For online companies—particularly small-business owners—website design has become a necessary companion to success. The importance of owning a website and branding it uniquely cannot be overstated. But what can be overstated are the following misconceptions about web services:
1. One website, one team.
Once you finally pull the trigger on your project, you’ll be stuck with the same web development team forever.
Not exactly. This largely depends on whether or not you go with custom website design. Simple designs and templates have strict upgrade limits—they can advance only beyond a certain point, and the teams that create them usually have some degree of ownership over the designs.
Custom web packages, however, are designer-, developer- and platform-independent. If you’re sick of your team or want to progress in a new direction, you can take your design and source code to a new team whenever you want.
2. Anyone can build your website.
As long as you have the money for it, web services are like vending machines: you press the order button and BAM! You have a website.
Again, no. Website design and development are expansive, but also highlyspecialized, fields. What this means is that most designers and coders are experts in some categories while being average or amateur in others. Thus, teamwork is essential: hiring at least one designer and one developer to collaborate on a web project is the best way to get the best bang for your buck.
You could also do worse than have a few conversations with web development teams—these people can teach you things that you wish you knew before, as well as help you better understand your options. If you’re looking in the right place, these conversations will be free.
3. You must know a lot about web development to own a website.
I need to know enough about web development so that I can tell my team exactly what I want, otherwise I might get swindled.
Relax. This is utterly untrue. One thing that great web teams know is that the majority of business owners don’t care about the science behind the results; they just want their damn websites.
Now, that doesn’t mean you should go into this blind. Rather, hire a team that is both good at listening and teaching. Good website designers expect you to havesome idea of what you want; once they hear your ideas, however, they’ll point out what’s good about them and what you’re not understanding.
4. The website is all you need.
Owning a website is 90% of the battle. After yours is built, you can kick back and watch the customers fight through the door.
More accurately, owning a website is about 50% of the battle. The other 50% is spread across various efforts: content writing, online (and offline) marketing, A/B testing, publicity, and more.
A web services agency isn’t doing you much help by building your site and then saying, “Adios!” When hunting for professional help, it’s important to keep an eye out for web teams that invest in your long-term success; there are services (though not enough) that will help with promoting your site: advertising presence, search engines, directory lists, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. Don’t be the fisherman who has a cool fishing poll but no bait.
Website design is not easy, nor is it simple. Owning a great website, however, isn’t very difficult, so long as you find web services that advocate teamwork, offer free conversations and invest in your long-term success.
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