Maintaining an Official Country Website, Money Potential..

Hello Peeps

Today i have had a meeting with one of the top guys who own an official website for the country i live in, the website itself is very old fashioned and needs a new design, SEO, CMS, e.t.c and maintenance work will be required.

I'm a freelance designer and i believe this site has excellent potential for generating revenue, online revenue and local advertisements.

The company which owns the site wants to pay me on a commissions basis rather than a one set payment, meaning if the site fails to gain revenue, i wont get a penny for all the hard work which needs to be put into place, note that the rent has to be paid following the bills.

The site has a pagerank 5 and the country has a population of around 25,000. I do not know any traffic statistics for the site, the country is very popular for its tourist attractions.

From the successful meeting, the person i spoke to needs to sort some money issues with the big guys within the company and likely to come back to me with an offer.

Quite new to the freelancing world, what do you think is the best way to deal with this situation, commission based or one set payment, the company is not guaranteed to get there money back if they pay me for the design and maintenance...

I also don't want to take the risk of wasting my time... but then again the site would be unbelievable for my portfolio...

Grrr... bit of a dilemma...

 

Why not have your cake and eat it too.

Ask for a small one time payment, just enough so that you can pay the rent. Then do the bulk in the form of profit sharing. This way you will at least get some money that you need right away, and you'll also stand to make a lot more in the long run.

 

Did you say the country only has 25,000 people?

Which country is this?

 

It's probably Turks and Caicos or the British Virgin Islands.

 

ahh, I see.

I say go for it. What have you got to loose, other than your time.

 

I think this is the key point -- you can't afford to work for nothing, but this would be a real feather in your cap if you can get the work. As long as they make you a half-decent offer (whether as a fee, or revenue-sharing), I would go for it!

 

Just go for it if you purely do it for your portfolio.
If your aim is for the money,just go for other job that pay higher than it

 

Thankyou for your responses. I will take on the job for my portfolio, also i found out today a report that last year they were averaging a 1000 unique visitors a day, since then the site has probably gained more visitors a day as the competition is low.

I will keep you updated..