
Ask HN: Approaching a Company with a Bad Website - casper345
I see bad websites alot. I work remotely and alot of my clients are from refers or word of mouth. It is great but I want to expand my market beyond that. How do you approach companies with website that could need major improvement (UI&#x2F;UX, SEO, re-branding, etc?)
======
jppope
You don't worry about the website. Smart businesses worry about generating
revenue, decreasing overhead, improving their image in the eyes of their
customers, or reducing risk. Worry about helping a company with those
things... you may find out that their "bad" web design doesn't matter in the
slightest or in weird cases it might actually be on purpose.

~~~
rident
Yeah this is a great way to tackle it. Image and branding comes along for the
ride. Even if it's your desire - the client's desire is typically going to be
functionality, security, usability, accessibility, etc. All of which are a
means to an end for a lone wolf designer/engineer. Listen and learn from them
about their pain points before promoting your own skills or favorite parts of
the industry.

~~~
ksaj
"Listen and learn from them about their pain points" goes straight to the
heart of it. An ugly website might be a normal nothing to them. But one of
your related skills might be all they've ever wanted, and you'll only ever
know by looking at what _they_ want to solve (versus what you want to pitch to
them).

------
enz
Some copywriter wrote some advice about that:
[https://www.earlytorise.com/the-awful-truth-about-
unsolicite...](https://www.earlytorise.com/the-awful-truth-about-unsolicited-
advice-part-i-a-big-mistake-you-dont-want-to-make/)

May be a good start!

