Every week I meet a new company or organisation looking to build a web presence. They often come to Piggieback with the following questions: "can you build us a website?" and "how much does it cost?".
These questions are valid, but are often met with the following from our team:
- Why do you want a website and what do you want it to do?
- Have you thought about how you are going to maintain this website in the long term?
A point of reflection:
How many times have you visited a website that hasn't been updated for a long time? How many times have you seen events advertised that have well and truly passed? How many times have you seen typos and grammatical errors?
Too many times, websites are created for an instant of time to push a particular promotion or to keep a C-level executive happy. The long term responsibility of a website is often forgotten. 9 times out of 10 junior staff are involved in the set-up and implementation and they often take the website knowledge, login details and passwords with them when they leave.
I encourage you to consider who is involved in the implementation of your website.
- Who is responsible for writing and signing off the website copy?
- Who is responsible for any website changes?
- Who will project manage the implementation and produce a handover manual for multiple staff to use in the event that contact should exit the business?
I also encourage you to think about the way in which your brand is positioned across your website for your prospective audience to see:
- What will they think of your brand based on your website?
- Will they want to work with you?
- Is it clear you pay attention to detail?
- Are you using stock photography, clip art or do you use branded visual assets to market your brand to the online masses?
- Does your website offer your audience a call to action and does it fit in with your brand?
- Are you better off maintaining a blog?
- Are you better off building an audience through social media platforms?
- Have you considered how you will integrate a blog or social media channels with your website?
Ensure that you choose a web agency who gives your business the power to maintain your website.
There is no point for small businesses and not-for-profit organisations who need to be dynamic and scalable, to be forced to outsource any minor changes to the website. By having this power, you will also eliminate a lot of the maintenance costs associated with outsourcing changes.
Also ensure you work with your agency to choose a content management platform which has secure content hosting, an easy to use user interface, and is covered with a support network. This will mean any changes to the platform technology will be seamlessly rolled out with little input from you.
Don't make the mistake of spending tens of thousands of dollars on a website which isn't easy to update by you or your marketing team and forces you to update via your web agency.
If it sounds too cheap to be good? It probably is. Watch out for the fine print of some of the cheaper set-up website providers. What happens if you want to change your website template? How is that charged?
Can Piggieback build a website? Absolutely.
How much does it cost? Between $1,000 and $5,000 in set-up costs dependent on functionality, with the understanding that the content management system installed is easily manageable by you and your team. Ongoing outsourcing costs to Piggieback are $0 unless you CHOOSE to outsource changes to us. But that is entirely up to you!
Be smart about developing your website, and it will pay for itself tenfold.
Just like meeting a person, within the first 30 seconds of viewing your website, your prospect has made up their mind about what they think of you as a brand. Make sure you portray the qualities you want your brand to portray.
What has been your experience with building your website?
Have a great week,
Caitlin
Caitlin Davey
Director of Communications at Piggieback
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