It can be fun buying a cheap car but when it comes to a website you don’t want an old banger. Contrary to the popular comparison, I think a website is more like a nice jacket (or a new pair of trainers if you are a teenager).
It is a constant advert for the sophistication of its owner. An indication of the kind of person or company it represents. For many it will be the first contact that they have with your organisation.
You want them to think ‘nice jacket’. Not ‘that looks warm!’, or ‘did your mum buy you that’ and certainly not ‘that’s rubbish’.
Cheap websites are bad
For an average business person a website is:
• An essential part of their sales and marketing processes
• A catalogue of company information
• A statement of what the business has achieved
• AND a portal for it’s customers.
For someone willing to create a cheap website it is a collection of HTML pages, put together with little regard for the needs of the client and a chance to make a quick buck from someone trying to start a business. With the exception of a few sites they are tricky to manage, hard for customers to use and unreliable. They are also a quick fix which cause their owners problems when they go wrong.
Buying a site like this is the equivalent of going up a mountain in an old cardigan
It will offer little support. It’s deficiencies will harm your chances of reaching the top. And you’ll wish you had started with something more suitable.As a customer commissioning any sort of website is a leap of faith; so why will spending make it more likely that you will be successful?
Planning?
Cheap website providers cut back here when this is the most important stage. Business people tend to know their business well but building a website is different to any other company purchase. Unless you already work in web you will need:
• Expert advice on how to communicate your business to an online audience
• Help with structuring your site journey so that your traffic actually leads to some sort of outcome
• Someone to explain how to use your website going forward to make it work for you
• Advice on how new developments in web technology could help you.
WARNING: Failure to deliver a well functioning website will reflect badly on you even if
(i) your initial budgets were insufficient (ii) you were charged with bringing in a project with no training or guidance (iii) the person you chose to plan your project didn’t contribute a solitary idea.
Avoid Dodgy Execution
“By keeping costs to a minimum we help your business get off the ground fast..
”The second half of this sentence is often omitted:
“…and in the process completely disregard any requirements you might have for a CMS or web platform”
Making sure that your website is built on the right software is important. A website needs to be an extension of your existing brand and business; so if your customers are used to a level of service which is not replicated on your website you’re in trouble. Spending that little bit extra can mean that you get a well made CMS which ranks well in search engines. It will be easier to manage and add content too, which will make the job of managing your website easier and faster.
Support
|It is unlikely that someone who is willing to build a website for £500 will have a well drilled customer services team. This seems obvious but it is often forgotten!!.
Users’ demands from websites can change on a weekly, daily or even hourly basis and when this happens you need to be able to act fast. By choosing an agency with a permanent staff of account handlers you will be able to explain your change of requirements quickly and get qualified advice on how to gain an advantage or avert a catastrophe. If you don’t have that constant network of support you could be waiting days to move on a huge opportunity or be twiddling your thumbs for a week while your reputation goes down the toilet.
Conclusions
Buying a website is very much like buying a jacket:
• It needs to be reliable
• It needs to do a job
• It needs to look good
- It should ideally be guaranteed
• It should be comfortable
- It should be customisable
• Other people should look at it
• You should feel proud to own it
• If you have a bad one people will remember it for a long long time
