WordPress sites are not as cheap as you think, not if you want results

How often have we heard that building a web site is as easy as downloading a theme for $50-$100 and then hiring a low end freelancer or off shore developer. So off they go. Their developer/web consultant installs the word press theme, then they struggle for weeks to come up with copy and images to fill out all of the placeholders, and more often than not they have to accept the fact that their web site didn’t look as good as the theme demo. Eventually, because they didn’t take care of their web site, there were no visitors, they then fire the first web consultant, hire a new web consultant who makes some updates and then the site doesn’t work or they get hacked which puts them into panic mode and the low cost freelance/web consultant all of a sudden isn’t so cheap to fix things.

The above order is not necessarily correct and maybe not all points apply to every scenario, but on the internet, the damage after screw ups is not that big or apparent – but it can seriously hurt your business nonetheless!

The bottom line is there is no easy path to building a web site and as often the case, you get what you pay for.

Here’s a few key points to keep in mind.

Before starting with any kind of development, you need to plan your website by doing research on the following topics:

• What its purpose/goal will be. The most important factor of every website is conversion – the moment that your visitor is converted to a newsletter subscriber, social media follower.
• Who the target audience is. The most common mistake is when site owners think that everyone is their target audience, which is rarely the case.
• Who the most typical customer is. This helps the copywriter write text as if it is directly speaking to the most typical customer.
• Next a wireframe. What element should be on a particular page? Remember, you want to persuade your visitors to convert. They don’t have much time, so make every element count.
• What tone or language does the company use. This needs to be built into site copy.
• How does the company talk to the clients on social media, if at all?

Once live, your website also requires maintenance, because of:

• Security: because being hacked will hurt your business.
• SEO: search engines will penalise you for having outdated and stale content.
• Competition: it never sleeps, nor should you.
• Trends: humans are visual beings, always on the look for the shiny new thing.

WordPress is free, but WordPress sites are not as cheap as you think. Not if you want results. Let us help you achieve your goals and results.