We all want value for money, right? We all want to get the best we can without spending more than we want to spend, don’t we? But sometimes we’re our own worst enemy and website development is one area in which I’ve seen so many businesses settle for less than they wanted or something completely different to what they envisaged.
Be specific about what you want from your website designer
It’s very unlikely you’d go look at cars without having an idea of what sort of car you’d be interested in buying. It’s unlikely you’d go shopping for a new computer without knowing what you wanted to use it for. So don’t go telling someone who does not know your business that you want a website designing or redesigning.
I just want it to be better than our competitor’s website isn’t a very good starting point. A good developer will ask “in what way do you want it better?” and it’s up to you to know the answer.
“The competition has lots of cool animations and stuff, can we have them too?” Is something developers hear often but, the question is, does the distracting animation result in more sales leads or customers?
Your website developer is not likely to be a business person or marketing expert
Ok, maybe this is a bit of a stereotype but most website developers, coders, SEO people, programmers are nerds who are absolutely brilliant at what they do but would struggle to engage in a “what is your ideal customer?” sort of conversation but it’s an important conversation.
Remember that the competitor’s website you’re looking at may look cool and it may have shed loads of content but is it converting visitors into customers?
That website might be great for people who want to get information but lousy at getting the phone ringing
It could be a fountain of product knowledge for someone who is quite content window shopping but failing miserably at getting customers through the door. It was probably built by a website designer who was given an extremely vague brief about what the company wanted and that cool looking website may be the result.