Recession Winners: Web Designers, SEO

I'm sitting in a caf up here in Inwood and I overhear three guys doing a deal.

The customer is an architect or interior designer. He wants a new Web site so his customers can find his shop -- online and off -- and can see the construction companies and contractors he likes to work with. "Pictures are nice, but not necessary," he says. The two guys at the table with him are local Web designers.

After the customer leaves, I ask one of the designers how's business, since, you know, everything blew up.

"Actually it's very good," he tells me. But I'm skeptical. How could it be? Everyone's hurting.

"Well, people are looking for cost-effective ways to market themselves and redesigning their Web site is a relatively cheap alternative," says the designer.

It's true: I think I heard them offer to do the job for the architect for something like $1,300.

"Also it's its a one-time charge. Advertising only lasts for a certain amount of time and then you have to pay more."

The designer says another good business right now is search engine optimization (SEO), which is the polite way of describing the business of tweaking Web sites so they'll appear higher in natural search results.

This makes sense to me. Paying a one-time fee for a SEO re-vamp is probably a lot cheaper than paying for clicks each month. Maybe when cash is easier again, you'll do both.

Anyway, this news is from just one source and I overheard most of the details, so take it for what it is -- a little bit of murky, anecdotal good news, at a time when the bad news is painfully obvious.

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Photo: joeltelling