What's your opinion on breeders websites?
Personally I used to get annoyed with people who produced one clutch of corns and a clutch of balls every year making websites that tried to make themselves' sound like professional breeders. I’m not trying to make light of their accomplishments but does that level of production warrant a website?
My take on it is if you're doing this as a hobby maybe you don't need a website. Then again, for some people the website is part of their hobby too. I've always felt that websites imply something, a certain level of professionalism. It just seems to me that there are a lot of things left unsaid in websites and a lot that is said that can be misleading. For example, I will never refer to the room or two rooms I use in my home to house and breed my snakes in as a "facility". The Sutherlands have a facility. I can see why they need a website.
Don't get me wrong I'm not saying I'm for hobbyist having them or against them, I'm really on the fence. I see people who don't have them that probably should, Roy Stockwell for example and then there are people like me with them. I'm not sure if I need one/want one or should even have one but three people recently have asked me when I was getting one or if I had one. I had someone working on a small one for me once but it was for free and it never got finished. I'm glad too because it shouldn't have been for free but at this point I'm too cheap to shell out for one.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'm a schoolteacher first and breeding snakes is a hobby. Yes I'll sell what I produce if I can but I'm not interested in trying to make myself look like something I'm not and I feel that if I get a website it will do that.
A website with nice catch phrases and cropped pics may help someone look better but it seems to me breeders should be focusing on the quality of their animals and not their websites. If you sell great animals and have a clean reputation why do you need a website? How many sites do you see that have "nothing available right now" in the available section almost all the time?
So what's your opinion on herp websites? Do they help breeders sell animals? If so, how do you think they help sell animals?
Thanks for the feedback,
Trevor
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