Is it a good idea to build my own website?

Stop asking yourself if you can build your own website, ask yourself SHOULD you build it yourself. The short answer to “ can I build a website?” is yes you can, but before you start, ask yourself three questions:

1. What do you want your website to do?
2. What is your plan for the website when it’s finished?
3. Do you have the time?

If you just want your website to be a business card, a photo album or a storybook about your business, yes go ahead. But if you want it to be a digital shopfront for your business, then you are going to have to make sure it works for you. If it’s not working for you, all your website is a lonely business card sitting in an empty stadium after a Gary V event. No one is going to find it, let alone look at it.

I’ve seen people build websites and not have anyone visit it. What’s the point? It’s like opening a store and no one turning up day after day. You wouldn’t be in business long.

Firstly, decide why you want a website and what you want it to do. A good website will;

1. Drive customer conversions(service industry)
2. Keep your business 24/7
3. Bring in money (E-commerce)
4. Set you up as an expert in your industry using blogs and great content
5. Provide you with great organise search engine management
6. Provide a fast source of information for your prospective customers
7. Help customers and prospects contact you easily
8. Allow you to provide a gallery of your work
9. build credibility with testimonials
10. Links to your social media
11. Be mobile responsive (accessible on all devices)

If you want your website to bring in more customers for you then you need to make sure that the website is set up to do just that, not just have your mobile number front and centre. You have to make your website work for you.

Imagine your website as your retail outlet. When a customer visits your physical shop, they are usually greeted by a customer service representative or when someone phones your business, you have someone answering (Hopefully) but with your website, what or who greets visitors?

If you’re having a sale instore, would you hide your sale items or put them front and centre? Your website is your physical store online, so when you are having a sale, your sale items need to be displayed front and centre when someone visits. Don’t hide your offers away, give people the opportunity to buy from you straight away. If you don’t have an e-commerce site, then make sure your ‘contact us for pricing’ is available with your sale ad on your website.

Close the Circle
So what happens when your website is finished? What’s your plan for it? Building a website takes not only time, if you are building it yourself, but can also mean lost income for you if you don’t close the circle.

Most businesses spend a lot of money directing traffic to their website but have no idea what to do with prospective customers when they get there.

If you don’t complete the circle, your customers are effectively coming to a shop that has a closed sign hanging on the front door. You need to tell people you are open for business, get them coming in (visiting your site) and then get them buying. So how are you going to tell people that you are ‘open for business’?

Search engine management and advertising your business should be your next step. Web builders can optimise your website for search engines, but that’s just a small step in the world of search engine management. SEO puts your business on the map. Imagine opening a retail business shopfront and then not having any directions for your customers to find you. That’s what a website is like without SEO. A good SEM plan is to make your website visible to as many people as possible and organically increase your Google ranking.

Businesses invest in expensive Google campaigns to push their ranking to 1st page and pay ridiculous amounts for leads that never convert. If your website is not converting those leads it’s costing you a lot of money with no return. Make sure you have a retargeting campaign in place so when you do get a visitor to your website, you remarket to them.

If you’re in a competitive market, getting low price leads is not going to happen.

Position Position Position
Where you rank is just as important as to where you open your retail business. If you are on page 10 of a Google search, no one is going to find you, let alone use your business services and products. Search engine management takes time. It’s not an overnight process, expect to work on it for 12-18 months to organically build your ranking.

Get your message out there to as many people as you can, as often as you can.
You’ll hear marketers talk about reach and frequency. That’s what it means. The best way to get your message in front of the buying public as often as you can. You do this with your advertising. With your customers subject to so many messages every day (some researchers are saying up to 10 000 subconscious messages each day) you need to cut through the clutter and build your brand awareness.

Radio does this more effectively than any other media, tradition or digital. Radio is the most cost-effective way to get your message in front of the buying product over and over and over again without breaking the bank.

Learn how to use Google Analytics and know the figures for your website.
If you’re going to build your own website look at your numbers each week to make sure that your website is performing so it is imperative you learn how to use and understand Google Analytics.

And importantly, if you are going to build your website, how much time is it going to take and what else could you be doing with your time. Building your website is just the start of the avalanche roll. The job gets bigger and bigger the further you get into it.