CircleClick

It would be so nice if just having a website meant instant success. Check the box on the business TODO list. Checking account, check, print business cards, check, buy website, well you get the idea. The illusion of the internet is everything is instant and that’s just not the case for most people. Your website must be grown, over time, with some capital investment and reasonable expert labor attending to it.

Ask yourself how many products and services you have purchased from the website that was built in less than 24 hours. You started at that compelling homepage of stock imagery, clicked thru to the “we have been in business 30 years….about us company page”, read the paragraph about the dedication to customer service and then there was the picture of “the staff” in white polos looking ‘not so’ enthusiastic about the whole ordeal. Don’t let this become your brand on the web.

Here is one of the best examples of the dumbing down of consumers and the relationship to their website:

Intuit promotes this line of thinking all day long on cable channels everywhere:

1. Choose a design
2. Quickly add your own logo, graphics, text and domain name
3. Click one button to publish your site to the web
4. Get found by search engine and customers
5. Its only $4.99

Really? For the cost of a happy meal, I just put my company in the thick of things. Your  commute to work is more expensive. The real secret here is that editing some text is fine for most people, but handling images, layout, navigation, not to mention search engines should be left to the experienced professional.

Using a website professional to design it, manage it and market it, is the only real way for it to be effective. In many cases, this will be different people. Many small business owners have no problem writing the check for the yellow pages ad (typically over $500). Yet when it comes to writing a check for the face of there business across the world, its a sticking point.

There are many cheap services out there that give you a website-in-a-box for less than $50.00, but is this really what you want? If you are spending more on dinner than your website, you have made a bad decision. Just based on the cost alone, most likely your website becomes an after thought and then the usual “the internet doesnt work for my business” thoughts creep in.

In summary, hire a website design professional to create your image online, but more importantly, hire an internet marketer to promote and manage your website. The difference in results will be noticeable and soon your website will grow to be one the most valuable assets you have.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 31st, 2011 at 11:37 am and is filed under Website Dev & Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.