What's Your Website Costing You?
When we ask this question, we're not just asking you how much you are paying for your website. We're talking about its actual cost to your business. Chances are, your website is going to be the first impression many potential customers have about your business. An old, slow, or outdated website is like having a dirty, poorly lit entryway. People are going to leave. But it goes far deeper than just appearances.
Your website should be a 24x7x365 salesperson for your business.
It should be able to engage potential customers and answer their questions about doing business with you. If it isn't doing its job, then the money you are paying for the website itself is only the beginning of what it is really costing your business.
Your site needs to be fast, super fast, even.
40% of web users will abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load. (And the number goes up quickly from there.)
Your site needs to load fast. But it also needs to grab people's attention.
It also needs to make it easy for them to find the information they're looking for. Imagine a customer walks into your business. They ask you one simple question about one of your products/services. Instead of answering it though, you offer to take them on a tour of your business. Sounds crazy, right? Something you just wouldn't do? But we see businesses with websites that do this every day.
You hire people to help with your business all the time.
Accountants. Lawyers. Plumbers. Electricians. It probably doesn't even occur to most business owners that they could learn to do these things themselves. Why would they when there are specialists available to handle these daunting tasks? And yet, we talk with business owners every day who try to build their own websites. Or hire their sister's friend's nephew to build the most valuable asset their business has — its website.
When the site is "done," the work has really only just begun. Ongoing security and maintenance tasks are vital to keep the site up and running smoothly. Adding new content on a regular basis is important to your search engine optimization (SEO) results. Monitoring how people are interacting with the site and its contents provides invaluable business insight (and many business owners never even look at this data). It allows you the opportunity to tweak the site to work exactly the way your customers want. It all combines to make your most valuable business asset work even harder for your business.
Instead of thinking about all the money you're saving by doing it yourself, think about what it's costing you.
