5 Myths Regarding Your Need for a Website

1.       Not everyone needs a website.

Whether you are selling a product, providing a service, or backing a cause, internet surfers are coming to your site for various reasons:

• To determine what you can do for them
• To validate your credentials
• To reinforce their decision
• To laugh or be entertained
• To comparison shop
• To gain knowledge

Without the ability to fulfill the users’ needs, you will be quickly forgotten.  Remember, you only have one chance to make a first impression, so don’t blow it!

2.       If you build it, they will come.

With over 640 million active websites, one more can easily get lost in the web.  However, with the proper techniques and tools, you too can show up on Page 1 in a Google search.  You should consider various marketing campaigns to promote it.  Know how your website performs AND make sure it meets your users’ needs.   Provide multiple viewing options for your audience with a responsive design. And understand the proper link building techniques for people to find you.

3.       Creating an effective online presence is easy.

Although there are many tools and videos to help create a website, creating an effective online presence involves a great deal more.  (See MYTH #2 above).  Simply building a website, just to have one, defeats the purpose.  When creating a site a great deal of thought needs to take place prior to, during, and after launching.  It is imperative to consider your goals for the site, the functionality required, the design and layout, as well as the content contained within it.  Each of these aspects needs to be reviewed on a continual basis.  With the internet constantly evolving, so should your website.

4.       Websites lack personality.

Without a doubt, face-to-face marketing provides a great deal of personality and affords many opportunities to create relationships.  However, your website, if designed and updated frequently, can provide similar opportunities.  Personalizing your design could be as simple as adding photos of employees to showcase the human element of your business.  In addition, your navigation headings and buttons should reflect company lingo, while providing clear directional guidance.  When generating content, make it read like a story to offer your users a chance to relate to you and your cause.  Do not forget to ask for feedback as well.  The more interactions you have with your users, the easier it is to cultivate a relationship.  Also, your content should portray the culture of your business.  Establishing your culture upfront will attract businesses with which you will likely mesh, and weed out the ones you may find difficult with which to work.

5.       All website development companies cannot be trusted.

Unfortunately there are bad apples wherever you go, not just in the web development world.  However, if you know the traits you are looking for in a web development company and the goals you want to accomplish with your website, then you are off to a great start.  Take advantage of the internet and all the knowledge it possesses.  Look at potential web development company websites and see if it practices what it preaches.  Check out their portfolios, testimonials, experience, and see if they resonate with your needs.  Contact them and ask questions.  Creating your website takes cooperation and communication between both parties, so you need to be able to get along.  If the expectations, for both you and your web development company, are clearly defined up front, the process of creating your new/revised online presence will be positive.

Have more myths to add to this list, please feel free to comment below.  Not sure the validity of a statement, let us debunk or validate it for you. Want to talk to us more about websites? Get in touch with us here.