Become a Home Based Travel Agent

Can You Recommend a Website Developer?
8-Website Project Bid Sites That Will Save You Thousands
By Tom Ogg

Every week I receive emails asking if I can suggest a website developer in their area, or one that specializes in the travel industry. I used to maintain a list of web developers, but have now gone with a stock answer of referring the person asking the questions to one of the global project bidding sites.

Project bidding as been around for a long time, but just recently has become one of the primary ways for businesses to reach out to talented developers in a way that allows them to have thousands of potential website developers compete for the job. These sites all work pretty much the same way. You provide detailed information about what you want to have built and the web developer will bid for the work.

Web developers who look towards the project bidding sites for work are generally quite sophisticated and well established. However, don’t be surprised to find out that a bid may be submitted by an individual with minimal experience. For this reason, all of the sites maintain reviews for each web developer along with ratings making the job of qualifying the developer much easier. Here are some tips on how to make sure that you get what you pay for.

Know What You Want: When bidding a website out, be sure that you know exactly what you want to have built. Use other websites that have features, functionality and design elements that you want incorporated into yours as samples that the developer can use as guidance.

Be Specific in Your Specs: Be very specific when describing the website that you want built. The less you leave to chance, the happier you will be with the results. Take the time to build a site map and name each page in advance.

Use Proper English in Your Project Description: Remember that English may be the second language for many of the people competing for your project. Avoid using terms that may not translate well and avoid slang at all cost.

Beware the Lowest Bid: It is almost always a mistake to award the job to the lowest bidder. Since you will set a budget when you post your project, review the bids based on the quality of the organization submitting them, their past work and the consistency with your overall objectives.

Use an Escrow Account: Most of the project bid site will offer you the use of an escrow account to settle with the web developer. The developer may request a down payment be made before they start the work and ask that interim payments be made into the escrow account if it is a large job. Upon completion of the job to your satisfaction, the escrow account would be fully funded and released to the web developer. This guarantees that you will get what you bargained for, as money is not released until you are completely satisfied. NEVER send any money to a web developer directly.

Web Project bid sites usually handle all types of projects relevant to web development. This usually includes design, SEO, payment gateways, .php, ,asp and other functionality. Here are the eight best web development bid sites:

Tom Ogg
Tom Ogg & Associates
Editor and Publisher

Tom is a 35 year travel industry veteran who’s experience includes over 10 years in sales management for an airline, owning a wholesale Hawaii tour company, starting one of the very first credible “host travel agency models”, has written numerous books about the travel industry including “How to Start a Home Based Travel Agency’, “Selling Cruises, Don’t Miss the Boat” and “Home Based Travel Affiliate, Turn Your Computer into a Virtual Money Machine”. Tom’s newest book “Selling Niche Cruises, How to Turn Small Ships into Big Bucks” was just released. Tom is also the founder of the “CruiseReviews.com” complex of consumer cruise sites including Cruise-Chat.com, which enjoys over 20,000 avid cruises discussing everything under the sun about cruising. Tom also founded the travel industry’s “CruiseAgentDigest” and the unbelievably popular “HomeBasedTravelAgentCommunity.com” social networking site for travel professionals. Tom has trained over 10,000 cruise professionals on land based and cruise seminars on ways to grow their businesses using best industry practices.


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