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either create a subdomain on your domain or a folder on your site where you can upload it....

Being a clickable demo it needs to work.....unless you can have them in your office and just show it off your hard drive

A mate of mine does a similar thing, although he goes the full hog.

He sees a business with a crappy website and builds a really cool site with flash and other natty bits that no-one can say no to. he always uses a subdomain so he can do what Northie suggested (he also hosts)

he then finds a competitor with an equally crappy website and tells the first he wants £XXXX for the site he's built, otherwise he'll change the logo and sell it to the competitor whos already offering £XXXX.

Works nearly everytime. And  when it doesn't, he approaches the competitor, tells them that the first company have already paid the deposit, but refused to pay the rest and offers it at a "Discount" (obviously, no REAL discount, it's just sugar coating the s**t, or Marketing, as we like to call it here)

The "Look what I've done for you, now give me your money" approach definitely works for him. Hope it works for you too careyhi

If you use relative links in your site, and have no dynamic content then burning the folder to CD and putting it in the post could well be an option.

However - this gives an very unprofessional image of yourself. Your client will probably be thinking that it is old-fashioned, that you can't get something live quickly or both. Your client may not be at home/office or where ever else yopu deliver the CD.

Plus, if you're using databases, PHP (or other server side language) the chances are your client doesn't have the facility to run the software locally and will be unwilling to go to the effort of installing stuff just so they can see their own site - the responsibility lies with you, the service provider.

Putting the demo site live on your own site (including folders/subdomains etc) gives control back to you - you can make sure any server side software (mysql, php etc) works with the code you've written and your client can see the demo where ever they have internet access (which is in most places now)

mobtex wrote:

Host it yourself and watermark it so there's nothing the client just could run away with and use for free.

How do you watermark an entire site?

Set up a subdomain, demo.whateveryourmainsiteis.com, use htaccess to protect it from prying eyes, give the client the username and password... if they say they will think about it, change the username and password after 24hrs so they cant show your competition and get a better price... or try figure out how to copy the template (html and images).

It looks professional and by giving them a 24hr limit it pushes them to decide quicker.... there is no better way... especially not a cd, like mobtex said,  you will literally be giving them the site anyway, all they have to do is upload it and voila, they have a site. Watermarking is time consuming (unless you batch) and your client wont get the full effect of the site, images will likely be coming from them anyway, so i wouldnt stress about that

Last edited by Ryan_steyn (2008-05-19 02:46:44)