering a decent wage ensures that students will make the work a priority and justifies your expectation of professional-quality work.
• Be prepared to work around their class schedules, projects, and exams. Typically, students leave town during breaks and long weekends. If you must have someone on-site or available at all times, you might need a professional.
• Many students move out of state after graduation or take full-time jobs. For this reason, documentation is important. Make sure you know where files are, what they are called, and that you have records of any passwords. This will let someone else to take over.
• Keep in mind that administrative details such as billing and contracts might be entirely new to students. Take the initiative in drafting a contract and arranging a schedule for your student employee to submit invoices.

Is a student contractor your best solution? It depends on many factors, including the scope and type of project. Nevertheless, if you anticipate the special circumstances, it can work out well for everyone.