So, you’re a business owner and you’ve decided to build a website. That’s fantastic. You’re about to embark upon a journey down a road paved with gold, lined with money trees that weaves through fields filled with goblins. Yes, goblins. We’re not talking goblins that are actually nice but simply misunderstood; these goblins are ferocious. They want to capture you, eat you, and sap your business of whatever monetary resources you’re ready to commit to building that fancy new site.
Don’t be discouraged. The potential rewards are worth the risk, and this article should help you stay as far away from some of the nastier goblins as you possibly can.
Don’t drop the ball
Business owners have this awkward tendency to think about websites like phone book listings back in the day. You have to have one, but it doesn’t really need to be anything spectacular, right? Even if it’s bad, at least it’s there? This kind of mindset is bad news. Your website isn’t your phone book listing, it’s a virtual addendum to your storefront. A mediocre ad in a phone book might not hurt your business too much, but running a shop that looks like a run down shack abandoned sometime in the early 90s certainly will.
With that on the table, repeat after me: Having an awful site is a sure-fire way to obliterate consumer confidence.
Let’s say I’m looking for an A/C repair service. If I google “A/C repair Orlando” and I click on 5 links, the first thing I’m going to see is how good or bad the site is. All else being equal, I’m going to go with the company that has the better website because it says to me that they are serious. It might not be fair, but judging books by their cover seems like a pretty good strategy if you don’t know how to read and I certainly don’t know anything about A/C repair.
Don’t hide the communication tubes
If you’re not selling your products directly through your site (and perhaps even if you are), you need to have all of your contact information out there as easily accessible as possible. I see sites all the time that have just a contact form or just a phone number. Don’t make your customers think. If for whatever reason they’ve decided they need to call you, they better not have to reformulate their strategy because your phone number is hidden or not there at all. Similarly, if they expect to contact you with an e-mail or contact form, that better be there too. Otherwise, you’re creating a completely unnecessary barrier for your customer.
Furthermore, you should consider that some people don’t like to speak to strangers on the phone and some people might even be frightened by the prospect. Your willingness to put your phone number or address out there is admirable, but that doesn’t excuse you from also putting up that shiny contact form and/or e-mail address. If you try to skip it, your customers will go somewhere that’s willing to communicate with them on their terms.
Don’t let them leave without a reason to come back
If you managed to get a customer to go to your site, you’re doing great. Maybe they even bought something from you or they contacted you to inquire about some service you offer. It’s time to relax, sip some warm tea, and eat crumpets, right? Wrong!
You need to give that customer some reason to come back. Six months from now when they need more of whatever you’re pushing, they might not even remember who you are. Ultimately though, it’s easier said than done. Here’s three ideas for free:
- Offer your customers a discount if they friend / follow you on Facebook or Twitter
- provide an RSS feed and/or e-mail subscription for coupons
- blog about information relevant to your customers (that’s what we do! subscribe!)
Don’t hire that ‘IT guy,’ ‘webmaster,’ or your cousin’s friend’s nephew
When Match Strike works on a client’s site, we put together a team that fills the following roles: a back-end developer (someone that specializes in dealing with our preferred ORM and databases as well as whatever libraries we’re using), a graphic designer / UI developer (Design, XHTML, CSS, accessibility, templating), and a sweeper (someone that knows enough about both of the aforementioned roles to act as a go-between). Sitting on the sidelines, they have a systems administrator and a project manager waiting with cool Gatorade.
When you post that hiring ad that says you’re looking for a ‘webmaster’ to design, develop, and launch your site or application, what you’re really saying is that you want a jack-of-all-trades. That’s dangerous. There are people out there that can fill all of the roles I specified, but trust me on this: they probably don’t want to work in a one person development shop. It’s likely that they developed all of those skills by surrounding themselves with people that are smarter than they are and they’re probably going to continue to do that.
So, why does anyone ever respond to those ads if they’re not qualified to fill all of those roles? Every developer thinks they’re a jack-of-all-trades. Even I think of myself that way even though Rex reminds me of my utter design ineptitude every time I see him open Photoshop. That’s just the way people in this industry roll.
If you’re absolutely set on hiring that web guy, that’s fine. Clients sometimes outgrow what can be provided via a maintenance contract and we get that. But you really shouldn’t start there. Go with a firm that has all the expertise you need to get you off the ground, then dump their maintenance contract and hire your guy. At Match Strike, we’ll even help you select our replacement if you play your cards right.