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Save Time and Money by Planning Before Building Your Website
The Sprocket Report
Have you ever heard the phrase “I’ll know it when I see it?” Please know that this is a terrible philosophy to follow when working with your website builder and here’s why:
It’s a waste of time.
To create a website that performs all the functions you want, attracts visitors through Search Engine Optimization, and looks good, too, takes effort – which translates into spending a good deal of time.
There’s research involved in choosing the tools or code that can best do what you want your website to do and labor to make each piece work together properly. In addition, a good deal of thought goes into a website’s design for appropriate branding, consistency from page to page, and correct layout on a variety of screen sizes. Finally, careful content writing for SEO purposes requires additional research and effort.
“Rearranging the furniture,” so to speak, until the site feels right means extra work at all levels and more meetings, too, which now have to get on your web tech’s schedule and will likely push out your launch deadline.
It’s a waste of money.
Time, as they say, is money. There’s an hourly rate for technicians working on your site and there are also costs incurred to purchase image rights, upgraded designs, and add-on functions. Waiting until your website is finished is an expensive time to decide that you don’t like it after all.
It’s a waste of goodwill.
Every web designer truly wants their client to be happy. If they quoted a fixed price to create your site, each time they have to make a change, they’re losing money and no business can sustain that for long. But designers also take pride in their work and it’s a blow to present a project that a client just doesn’t like. The client and the web tech are supposed to be a team, but too much back-and-forth starts to feel adversarial.
So how do we avoid all this waste?
Instead of just jumping in and hoping for the best, the web designer and the client both need to communicate clearly at the beginning of the project. Not just picking the right colors – although that’s super important! – but also talking through the client’s business plan and marketing plan.
In those plans are the answers to essential website questions such as:
- Who is the audience?
- What is the Call To Action?
- How is successful goal achievement measured?
Often, a client’s business plan is in their head, but this is one great reason to get it out of there. Documenting both the business and the marketing plan makes it so much easier to get the whole team on the same page, particularly when we’re talking about a web page.
Online resources such as SCORE or your local library’s business section have great tools to help articulate business goals and methods for sharing with your website designer. That kind of teamwork prevents all kinds of waste!
Are you looking to add a web designer to your team? Share your plans with us and let’s talk about how we can be partners in your business’s success.
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Kate 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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