How is this different than hiring a big web design company?
Simply put, if you have your small business website designed by one of the larger design companies or corporations, you will not be talking to the owner of that company. You will be speaking to his/her employees whose job it is to work 9-5, endlessly turning out web pages for an hourly wage. Unless the designer really loves their job, chances are, their only personal investment in what you've hired them to do is to make sure they pick up their paycheck at the end of the month. They do not sit at home at night wondering how John and Mary's woodworking shop is doing. They can't be reached after hours to chat over a great new idea you've had for a sale or promotion. More than likely, if you do ever get to speak to a live human being at one of these firms, you will be talking to a very poorly paid employee in India who will have to try to bring your Username up on a screen to even have an inkling of who you are. For the most part, you will find yourself processed through automated voice messaging systems and truly unhelpful on-line help desks. Not much of a support system to be backing up a business you've put all of your hopes and money into. Basically, the point we are trying to make is that if you go with a big company, you are bound to end up being treated like a number, and we all know how frustrating, and even dehumanizing, that can feel. Many of our clients have gone down this dead-end road before coming to us, and we confess, it makes us feel awfully good to hear how delighted they are to be finally speaking to real people. Though the Internet is all about technology, humans are all about communication, and you need to be able to communicate, one-on-one, with the person whose role in your business is going to be so very important.
Why is my web designer going to be so important?
It is a common misconception amongst folks who are new to the Internet that you will simply put up the site, end of story. Try to think of it this way: the owner of a supermarket does not build their store, stock it with products and then never replenish the inventory again. Running an on-line business is an on-going process. If your small business will be running an e-commerce site, you will be adding new products, removing old ones, promoting specials and advertising. Even if your website will be purely informational, your site must be in a state of on-going development in order to remain important to search engines (thus gaining good rankings). Informational sites need to add new articles, new lists of resources, new interesting features to make their site useful to their visitors. Because your site will always be 'under construction' so to speak, in hopes of always improving its value to the public, you need to have a web designer who is going to remain available to you for these types of updates.
But why not just buy one of those build-it-yourself website packages?
The answer to this can be summed up in one word: rankings. Build-it-yourself websites are great if your goal is just to have some fun playing with a program that will allow you to easily create a web page with no programming skills. If your intention is to make a personal website about your life, your family, a hobby, and you really don't care if anyone ever finds your site, this is a fine solution. Many such programs are available and they generally won't cost you a lot of money. Unfortunately, they behave like they didn't cost you a lot of money, too. Because these template-based programs are mass produced, what you end up with is a site which not only has not been created to fit your needs, but which has also not been created to meet the needs of customers or the search engines. Most of the do-it-yourself web templates out there are built with absolutely no regard for SEO (search engine optimization) standards, and because of this, they will not rank well in Google, Yahoo or MSN (the Big 3 search engines). Without the rankings, you will not have the traffic you need, and you will not be making the profits you want. The worst of it all comes the day a site owner realizes this and starts desperately looking for someone to help them overwrite the code of the template which has been designed so poorly. At this point, regardless of the investment you may have made, it is better to scrap the template site and start from scratch with a real website, custom built for the exact needs of your small business.
Your company is very important to you. You intend to run your business in a smart and professional way. In order to do this, why not get it right the first time by hiring a professional web designer who has spent years perfecting their coding, their design skills and their SEO abilities? Remember, you are starting your business because it is what you specialize in. You shouldn't have to become a web designer before you can start selling your products or services.
That's taking a completely unnecessary step that all the options out there may have confused you into believing is a good way to go.
You don't want to be a web designer. You don't want to spend your days creating web pages for your small business. You want to be taking in sales, filling orders and shipping out your products, or helping customers with your services. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? Don't take a detour into the world of useless do-it-yourself programs when it comes to something as vitally important as the success of your on-line business.
Simply put, if you have your small business website designed by one of the larger design companies or corporations, you will not be talking to the owner of that company. You will be speaking to his/her employees whose job it is to work 9-5, endlessly turning out web pages for an hourly wage. Unless the designer really loves their job, chances are, their only personal investment in what you've hired them to do is to make sure they pick up their paycheck at the end of the month. They do not sit at home at night wondering how John and Mary's woodworking shop is doing. They can't be reached after hours to chat over a great new idea you've had for a sale or promotion. More than likely, if you do ever get to speak to a live human being at one of these firms, you will be talking to a very poorly paid employee in India who will have to try to bring your Username up on a screen to even have an inkling of who you are. For the most part, you will find yourself processed through automated voice messaging systems and truly unhelpful on-line help desks. Not much of a support system to be backing up a business you've put all of your hopes and money into. Basically, the point we are trying to make is that if you go with a big company, you are bound to end up being treated like a number, and we all know how frustrating, and even dehumanizing, that can feel. Many of our clients have gone down this dead-end road before coming to us, and we confess, it makes us feel awfully good to hear how delighted they are to be finally speaking to real people. Though the Internet is all about technology, humans are all about communication, and you need to be able to communicate, one-on-one, with the person whose role in your business is going to be so very important.
Why is my web designer going to be so important?
It is a common misconception amongst folks who are new to the Internet that you will simply put up the site, end of story. Try to think of it this way: the owner of a supermarket does not build their store, stock it with products and then never replenish the inventory again. Running an on-line business is an on-going process. If your small business will be running an e-commerce site, you will be adding new products, removing old ones, promoting specials and advertising. Even if your website will be purely informational, your site must be in a state of on-going development in order to remain important to search engines (thus gaining good rankings). Informational sites need to add new articles, new lists of resources, new interesting features to make their site useful to their visitors. Because your site will always be 'under construction' so to speak, in hopes of always improving its value to the public, you need to have a web designer who is going to remain available to you for these types of updates.
But why not just buy one of those build-it-yourself website packages?
The answer to this can be summed up in one word: rankings. Build-it-yourself websites are great if your goal is just to have some fun playing with a program that will allow you to easily create a web page with no programming skills. If your intention is to make a personal website about your life, your family, a hobby, and you really don't care if anyone ever finds your site, this is a fine solution. Many such programs are available and they generally won't cost you a lot of money. Unfortunately, they behave like they didn't cost you a lot of money, too. Because these template-based programs are mass produced, what you end up with is a site which not only has not been created to fit your needs, but which has also not been created to meet the needs of customers or the search engines. Most of the do-it-yourself web templates out there are built with absolutely no regard for SEO (search engine optimization) standards, and because of this, they will not rank well in Google, Yahoo or MSN (the Big 3 search engines). Without the rankings, you will not have the traffic you need, and you will not be making the profits you want. The worst of it all comes the day a site owner realizes this and starts desperately looking for someone to help them overwrite the code of the template which has been designed so poorly. At this point, regardless of the investment you may have made, it is better to scrap the template site and start from scratch with a real website, custom built for the exact needs of your small business.
Your company is very important to you. You intend to run your business in a smart and professional way. In order to do this, why not get it right the first time by hiring a professional web designer who has spent years perfecting their coding, their design skills and their SEO abilities? Remember, you are starting your business because it is what you specialize in. You shouldn't have to become a web designer before you can start selling your products or services.
That's taking a completely unnecessary step that all the options out there may have confused you into believing is a good way to go.
You don't want to be a web designer. You don't want to spend your days creating web pages for your small business. You want to be taking in sales, filling orders and shipping out your products, or helping customers with your services. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? Don't take a detour into the world of useless do-it-yourself programs when it comes to something as vitally important as the success of your on-line business.
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