Business

Why Your Nephew Shouldn’t Build Your Website

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Why Your Nephew Shouldn't Build Your Website, Blue Orchid Web DevelopmentSo, you’ve decided that you do need a website for your business (if you’re still not convinced, please read here). There are many ways to go about getting it built, but not all of those lead to a place that will serve your business. Those ways are why your nephew shouldn’t build your website.

My Host Has Free Tools

Most web hosting companies now have tools that promise to have your website up and running in minutes. That is accurate; you will have a website. And it will look the same as every other website built with that tool. Those tools, by design, have a limited number of options in the look and functionality of your site. They are meant to be used by anyone and to minimize the amount of support the hosting company needs to provide.

Your website is the face your business presents to the world. If it looks just like everything else, how do you stand out? A custom or semi-custom website, with the look, feel, and experience you want to show to your customer base, is the way your business says, “Here is what makes us special.” You get to decide what the content is, how the visitor interacts with it, and the ways it ties in with all of your other marketing materials. Do you want an advanced functionality, like users getting special access depending on their registration or subscription status? Do you need to have a library of instructional videos? How about a specialized gallery or portfolio? These are generally not included out-of-the-box with free website tools.

I Bought A Theme That Does Everything

There are several everything-for-everyone themes available, and many are quite beautiful with more functionality than you can shake a stick at. The demo sites have stunning photos and exciting videos that precisely convey what you want. Then you download and install the theme and all that content is gone. Wait, what happened to the photos? Where did the clever captions go? That demo you saw was exactly that: a demonstration of what is possible when you have a designer or developer doing the build for you. The back end has lots of blank pages, some with page building tools that you can stumble through, dragging and dropping your way along a steep learning curve. Meanwhile, you are taking time away from running your business.

Additionally, all those functionalities come at a cost. Often, they are several different tools bundled together. You have them whether or not you will use them, and they must be maintained and updated regardless of the use to prevent security vulnerabilities. In every system or process, the more complications that exist, the more opportunity there is for something to go wrong. A web professional can create that beautiful site with just the functionalities you want without the additional overhead of unnecessary programming.

I Know A Guy

Everyone knows a kid/friend-of-a-friend/family member who can build your website “cheaper than one of those developers.” Your nephew may, in fact, be an excellent coder or have an eye for design. But he also has a chemistry test on Wednesday, a trumpet lesson on Thursday, and just bought the newest release of his favorite video game franchise. In short, his focus is not your business.

Ask yourself this: do you want the face of your business to be someone else’s side gig? A web professional’s only interest is in helping you present your business in the best way possible to the broadest audience to get the most significant engagement. He or she spends time getting to know you and your business, what you want to accomplish, what your resources are, and knows what additional pieces to suggest to get you there.

This Is Business

A business website is not something that is built, set in motion, and then watched from afar. There are updates and maintenance to the programming, SEO improvements to implement, blog posts to schedule, social media tie-ins to make, changes to content, and integration with other marketing. It’s a communication conduit between you and your customers, and you will have many things to say over time. Someone building websites on the side will have to shoehorn your needs into his or her schedule. A web professional’s business exists to support your business. The urgency is evident, because he or she has a business, too.

Do You Even Need A Website?

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Do You Need A Website, Blue Orchid Web DevelopmentI was talking with a small business owner recently and he told me that he did not have a website because he didn’t need one. He felt that he got plenty of traffic through social media, and it was much easier to put up posts that way than to maintain a website. As a web developer, I took this to heart. Do you even need a website?

Your Face to the World

Almost everyone has at hand a device that produces information about your business: the products or services you provide, your location and hours, and a way to contact you are just the basics. This is not much different from an advertisement in a paper publication. People want to see who you are, what your products, services, or organization are like, and what you say about yourself. What is your personality? Social media pages do not have very much latitude. While they are good for quick bits of information, they do not provide flexibility for you to tell your story.

By their very nature, social media posts are highly structured, and that structure is set by the forum. Your ability to educate your customer or create a relationship with your community is limited by post length and the number and size of graphics and photos you can use. Your very logo must be made to fit in predetermined dimensions; you cannot change that. And they are not easy to navigate. It is more cumbersome for a visitor to move through all the information in social media postings. A well designed website affords the opportunity for a conversation, a chance to build trust. None of this means that social media do not have a place, but that they should be a supplement, a signpost to your main web presence.

How To Find You

When someone speaks into a smartphone a phrase like “Where is the nearest ice cream shop?” a search of the internet is launched. It is how new customers find you, and every business or organization depends on new folks coming alongside the existing ones. The problem with depending on social media for this exposure is that it just doesn’t happen. For example, the average organic reach for branded Facebook pages is 2% for pages with more than 1 million likes, according to this study . That is an average, so there are many that are below that number. Additionally, brands that get more reach engagement post an average of eight times per day, which is a lot for a small business to manage.

Oh, and one more thing: despite the perception, not everyone is on social media. According to Facebook’s own statistics, 85% of daily active users are outside the United States and Canada. Depending on your audience, this may be a hindrance. A website affords many more opportunities to raise the search engine rankings and put your business in front of more potential customers. Every page, post, and photo on your site can be put into the search engine path. The social media posts will help that rank, but search engines are looking for websites.

Yeah, But Technology is Hard

There is no doubt that the bar to entry on social media is low; it should be. The whole point of social media is to engage many people, and to make it easy for them to do it. While not as easy as social media, website frameworks like WordPress bring the creation of websites much closer to many more people. Pre-made themes, walk-through tutorials, and a wealth of online resources mean that a business owner can build a website without knowing one bit of code. Changes to posts, pages, colors, and graphics are all easily done. Even maintaining an online shop is well within reach.

For folks who don’t want to touch it at all, or want to do more than time or inclination allow, web developers like Blue Orchid Web Development exist to help you launch, maintain, and link your website to all of your social media outlets as well as the rest of your marketing efforts, so you can concentrate on building the relationships that grow your business or organization.

Do you even need a website?

Your business website can be the center of your marketing, giving a foundation to the branding and message you want to present.  It is your face to the world.