One of my biggest pet peeves is when people don’t recognize the value of their online presence. I see this all the time. New business owners and people running for local or state level elections are often the biggest offenders. They don’t recognize the value that having a strong online presence brings to their business and campaign, and so they have their kid or a friend make it, or sometimes they get a DIY website builder program and do it themselves.
They do this because they don’t believe that paying for a professional website will bring them any return on that investment. They think that doing it themselves is going to be just as good, and will be “enough” to do what it needs to do.
This is a mistake. A costly one.
When you hire a professional to make your website, you aren’t just paying us to make your website “look good.” You are paying for our expertise. Not only will we make a website that looks great, but we’ll make a website that works for you because we know what people are looking for on a website. We know the tricks that convert site visitors into customers.
Example #1: I was chatting with a friend over the weekend who told me his sister was running for a state office in his home state. He pulled up her website on his phone and said that he wanted to make a donation, but that her website didn’t take online donations and it didn’t say who to write the check out to. He was frustrated, and hadn’t donated because the website didn’t give him the information he needed to make a donation.
If you are running for an office, the #1 thing you want your visitors to do is make a donation. So it is absolutely imperative that you make donating the single easiest thing to do on your website, and give them lots of options for doing it. Otherwise, you are going to lose donations. Yes, it costs more to put online payments on your website, but how many extra donations gained will offset that cost? The investment is worth the return.
Example #2: I was on a contractor’s website looking for information on a home improvement project. I wanted to know if the contractor was any good – so I wanted to see photos of their work and testimonials from clients. And the website had neither of those things. There were some random photos scattered throughout the site, but they were all small and blurry. I couldn’t tell if they were any good at their work and so I left the website and moved on to another contractor.
And what that contractor doesn’t know is that the first thing I would have told him is that he needs photos of his work and they need to be good quality photos. This person probably thinks they saved a few thousand dollars by having their neighbor make their website for free, but that one potential job they lost when I left their site would have paid for that website. Was I the only person who left their site because it didn’t give me way I was looking for? Most likely not. They are throwing thousands of dollars in revenue away by not having a professional online presence.
Making your own website will save you money in the short term, but it usually won’t bring you long-term benefits.
Amy Masson
Amy is the co-owner, developer, and website strategist for Sumy Designs. She's been making websites with WordPress since 2006 and is passionate about making sure websites are as functional as they are beautiful.