Saving Money On a Website
3 Biggest Mistakes of Website Owners
LACK OF PROPER PLANNING. One of the biggest mistakes most business owners make is getting a website designed too early. A smart business owner will first research their target audience in their specific Internet market, and only then build their website around their research. A smart business owner will determine which keywords their website needs to be designed around, in order to bring in customers from search engines and other sources. A huge mistake made by business owners is they get their website formed around very broad keywords which have too much competition.
PAYING TOO MUCH OR TOO LITTLE FOR A WEBSITE. Most high end web development companies quote very high prices on web and graphic design, and most small business owners make the mistake of paying these prices because they don’t know any better. The high end web design companies charge for flashy features that will never bring in traffic and will never make the website any money.
You may also get a very low quote from an offshore company, but there are many problems with offshore designers: their English isn’t great, you can’t reach them on the phone, the time-zone difference becomes a huge problem – while you’re awake they are sleeping, payment is a problem because you have to wire them money, trust and legal issues can be a huge mess, their marketing knowledge is very limited to their country because they have no knowledge of the marketing techniques and economics of your country.
MAKING THE WEBSITE FLASHY EYE-CANDY. One of the biggest mistakes a small business owner makes is they ask and pay for a website that is all looks and no sales, no marketing. They spend thousands of dollars on a ‘pretty’ website full of flashy effects which brings in $0 in revenue. You have to ask yourself, what good is a flashy website when no one comes to it? Sure major companies spend a lot of money on making their website extravagant, flashy, and interactive, but they already have traffic because of their name. The last thing a smart business owner would do is copy the idea of having an expensive flashy website like those of Fortune 500 companies. A smart business owner understands that for a website to sell it’s main focus needs to be copywriting and marketing, and will put design second.
Now It’s Time To Save Money
First, you must have a clear idea why you want a web site and what you want the web site to accomplish for you.
Do your planning – how do you want your site to appear? Make up a web site storyboard, write down the names of your pages and how they will fit together. Common web pages are Home, About Us, Products, Services, Contact Us, and Links.
The more details you can provide your web site developer, the better. This eliminates time wasted playing guessing games. No one knows your business as well as you do. Rather than having us sit down and create the text for your site, you should formulate an information package about yourself. We can polish and fine-tune your text, and add to it, but if you can tell us what you want to say and what you want to accomplish on your site, it will minimize the time it takes for us to come up with the final design. It is up to you to provide your web site developer with basic information about your company and it is up to the developer to polish your image and provide the technical services necessary to make a web site successful.
Surf the Internet and make notes of web sites you like, why you like them and what design elements are appealing to you. Is there a particular theme to a site you like? Do you like flashing images? If you see sites that you DON’T like, make notes about these sites also.
