How Much Should a Web Site Cost?

Whatever it takes to compete in your market! The most you can afford to have a fighting chance to be taken seriously and for site visitors to have confidence in doing business with you!!

I’ve seen great sites for $1000 and over-priced sites in the 5 and 6 figure range. It isn’t as much what the cost is or should be, it is creating a presentation that will produce the desire results.

You can even build your own Web site for nothing except the cost of your time. But will you create a site that will provide the necessary ingredients to ensure your success? Probably not. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors like FrontPage do not compensate for a lack of color sense, marketing considerations during the development process, intuitive design and the staples that need to be in place to provide the perception of legitimacy.

How much should a Web site cost? How badly do you want to succeed?

You Can’t Always Have What You Want

[ This post is to be read to the Rolling Stones Song....]

You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need…

When is just what you need enough? When it comes to Web sites, to many site owners the answer is “Never!”

The bar has been raised when it comes to the visuals and functionality of Web sites. Almost every day I run into sites that I am in awe of based on their logical design, beautiful graphics and layout combined with quality content. That didn’t happen even a few years ago. Contrary to what so many want to believe; Web development and maintenance is not so easy that a monkey can do it!

Some will buy Frontpage and give it a whirl. Others will use control panel tools that cause extremely bloated and poorly nested code thinking they are saving money by DIYing. Few realize or admit that approach actually creates lost opportunity.

That’s when my phone rings or a request through my site arrives. These folks who couldn’t do it themselves and therefore have come to realize that skill and experience may actually be involved, then proceed to dictate how I should do my job. Some even stating what they are willing to pay and how I should bill them to do what they are unable or or do not have the time or patience to learn. Wow….

If clients have good ideas — they are immediately implemented. If there are considerations, being I’ve been doing this gig for just a little while (not many folks have lasted for almost 14 years), I feel it is my responsibility to let them know the variables that need to be considered based on their request. I do want them to succeed…

It is the minority who checks their ego or “what I want” mentality on the shelf in lieu of advice that is provided with no ulterior motive other than to enhance their success. The majority are so wrapped up in the thought of not having what they want that they will many times override my advice for no other reason than it prevents them from having what they want.

Yeah, that’s a valid reason to make a serious business decision!

When working with a truly experienced professional in this field, expect that they will advise the ramifications of what you want and why you may want to consider other options. That’s their job. They have the experience to know what works and what doesn’t. You are paying for reliable, credible advice after all, right?

Do you want what you want or do you want to succeed based on proven methodology and the advice of someone whose been-there, done-that? If it is the former, you’ll have no problem finding someone who will take your money and give you want you want without offering any suggestions or considerations.

And if that is all that is important to you, what you want, you would do well to bookmark my site so you know where to come when your ROI is MIA.

You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You just might find
You get what you need…

Brochureware is Nowhere

Back in the day, it used to be O.K. to have a basic Web site with the same type of info you would have on your business card or an off-line brochure. Hence the term “brochureware.” It also used to be O.K. (not in my book but acceptable to many– some to this day) to have a Web site that never changed, grew or added new information.  No more…

Now, late in the year 2008 brochureware is definitely nowhere! The bar has been raised — really high. If a site owner really thinks they can put up a brochureware site, get found in search engines and have the inquiries flow in — they really are kidding themselves.

Inevitably, I get an e-mail shortly after a site launch that states “Why isn’t my site in the Top 10?” or “Why can’t I find my site on the search engines?”.   “I’m not getting any inquiries!”  I shake my head and wonder where these assumptions came from — certainly not from me!

I also get similar e-mails from site owners who also disregarded all the information I have made available to them over the years, who haven’t done a thing to their site for a very long time (sometimes many years).  I wonder why before e-mailing they didn’t take the time to review any one of the many articles here on my site that tell them exactly, precisely how to get found in search engines and what it takes to garner organic search engine rankings. Just use my search box (top right corner above) and search for “search engines” or go to the  category drop down and choose from all the commentary and information available.

Rankings do not just happen because you have a nice little brochureware site that blathers on all about you. Nor does such a site encourage contacts or repeat visits.  For sites like these,  natural rankings will not be acquired when you haven’t changed a thing, updated or added new content for years.

Rankings happen because you update your site constantly with valuable information for your target market with articles, how tos, white papers.   Add a Blog! Add a discussion forum. Add an online directory; and an article library.

Write about your expertise and experience — share what you know with your site visitors — they’ll appreciate you doing so and get to know your better. People prefer to do business with those they know, you know! Keep on adding, building and growing!! Your Web site should be viewed as a work in progress; for perpetuity!

When your site becomes a resource for your site visitors rather than purely a brochureware “all about me” site — only then, and only then, can you begin to hope to gain in the rankings and encourage those coveted inquiries.

Landing Page Quality = Conversions

When it comes to your Pay Per Click advertising campaigns, you have to be sure that when potential customers click through that they land on a page that caters specifically, precisely, exactly to what your possibly new customer is looking for. That’s what a landing page is.

Add to that, you then have to be sure to have great marketing copy and calls to action to entice “shoppers” to take the desired action — right then and there — as you cannot count of them returning if they jump at their Back button.

Your landing pages should not be just one of the established pages on your site — it should be a new specifically created page that caters to a precise campaign ad for that topic, product, service, subject! Yep, that means different unique landing pages for every ad or ad campaign focus.

All too often folks link to the top page of their site for every ad. Or they link into established pages that generally cover the topic of their ads when what site owners should be doing is creating a new custom ad tailored landing page to ensure your best chance to snag that opportunity when the site visitors lands in your realm.

Unfortunately, many underestimate the power that a landing page brings to your ad campaigns and therefore overall ROI. The majority of Web site pages I see being used as landing pages fall way short of what needs to be done in order to have hope for any level of conversions.

Check out this article that will help you out:

25-Point Landing Page Optimization Review

Use this checklist as a guide and review your current ad campaign landing pages.  I bet you make quite a few changes!

New Sites and the Test of Time

Most new sites will go through a waiting period for around 9 months before search engines like Google will add them to their index. It’s also known as an aging delay or in Google’s case — the sandbox. See, now you have to pass the test of time.

This is basically a quality control type of move to index those sites that apparently have serious owners building sites with true value. Imagine if Google or any search engine were to have to index every single Web site that went live? They used to — no more.

This move was due to the fact that so many sites have no value to the masses or nor do they last very long either due to site owner unrealistic expectations or low levels of commitment. If you can’t last 9 months; you won’t get ranked.

For new Web sites, the old days of relying solely on the free/organic rankings as the only way of getting your site found is not a plan. Relying on organic rankings alone is not a solid business model. Business on or off-line requires marketing efforts. From Pay Per Click ads until your site gets out of the sandbox, to networking and other promotional activities, the days of thinking you can get found for free or without any effort amongst the 28 Billions sites currently online is simply naive.

So what is a new site owner to do in the meantime? You learn how to pass the test of time! You have this time to learn about Pay Per Click campaigns and strategies. You have this time to get your product inventory, service or delivery methods in place, tweaked and stabilized. You have time to investigate your target market and look at ways to attract their attention whether by networking or integrating other marketing strategies that help to bring you more visibility! You market!

You start your Blog. You start your affiliate program. You write articles and submit them to directories (of course, they have to be valuable — and no hypey-sales-pitchy stuff) so that you can gain more exposure for your new site. You join networks and share your experience and expertise to expose your new site to interested parties.

9 months from now when your site is finally in the indexes, don’t plan on “Top 10″ or even top page. It could happen, but let’s be more realistic that it probably won’t. Good rankings take time and are a work in progress — so don’t buy into the hype to the contrary.

Once you do get in the indexes, we then know what we have to improve upon and the statistical data will begin to accumulate. That data is exactly the information you need to know and review so you then can decide how to best to spend your time moving forward to improve your organic rankings.

To past the test of time you have to use it wisely.

Flash Sure is Nifty But…

I am constantly in awe of some of the Flash sites out there. The creativity, design and functionality that Flash offers is hard to ignore. So, it is not so strange that customers see Flashed presentations and templates and want to have them as their Web site. Then, I have to talk them off the ledge…

Search engines have become much better at reading Flashed sites. But it isn’t anywhere near what you would need to be able to build strong natural rankings. In addition, Flashed sites are very expensive to modify and change (not for those with small budgets) and considering many site owners want to dabble in the maintenance of their own sites, Flash takes that right out of the picture.

Flashed sites are great for fancy-schmancy artsy-fartsy type sites where showing your use of colors, technology and creativity are crucial to your core competencies. Most site owners are not in that category.

Even with all that neato Flash stuff going on, the clicky-clacks and mouse over noises combined with the background music can be distracting and annoying to the site visitor who you are trying to make comfortable and encourage to stay at your site.

So as tempting as a Flashed site may be, from a visual POV, even I am not going to Flash my site. I want it to be accessible to most, crawlable by all search engines and down to business to service my target market who doesn’t land at my site to be entertained.

Most Web site owners would do well to consider the same.

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