What You Need to Know Before Building Your Small Business Website
What You Need to Know Before Building Your Small Business Website
Having a website for your small business is essential. However, keep in mind that “Bad sites – ones full of mistakes – are almost as damaging as having no site whatsoever.”
There are number of errors you can fall into when crafting your website. You could have a terrible design or overload your site with text. Or you could have poor CTA’s and keyword targeting, thereby failing to convert visitors.
Because of the many details you need to consider, as well as the potential pitfalls, creating your business’s website can be overwhelming. You have a lot to consider, from how you want to advertise your business to how much and what kind of content you want to publish.
The first decision you need to make is whether or not you want to design your site yourself or hire someone else. Your answer to this question will narrow down how you should proceed. So which option should you choose?
Make Sure That Saving Money Is Worth It
One of the biggest influences on your decision will likely be cost. The expense of building your own website is going to be rather high when it comes to the number of zeros on the bill. There is no question that you will get what you pay for, but what you pay for also depends on precisely what you want from your website. There is no such thing as “one size fits all.”
Perhaps you want to establish a website that is more on the complex side. Maybe you’re looking for page after page of displayable content, each with its own child pages that branch out and interact with other pages on your site.
In this case, you will probably want to contract outside help to keep your project from getting too crazy. It’s easy to start out with a simple task only to discover that it is a lot more involved than you originally thought.
For example, suppose that you have a few products that you’ve already built out. Let’s say that one of them is an eBook for marketing automation. It is filled with gated content for email opt-ins that will bring consumers through the conversion funnel.
However, because you have to widen your funnel on the front end, you will need a substantial and robust blog. Your blog will need enticing and interactive graphics. You might need polls, a Disqus plugin, and a standout share bar, as well as CTAs splashed throughout each of your blog posts.
While you might know how to market your product, you could lack experience in developing a robust and beautiful blog. And building your blog is key to your success, so you will need a team that has had previous experience with gated content projects. In this situation it is far better to hire outside help than to handle everything on your own.
When You’ll Want to Do It Yourself
On the other hand, you might want a simple and straightforward website with minimal fluff and pizzazz. In this case, it could benefit you to look into what it takes to construct your own website. If building your own site is the best option for you, doing so will save you time and money in the long run.
What’s more, crafting your own small website from scratch can give you the skills to eventually be able to create one that is bigger and more cutting-edge. Start small on your own, and keep building on your knowledge.
The truth is, web design is not that hard to learn. There are many courses out there, as well as shared knowledge online. What might be most helpful is a course on web design and creation that trains you in the Java language.
Java is one of the many languages that computer software understands, and it is also one of the most popular. C++ is another well-known coding language with which you might be familiar.
Once you are immersed in the lingo of computer and web-based commands, the overall concepts will click. Then you will be able to leap back and forth between different computer-based languages.
Taking courses in web design will not merely allow you to overcome obstacles that will certainly come your way. The courses will also give you ideas for your website that you would otherwise not have considered. Educating yourself in this way can be a great strategy for setting yourself up for success as you build your site.
Remember, Creating and Maintaining Websites Takes Time
If you do decide to take the leap and construct your website on your own, then you should know that it will take time. Rome was not built in a day, and your website will not be either.
Building an entire website from scratch is tough, but worth it in the end. If you take the proper first steps, such as receiving a Java certification and training, you will streamline the time you spend working on your site.
No Matter What, Have a Plan for Debugging Your Site
Whether or not you decide to build your website by yourself or with an experienced web designer, you need to think of your site as a living thing that, much like you, can get sick.
“Getting sick” takes the form of overloading and crashing. Sometimes websites garner too much traffic for the server to support, and all that stress can cause the server to overload and crash. Other times, your coding (or your designer’s coding) might have a lapse that causes the site to crash.
When these events happen—and they do more often than you think—you should have a solution that will enable you to get your site debugged. If you hired a firm, chances are they will jump on the problem immediately and take care of the issue for you. But if you built the site yourself, you should know what to do when it gets buggy.
There Is Pride in Creating Something Amazing from Scratch
There are website building platforms out there that allow you to get a free site simply by clicking a few times. But those platforms (such as WordPress or Wix) tend to be very limited in terms of what they permit you to do.
That is why having the ability to construct your very own site is such a great skill to have under your belt. You can fix any issues you might encounter on your own. You will save a ton of money in the long run, and you will also have the pride of crafting something amazing with your own two hands.
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