Max Response Marketing

The Top 3 Mistakes New Website Owners Make

How to Avoid Overdoing It When First Starting Online

1. Overdoing it on their very first site

Let's face it, finally getting that website online can be an exciting thought!  You've probably had all these ideas for how it should look, what features it should have, or how your visitors can interact with you through the site.  And while it can be tempting to "go all out" on your first website...sloooooooow down.  You don't want to invest a huge sum of money or time into a site only to find out that you're not getting any traffic to it or that it's not really adding value to your business.  That being said, it's a good idea to take note of how software developers do things.  Notice how when you buy software, you usually get a version 1.0, followed by a more improved 1.5 and so on.  They add onto the program as the idea proves itself.  You can do the same thing with your site by rolling out a simple, yet professional, first version of your website.  Then, later on, you can add all the bells and whistles and extra, custom features you've been dreaming of...after you're sure it will be worth it.

2. Having a website built from scratch or choosing a completely cookie-cutter solution

Along those same lines, many people choose to hire a web designer to create a new website for them from scratch.  For the reasons mentioned above, this can be a bad idea.  It's simply too expensive to have someone come up with a 100% unique design, at least for your initial site.  The good news is that if your first site is done properly, it's usually pretty easy to change the look and feel of your site down the road and without the need to change any of the content.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, many businesses market so-called turnkey solutions, offering the chance to get on the web for specific businesses such as real estate agents, mortgage brokers and other professionals.  You'll see these sites advertised in industry magazines and other publications.  And though these can be viable solutions for getting you online quickly, the problem usually lies in the fact that they're all the same, more or less.  Of course, this doesn't matter so much if you're sending people to the site yourself, for instance by putting the web address on your business cards or other promotional mailings.  However, there's almost no way to effectively gain search engine rankings with one of these cookie-cutter sites.  If you can't add new, relevant content to the site on an ongoing basis, the search engines probably aren't going to show you much love.  Unfortunately, many of these sites are stocked with the exact same content - articles, special reports and other text.  This is NOT what you want if you're hoping to rank highly for terms in your business or niche.

Ideally, you'd want to have a site built from a template (many of which are available online for free or for a small fee).  Then your web designer can make whatever changes you might want without having to start from scratch (i.e., added cost).  In the end, you can end up with a site that is unique enough to do well in the search engines, that will give a good impression of you and your business and that is hopefully easy to maintain down the road.

3. Having a website built that they can't easily maintain or make changes to

Since adding fresh, new content to your site is one of the best ways to improve search engine rankings and bring visitors back to your site, you should have an easy way to add new content once your site is built and this SHOULD NOT require going back to your web designer.  That just means additional fees you'll have to pay and, more than likely, content not being added according to the schedule you would prefer.  So one of the best things you can do is ensure that there's an easy way for you to update your site, make quick additions or changes and maintain the site over time.  The last thing you want to have happen is to be invoiced for having someone go in and change the copyright date at the bottom of the page or some other "nit-noid" alteration.  Admittedly, probably a bad example but you get my point.  Even those of us that are technically challenged can update a website that's put together the right way as long as you have basic word processing skills.

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