A little while ago 45n5 was asking for a new layout for his site. He wasn’t looking for anything coded, he wanted the PSD file for it so (I would assume) he could code it. I thought this was perfect since I’m not strong in the world of coding and I love to design - so I took a shot at it.

His contest was up at SitePoint and I noticed (why I didn’t before.. I don’t know) that there were quite a few contest running for an un-coded template for their sites. I thought this was manna from heaven - and why not give this a whirl and make a few extra dollars doing something I LOVE TO DO! It just seemed to work - and I went about it, and submitted to 3 other contests. It was with these other contests that I started to see a trend.

… a not-so-nifty trend.

… if you are a designer.

1. You enter your template for their review based on their requests in the contest.
2. You sit and wait to see if the contest holder has any suggestions.
3. You get a response on some “tweaking” needed for the template
4. You re-tweak the site and think this should now be it.
5. You get a response from the contest holder that he/she is now looking for different colors/shading.
6. You start to feel like your being played a fool.
7. Other entrants base their “new” designs on yours, because yours is the only one that “worked”.
8. Focus shifts from your design to theirs.
9. They win the contest.

Yes, about 9 nifty steps… although I think I left out the majority of “re-do’s” on those templates - after 4 I tend to lose interest. Either you like the design - or you don’t. If it’s a case of aesthetic design tweaks - that can easily be done AFTER the contest has been won by me… or whomever. Don’t go asking designers to make so many changes and then not choose them. What a WASTE OF TIME!

But the bad thing about some of the contests here, was that the designers kept coming back over and over and over again with new tweaks and changes and more changes - some were up around 9 re-designs and still coming back to “win” their $200. I think at some point they should have just said - enough is enough. But they don’t. I’m not sure if they realize as a designer how screwed they are. Wasting so much time - never guaranteed if they’ll win it or not. Wasted time - on some who are actually quite talented.

I see it all the time in my real world job - and there comes a point where it’s just too much. You have to take a stand and say enough is enough and set up limits. Because I think in the end you just have a screwed over feeling.

I guess what I’m saying in this little rant - is that if you put on a contest or participate in these contests, there has to be a certain amount of give and take. If you hold the contest and love a design - but maybe need different colours or a tweak in the layout - do it after that person has won the contest. I think the response would be super positive and easily done.

As a designer - figure out when to say enough is enough and layout the ground rules - like changing things on the template once. Won’t sit around and “tweak” it 19 times only to lose the contest to some goob who shows up in the last hour with a design based off yours with all the tweaking and then some… so frustrating.

So I guess for me I’m laying low in that area - as fun as it was, it just became so freakin’ frustrating.

Popularity: 6% [?]

You know how you end up meandering through your RSS feeds and land on sites that have good links to other sites and other sites and other sites, and then you realize just how off topic you’ve gone… 3 hours later. Well, I have a lot of days like that. But today was one of those days were I had a “Eureka” moment… it hit me like a ton of bricks.

It was a moment where I thought to myself - why haven’t I considered this before?

“Buy a developed website”

I’ve always started websites and putting in the time to see them grow. But today on my little escapade into RSS land I found SitePoint’s marketplace. I’ve even been there before selling some domains off - but the idea of actually going in there as a customer looking to buy something never even hit me.

Until now.

I was wondering if there were any of you out there who’ve tried their hand at buying websites? If you have… would you do it again?

I’ve looked at some websites listed for sale and those that look like they’ve got potential and they’ve got the stats, etc to back it up - are expensive… over $20,000. I don’t have that kind of money to play with, but maybe there is a little gem waiting to be won over between $0 - $500… far more affordable… maybe? I think that would be the only thing that would hold me back from trying this out (right now) is the lack of free funds to just try this, try something new. I would love a chance to take a site with a PR4 or 5 and play with it… see what money could be made.

I wonder if it’s easier when it’s already established to play around with a site to see what can be made money wise or popularity wise?

Maybe I should start saving my affiliate earnings to invest in a web property…

What do you think?

Popularity: 8% [?]

Well, I took your advice and sent an email to see if it would be alright for me to use some images from the “big” network for my little fan site that I’ve just started. Like you said, covering my bases. I don’t think I’d really get into too much trouble with it - since it is promoting their show, but I also don’t want to do tons of work to it and be all giddy about it and then tomorrow get a “take down the site” email… either.

So it’s sent. I’m interested to see if they’ll even respond.

Other than that, I’ve just been adding content to some sites and reading my never-ending list of websites on my RSS feedreader.

I’ve also picked someone to write my 10 articles. She didn’t have tons of reviews, and she’s from Canada. So I’m interested to see if she’ll accept the deal and what sort of quality I get from her writing. The samples she sent were very good… and since she’s “sort of new”, why not right? We’ll see! I’m kind of excited

Popularity: 1% [?]

Last night didn’t amount to getting much done in the world of affiliate marketing, but I did take some time to work on a new layout for my design site. The wordpress layout is what I wanted, but I wanted to make the site “mine”. Not the same that everyone else had - also having it with my own design flair I think would bode better to get web and blog design clients… right?!

So I sat there last night and realized why I’d stopped before. I just had a hell of a time encorporating my new images into the header. I made the header - completely different. I also used those oh-so-ancient techniques of nested tables. But it’s what I know how to do currently and so I’m doing it. Damn it. Also, it works. Enough said. But I had to take the images I was using and instead of being able to keep them in the folder of the theme - I had to place them in the images folder of the site. Does that make any sense? Anyhoo… I was a bit frustrated because I thought if I’m ever going to offer free designs or do designs for potential clients - I want to do it right. But no matter what I did - I couldn’t get it to work. It was frustrating and it was almost midnight. Can I blame it on being tired?

So I’m going to go back in and try again to put the images in the theme images folder…instead of the site’s images folder. I’m not sure why it’s not working… but overall I’m pleased with the look of the header - and tonight I’m not going to worry about the header issue and start in on changing things up with the content part… and the footer part if I can do it all tonight that would be awesome.

On the affiliate front… I’m working out some ideas I have and I’m hoping to give PPC another try.

Also… aZoogleAds… ugh. Could you be more frustrating.

Popularity: 1% [?]