Business people need professional websites. Don’t allow urgency to overcome professionalism. Learn from the website mistakes I came across last week.
I had a busy week last week – actually, I had one of those ‘where has the week gone’ moments on Friday when someone asked me if I could complete a ’25 things to do’ document for them. The problem was I just didn’t have the time to do it immediately and because I was so busy, I forgot to take a breath and ask why the sudden urgency. You see this person has been meaning to do these things for months and now this has become top of the to do list and there’s a sudden urgency.
I think that urgency grips everyone (in business or not) now and again. This can be powerful force for getting things done. It can also be a powerful force that drives business people to make the wrong decisions.
This week I looked at quite a few websites (as usual) and two in particular stick in my mind.
Websites Built by a Professional?
The first website had been built by the website owner’s son. Now that’s fine if the son is a professional, but he clearly isn’t: no account of SEO, the website doesn’t meet standards and it’s not ranking at all in Google (I know why, but the owner – and his son – don’t). Why did the owner go this route? Because he needed a website urgently. Hmm – but what he’s ended up with doesn’t work and doesn’t do what he wants. He’ll now have to do what he should have done in the first place and ask for some help from the right website professional …like me hopefully 
Lessons to be learnt from this website:
- Make sure the person building your site knows how to build a site that will deliver what you need – and preferably also has some ideas about what’s needed that you didn’t realise yourself. Like what:
- being found by the search engines
- a site that works on different devices (iPod, laptop, blackberry, corporate PC, home computer, etc)
- reducing the likelihood of spam
- standards – don’t yawn! – not everyone in this world has the same abilities and meeting the right standards means more visitors
Professional Websites for Business People
Business people should choose professional website suppliers. Here’s another example of urgency taking over sense. I’ve been asked to write some content for a client – a few new pages. As you know I also put pages live on websites for clients as part of that service. Only problem is that ‘the website guy’ won’t allow anyone access – he won’t even give the website owner the passwords. Outrageous! The client owns the website (I checked) not ‘the website guy’. Does he really think he can stay in business with an attitude like that? I thought those days were gone –clearly not!
How did this come about? Well my client needed a website in a hurry and rather than speaking to a few suppliers and making an informed choice, she went with the first person she met at a networking event. Well I’ve got news ‘website guy’ – play nice, or we’ll move the hosting away from you and set up somewhere else, with the same domain name, same website, same design, same pictures, same content and with new content and a more professional supplier too.
Lessons to be learnt from this website:
- Choose your supplier carefully. If you don’t understand what they’re saying then maybe they’re not the supplier for you.
- Make sure you own your website (you probably do) and keep control of it.
- Know that there are plenty of professional website people out there and most of us will be happy to help you get away from unreasonable suppliers.
Next time you feel in the grip of urgency to do something right now, something that’s needed doing for months, take a deep breath and make sure you make the right decision for your business (not for the urgent voice in your head).
If you’d like me to look at your website, or if you need some advice about moving away from a supplier who isn’t delivering what you want, then contact me – always happy to chat or email and give advice!
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