Websites can be expensive little beasts can’t they? You go along to your friendly web designer and say “hey, dude (‘cos you’re hip), I need a cool website with a white background that’s easy to navigate”.
Then your web designer slaps a huge quote on the table and you are shocked and alarmed and decide to go elsewhere. A hapless few will buy a copy of ‘Dreamweaver’ because they think it will bestow them with a magical design quality and programming prowess. However, the results will be rubbish.
Wouldn’t it be much better if your really well-designed website was actually totally free?
Well, in reality, it should be.
There’s really only one reason to have a website and that is to promote your product or service to new or existing clients. In turn, they should be more inclined to buy from you and you should make money. Easy huh?
So, money spent on a website design should really be considered as money invested and you should expect to see a return on investment. For example, if you’re selling five widgets a day and your website increases that to ten widgets a day, you’ll eventually make back more than you invested in your website. So it becomes free. In fact, it starts earning for you.
This isn’t just true for the web, it’s the same with all types of marketing – you expect to put money in and get money out like a big fat cash machine. How well you do comes down to how good your machine is and for that, unfortunately, you need to pay a bit more (sometimes).
So, think about it. If you’re going to have a web site at all then you should only have one that’s going to make money. If you’re going to make money then you can afford to pay a bit more and if you can afford to pay a bit more then you can expect to earn it back quickly.
If you don’t expect to make money from your web site then you really shouldn’t be having one. Unless I wrong and the Internet is just a big fat vanity project.
5 Responses for "Your website is free"
May 6th, 2009 at 9:36 am
I disagree, I don’t think websites have to be expensive or complicated, nor do I tihnk if they represent a professional organization/company should they be free.
May 7th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Great post , A professional website have great effect on sales . therefore a person should consider web design as an estimate and took it seriously
May 19th, 2009 at 7:08 pm
First of all no matter how good your webpage is if there is no one around to see it you won’t make money. Next even if you do get someone to your webpage, unless you have compelling, unique and believable content that sells with emotion and has a really great call to action you won’t sell. In my book it is never what a website looks like but rather what it relays to the viewer. And the ease in which it can be found on the Internet. A well search engine optimized webpage with optimized sales content wins hands down.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:04 am
Hi All,
I have to say, I think web templates has missed the point. If you are a business person, running a small outfit with your own money then your focus always needs to be “where’s is the best place to invest my cash, to make more cash?”.
I know that’s obvious but, how often do people spend valuable wonga on websites without having any idea if they are going to work and earn them money. Answer, lots and lots and probably more still I suspect.
If you were sitting across the table from you stern-faced finance director and telling them you wanted to invest 1-2k on a new website, their first response is likely to be “how much will it make back for us?”. Assuming you have some sort of answer, their second question will be “can you prove it?”.
These are questions anyone thinking of having a website designed should be asking of themselves and their web company. If an investment isn’t going to return a profit then save your money and go and have a nice weekend break somewhere.
If you’re going to do it properly, understand how you’re going to measure the performance of your new website, understand what the metrics are and get your web designers to show you proof that they’ve achieved tangible returns for other customers. Anything over and above your investment and running costs is profit and hence the “free” bit because it may have cost you up front initially but essentially it is a loan repaid.
That’s part of the problem with web designers, there are too many who fail to understand the commerciality of a website and are just too interested in designing something that is great looking or cleverly interactive. ROI is king, without it you ain’t got no business, fancy website or not!
Andy H
http://www.spiritconsulting.co.uk
June 11th, 2009 at 1:50 am
my God, i thought you were going to chip in with some decisive insght at the end there, not leave it with ?we leave it to you to decide?.
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