As a business strategist, I work with entrepreneurs on “the whole picture” of business development. My blog topics originate from real client stories and are relevant across industries. Following is a helpful guide to use in considering the retaining of a new website professional. It is written from the viewpoint of a typical business owner, not a website professional.
What To Consider in Getting Your Website Done
Whether you’re a new business owner or looking to re-build or rebrand, building a new website is both critical and confusing. In fact, most entrepreneurs become easily frustrated during the process because choosing a professional or company to work with involves details that go way beyond “how much will this cost?” Here are some of the vital questions you’ll need answered.
What Work Will Get Done?
In order to build a good website, there are several skill sets involved. Will one company or professional cover it all?
- The content – who is going to write and edit the marketing-ready message?
- The design – how will the logo, colors and graphic elements be selected?
- The hosting – what hosting platform will be used; will you have a choice?
- The platform – is this a WordPress, Wix, Square Space, custom?
- The SEO – what search engine optimization is included, specifically?
- The images – who is supplying images – your photos, stock images, graphics?
- The timing – how long will it all take and is there a maintenance contract?
- The handoff – will you be trained on the back-end and given admin credentials?
- The updates – who is performing the platform updates and other maintenance?
Behind each of these bullet points are even more questions, so start making your list now. Don’t settle for the generic answer, “we handle it all” – what do they mean by “all”?? Ask for it to be broken down, piece by piece.
Who Will Be Doing the Work?
Get a clear understanding of the players involved, what are the relationships and what they’re responsible for. You’ll want to know how much involvement and authority you will have – will you be supplying words and images? Will you be consulted on design choices? Will you be involved in final testing before it goes live?
Listen for words like “the team” or “my partners”. Are the workers employed by this company? Are they outsourced freelancers? Are they local? In this country?
While many small companies do not have employees, and do outsource to contractors, you’ll want clarity on the relationship and location. While local doesn’t always mean better, you do need to be vigilant of language and time zone differences because communication and response time does matter.
The biggest issue between using employees and outsourcing is that a company has the authority to manage the workload of their own employees, but CANNOT dictate the workload of contracted help. Therefore, turnaround times can be longer than expected if the freelancer is working for several different companies at once.
Platform and Customization
When the pros state that they offer “custom design”, what exactly does that mean? Are they starting with a template and changing the look to match your branding? Or are they starting from scratch, creating fresh code? If they customize a template, that means an end user can still get into the platform and make modifications. If they are coding everything from scratch, then you’ll need to find a coder to maintain the site.
Will You Be Able to Update the Content?
After it looks great, works well and goes live, it’s almost certain that you’ll want to add monthly blogs and change things up year after year. Adding photos, updating service offers, updates can be as frequently as monthly. Ask whether they will train you to get into the back end for updating content and will they be available if you run into a snag.
How Can I Help You?
If you need help with this or similar scenarios, and are reaching decision exhaustion and entrepreneurial loneliness, it may be time for you to enter a supportive group environment. The Clear Path Collaborative provides you with access to the Growth Positioning System, a coach, and fellow entrepreneurs who experience what you do and are ready to help each other on a steady path of growth. Running all aspects of a business alone is madness. Even when you have a team working with your clients, the buck stops with you and it’s lonely at the top. A peer advisory board has helped millions of business owners. Here’s how you can benefit as well.