Are You Thwarting Success by Cheaping Out on Your Website?

When you’re strapped for cash, hard financial decisions must be made, but going too cheap on your website will hurt you. Whether it’s the lowest bidder or the most basic do-it-yourself platform, you should still use these best practices:

Choose a proven platform.
All technology becomes out-of-date. No matter how spiffy your website is right now, one day something will break, and you will need to fix it. If your website was built on some cheap-because-it’s-obscure platform, you may find it very expensive to fix later, if you can find anyone to fix it at all. Stick with the most popular tools that have a large following. You should be able to find plenty of DIY help online when you need it as well as professionals to hire if you need more assistance.

Also, be sure to update your website as suggested to head off hackers. Remember that the longer you wait between updates, the longer hackers have to figure out how to break into your site.

Pick your plug-ins thoughtfully.
Coders, bless them, love to tinker and they come up with some awesome add-ons for popular website platforms. But when their interest moves on elsewhere, they might neglect to keep old plug-ins compatible with an updated platform, causing havoc for your website.

Specialty plug-ins and custom code have their place, but if you choose that route because it saves you money now, consider the cost of replacing it later if it stops working after a platform update.

Optimize for search from the beginning.
Because it will be important for all of your marketing eventually, do the research now for keywords appropriate to your business. Tell your web tech to use them in your H1 tag, image tags, page titles, and so on. Or, if you are a do-it-yourselfer, be sure you are adding the right search terms in the right places. Don’t forget to use those terms naturally in your content as well as in the code, and check back regularly to see if the search terms have changed over time.

Secure what you can.
An SSL certificate is a must these days. A website that is labeled “Not Secure” does not inspire confidence in the business it is promoting. Fortunately, many website platforms include an SSL certificate when you host your website with them. Sometimes it’s even at no extra cost.

Look into what kind of backup is available, too. If the worst happens and you get hacked, you don’t want to lose all of your content and have to start again from scratch.

Measure your success.
Some website builders have their own data trackers and, of course, there’s Google’s GA4. Check to see if you can easily add the GA4 code and then add it. You may want tech assistance to get GA4 working correctly, but there are also many online guides if you’d rather do it yourself.

Naturally, the Sprocket Websites team takes care of all of these things when we build websites for our clients. Before going the DIY route, consider the cost of lost time and opportunity. Doesn’t it only make sense to focus on what you do best and let us take care of the website part? We’re happy to be your website partner, so give us a call today to get started.

Photo by Anna Tarazevic

This article is an update to “How to Know You Got the Professional Website You Wanted” dated 11/23/2015.

Kate GingoldKate Gingold

I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.

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I have been writing a blog with web marketing tips and techniques every other week since 2003. In addition to blogging and client content writing, I write books and a blog on local history.

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