About [Matt] Way Out Web Dezign
So you want to know what kind of company you're thinking about doing business with? Well, that's what this page is for. Hopefully that's what you are looking for. If you think you want information about what kind of experience or specific information about the types of projects I can help with, you might want to try my custom design page, the affordable web design section, or the small business section. This page is going to give you an idea of what kind of background I have which is important to many clients.
What I'm Not
I'm not a large company with different departments that can shuffle the phone calls (and the blame, for that matter) to another person in the company. I have personally dealt with companies like this in the past. I don't like it, and I'm sure I am not alone.
About Me
I guess background information is in order. I am a 30+ year resident of Branson, Missouri. I grew up here, went to school here, and I am familiar with the area.
In 1997 I decided that I would like to learn HTML for a project I was working on at the time, so I bought book and read it. I was fascinated with the way this technology worked so I began applying it in projects that primarily ran on a computer from a CD. Nice, but not real marketable. The ideas kept coming and I worked at producing [non-]websites - you know those projects than used the language of the web but weren't on the Internet.
Web Work and Dynamics
I finally decided to take my skills to the web and designed a website to help people plan their Branson getaways. This was not only my first attempt at building a dynamic site with a database but also one of my first websites on the Internet! I knew how to write the code for static stuff but didn't have the knowledge of how things interacted on a massive network or any of the many technologies used to create dynamic stuff. Needless to say, I learned a great deal from that experience and continue learning daily.
I completed my first business website (my own) and finished the Branson site and proudly sat back and checked the stats to see how many visitors would flock to my masterpieces. Was I ever in for a big surprise!
Two or three months went by and nothing happened, I mean, NOTHING happened. I couldn't figure out why nobody was visiting my websites. Were they ugly? Was the information poor? I didn't know why but I did know how to find the answers. That's when I decided to do some more learning, this time in the area of marketing.
Researching Search and Marketing to the Market
Nowadays most small business owners are familiar with the terms Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). However, a few years ago - at least not in Branson - many business owners did not recognize the need for a website so these terms weren't as publicized as they are now. I set out to see how I could build traffic to my website and I was shocked to learn of all the different avenues of building traffic. I couldn't believe it. Another entire area to learn about with regard to the Internet.
I steeped myself in information about driving traffic to my website and learning how to market my business to the right people via the web. While the majority of my education came over time (and continues, for that matter), getting the basics down took me awhile but I am tenacious and stuck with it. I continued learning about everything I could in the area of search engines and began my quest for higher rankings.
Collaborative Projects
Early on in 2005 I was working away, trying to keep my design company expanding in the proper directions when I learned of a person that had just moved into the Branson area. With a background similar to my own but with a slightly different skill-set (although at the time I didn't know that), This person had his own computer consulting business and specialized in data integration and back-end programming. I recognized the potential that existed and decided that it could beneficial for us to work together on larger projects. We did exactly that, and my portfolio today contains many projects that he and I worked on together.
Ten years of programming and 5 years on the Internet have brought me a well-rounded skill-set that I continue to build on daily. I'm not the lowest priced 'web guy', but I'm not the most expensive either. Even if the project is substantial in size, I will do my best to produce great work at a competitive price in a very reasonable time. And I'll test my sites to make sure they WORK! Sure, there's going to be bugs at various points during the development process, but I'll work to get them fixed and I always enjoy trying new ideas.
