The promise “your offer, your Web site, or your business will be seen by millions world wide” “You can start trading straight away”“Your business will run on auto pilot” “Orders while you sleep” It all sounds so depressingly familiar now . In fact the Web site owner is lead to expect much and the delivery on the promise always falls short of his or her expectations.
The business Website has all of the potential to deliver all of the above, but will only do so if the proper investment in time, skills and most importantly in defining what you want to achieve is made. It is so important to spend time defining what it ism you want from your new website.
A website is much like an iceberg, only 15% is the web site design, the rest 85%, is made up of Web Development 15%, Search Engine optimisation 15%, Content management 10%, Customer relations and interaction 15%, Audio presentations 5%, Video 10% and Copywriting 15%. These figures will of course vary depending on the requirements of the site owner but they will be good enough and indeed show how small a part the Web site design plays in the grand scheme of things.
The Reality
In spite of all the grand promises after a few weeks, there are still only a very few visitors. Disillusionment sets in and the Web site owner may well become disenchanted with the Web site and its performance. “Wait until Google lists the site It can take a few weeks” the Web designer says with fingers crossed behind his or her back! At this point the suggestion is frequently introduced that of the SEO the Search Engine Optimising Service. This can mean redesigning the web pages to introduce Key words all quite expensive and although a step in the right direction as we can see from the foregoing paragraph, only 30% total of the story!
At this point the realisation slowly is dawning that the Web site owner doesn’t run his business Google does!
Today there are many Franchises offering to prospective Web site owners a Web site designed for a fairly small sum of money for a Web site based on templates, ensuring of course the same old, sameold web site designs. Mostly the franchisee has undergone all of two days on a course to emerge from the process as a “Consultant”. Generally the so called “consultant” has no more expertise than the website owner himself. Perhaps the whole unsatisfactory situation is followedby an offer of “managed hosting” at up to £400.00 per month! This will almost certainly include some analytics (performance analysis) available from Google as a free service!
The Solution
Lies in allocating enough time to understand all the various disciplines, understanding all the jargon, finding and evaluating all the contractor suppliers, briefing each of them and finally monitoring all of them to make sure they are all singing from the same song sheet and in time with one another. Sounds like a lot of work? It certainly is. Who can blame the Web site owner if he just gives up?
The solution now available is to use a Web Intermediary who will undertake all the admin management work on behalf of the Web site owner. The Service, formally only available to larger companies and groups is now available to smaller and medium sized firms. A quick visit to your favourite search engine, Google for “Web Intermediary” will soon reveal the firms able to help.
