A few years ago I had a client who wanted to build a fantastic (all singing, all dancing) e-commerce website on the tiniest budget imaginable. Her budget was less than it would costs to exhibit on a stand or print 500 business cards. It was tiny.
We spoke at the time about the challenges such a small investment on the website would bring to her business. The client sells bespoke items worth £100 to £300 a pop and to be totally honest we felt that an investment of 2-3k would be required to allow us the time we needed to do her brand and products justice. This client has a fabulous product, fabulous brand and was so very enthusiastic about making her business a success.
However, the client wanted to go ahead with the small budget package.
But here is the problem. Almost two years down the line this client is still relying on this same low budget website to win her business, and is pushing it beyond its limit:
- Adding reams of content to the existing pages. As with many websites there may be a limit to the number of pages your packages allows or the menu may only accommodate finite number of links. Either way it is often the case that should you want to add extra pages to a website that you will need to go back to your developer and ask for some help with setting them up nicely. Clear content will help your visitors find information and search engines find your pages.
- Adding a link to a free off site (hosted) blog. Whilst I commend all business owners with active blogs, there is a right way and a wrong way to build them. As you may suspect the free options are not going to give you the true benefits of a properly integrated blog. The free template blogs may be poorly designed and not a true reflection of your brand. Most importantly they will be hosted on a different domain name meaning that your main website will not benefit at all from the keyword rich content. The whole purpose for running a blog would be to help people find you (SEO) and to help sell your products.
- Hiring quick and cheap SEO ‘experts’. Many of whom will simply plonk keywords into the footer of a website and not look at the much bigger picture.
- Concentrating on SEO goals and neglecting the on-site experience. Getting to the top of Google simply means that more people might find the website – not that more people will buy from you. In isolation the number one spot on google means nothing, zilch. Who cares if you are number one on Google if it does not increase actual sales?
- Plonking in twitter feeds all over the place. Twitter is brilliant, I love it, but beware of simply plonking in the free twitter feed code on to your website. Making the extra investment to customise the look and feel of your twitter feed will help your visitors take you more seriously.
- Selling different and unrelated products on the same website. If you’re selling or promoting different products then ideally you need different websites. Department stores sell lots of different things. But a small website trying to sell toasters and lawnmowers would benefit from a dedicate website for each. The dedicated site could be much more targeted in terms of marketing, branding and SEO – plus less confusing for visitors!
The end result, in this case, is a bloated website without any clear direction. Visitors will end up confused about what they are looking at and I’m afraid to say that it’s been messed around with so much it even looks a bit broken at this stage.
So what’s the point of this rant? Well two fold really:
- Consider the budget for your website seriously, cheap may sound great but it will not reflect well in the long run.
- If you do opt for a budget website then grow the website in a thoughtful and planned manor – quick wins will not work.
and rant over!
