The phrase is supposed to read: Look before you leap but at HirMon, we would rather you Think before you leap into a website. A lot of what you might have heard about websites -- may be (pardon the phrasing) flat-assed wrong.
For those who might read this page and think that "websites are websites," please examine your reasoning! There are certain types of websites we have discovered that may end up being more of a liability than an asset
Why a liability? It’s simple: For most small to intermediate businesses choosing one of the following types of websites, the typical life expectancy is 12-18 months. After that, the owners get so fed up with the limitations and lack of performance, they decide to go with a conventional website.
Do-it-yourself
You have seen TV commericals for these. You sign up for a service and for a nominal fee per month, you get to design your own website and modify it anytime you want to!
The biggest "pro" to such sites is the fact that site owners can update the contents personally.
The major "cons" boil down to these:
- Actually - no you can’t design your own website. At best you can select from a couple of hundred templates the service provides and use one of those. While the possibility that someone else might use the same template as you choose, it can (and does) happen.
- You are limited to whatever functionality is provided by the service; typically this is a form-based email page. If you want to install your own programs to make the website perform efficiently -- 99% of the time you can’t.
Consider this type of site to simply put up an "Internet presence" of 6-8 pages of information only.
Flash based websites
These are quite often though of as the epitomy of website design, due to their elegance and onscreen appearance.
The biggest "pro" to such sites is - they usually look pretty snazzy.
The "cons," however, are enormous:
- They are (technically) in violation of the American’s With Disabilities Act. The Feds are not enforcing this at the moment, but all it would take is one idiot bureaucrat out to make a name for themselves to cause any owner of a Flash sit a world of headaches.
- Adding any form of functionality is pretty much impossible. Go to enough sites and you won’t even see a form-based email contact page. All you will usually see is a simple email link (like this one) that pops open the visitor’s email program.
- If the target audience for the website happens to be rural where high-speed connections to the Internet are few and far between -- it can take up to 1/2 hour for visitors to load a medium sized website (few will bother).
- Owners of the website cannot update the contents -- unless -- they created the site personally. That is not the usual case.
Consider this type of site when all you have to present to Internet visitors is solely information.
WordPress/Joomla/Concrete Based Sites
These types of sites are based on software that is available for free on the Internet. These also happen to be the most treacherous types of websites to have created for a variety of reasons.
The major "pro" (again) is the ability for the website owner to update their own site.
The "cons" should be considered carefully:
- If a website developer modifies the code used, then an update to any of these programs may wipe out the website in part or totally.
- (Along those same lines) If the website developer drops off the face of the Earth and modifications are needed in the future -- expect to pay substantial bucks to get the job done (custom programming is not cheap).
- While software additions (called "plug-ins") can be used to add some functionality, they can never match the functionality of a conventional website.
- In general, website owners tend to get so wrapped up with the ability to modify their site -- they do so -- and turn an otherwise decent site into what visitors might perceive as "just another blog."
Consider this type of site if your primary focus is information only with little or no sales (and support) involved.
Summary:
The major thrust of such sites is the understanding that website owners can update the contents of their site, online, anytime they want and without third-party assistance.
So what?
HirMon has been offering that functionality in all our websites for the past 10 years. It’s a "standard feature."
Another observation goes along the lines that if certain functionality is not available within the framework being used, you can always to to a third-party site to include it (like: adding a shopping cart to a Flash site).
Yes, you can. And, yes, the perception of you and your business is liable to take a "credibility hit."
Look at such a site from the visitors point of view:
- A DIY site
- Links to a third-party blog site
- Links to a shopping cart site
- Links to whatever...
Visitors are going to notice that the "website" is fragmented into different venues. While most owners think this doesn’t make any difference -- it does. Here’s why:
- It is often difficult to link third-party sites back to the main site. That is: Once a visitor leaves the main site, they might not be able to get back!
- Without extreme care, the look and feel of multiple support sites can confuse visitors (e.g. Is this the blog for XXX site?) Never confuse your visitors!
- Your work as a website owner is multiplied by each third-party site you have to login to for the purposes of updating it.
- Being "fragmented" suggests that the business/organization is also fragmented.
That last point bears some explanation. Right or wrong, visitors will "judge" the professionalism of a business or organization based on what they see on a website. Like it or not - it is 100% true.
The list, as they say, goes on and on and on...
Developing a decent website takes planning and expertise to determine what visitors expect to see on such a site and how the site can, at the same time, be a business asset.
That is what HirMon does and, yes, we tend to focus on conventional websites and for good reason.
When well designed and marketed -- HirMon’s sites will typically run circles around these sites (even barefooted).
