Why a Cheap Website Isn't Always Ideal
Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2024 9:21 am
As a business grows, there comes a point where "do-it-yourself" and "tinkering" begin to negatively impact performance.
Back then (say the mid-1990s), websites weren't as technically complex: they were simple sources of information about a company, much like online brochures.
Nowadays, they are part of a complex ecosystem. They are linked to other business and marketing tools, and have a variety of functions (customer portal, inventory management system, accounting system, marketing content automation tool, etc.).
No matter how complex it may be, a website is (or should be) an integral part of a company’s sales and marketing strategy. There are many factors and metrics to evaluate and consider when calculating the return on investment (ROI) of a website. But it all comes down to conversion. A website should be designed to successfully convert interest and intent into customers or sales.
Website building platforms are better than ever
The way we build websites has evolved a lot over the years. Think highly engaging visuals, thoughtful, data-driven user experiences, complex e-commerce sites, and thoughtful design approaches.
In addition, the time and money required to build a website have decreased significantly. Website building platforms now offer built-in tools that allow you to, for example, optimize search engine results and performance metrics. They offer a good balance between usability, flexibility and cost. They enable people with little or no web design experience to quickly build a professional website at a low cost.
If these affordable options are within reach, why pay thousands of dollars for a website, and in what cases?
It's not about creating a website, but a sales tool
There is a difference between designing a website and creating an effective, conversion-driven sales and marketing tool that will help you achieve your business goals.
Building a high-quality website that gets results takes time and effort. In other words, it’s worth trying to understand what return you can (or should) expect based on your investment.
Here are some things to consider before you turn to a website builder platform or hire a specialist.
High-quality websites provide interesting, customer-focused content
One of the biggest challenges in building a website is designing content that meets the needs of your customers while reflecting the value of your products, services, and brand. To do this well, you need to ask the right questions so that you don’t get bogged down in the technical and conceptual aspects of building your website.
Questions to Ask When Creating Website Content
About the customer
Do you know exactly who your main customers are?
Can you clearly and confidently describe the unique benefits your customers can expect from your products and services?
Can you identify and describe your competitive advantages?
About Content Creation
What is the difference between good and great content?
How much does it cost to create great content (images and text, even videos)?
Do you know if the content will resonate with your customers' needs?
How will you distribute the content?
Conversion-focused content should be focused on the customer and the value of the products and services. You should develop tailored content by creating a site plan that will help you:
determine your priority segments;
establish typical customer profiles;
ensure your messages match your brand's key offering;
provide customer testimonials.
In short, you can ensure that your site content drives conversion by figuring out exactly why and how customers choose your products and services. Only then will you be able to craft content that sets you apart from your competition.
Think about your customers’ needs and create content that meets them. This will help build trust with them and demonstrate that your company’s offering (and core values) are a match for what they’re looking for.
Figuring out what sets you apart from your competition takes time and effort, so it comes at a cost to you no matter what you decide. However, if you do it right, you can turn that cost into an investment that will increase your conversion potential and ROI.
4 Stages of the Online Customer Journey
Choosing content that is customer-centric and the value of products and services is the first step in creating a conversion-focused website. The next step is mapping that content to optimize the customer experience.
Don't try to sell me something: offer me solutions.
When visiting a website, the user goes through four key stages, which must be taken into account when mapping.
Awareness
Assessment
Conversion
Loyalty
Each stage has different types of requirements associated with it. Depending on how a person found your website, you need to assess what content is most relevant at each stage and anticipate how to deliver the right content in the right place to guide them through the process.
This process is similar to an in-store experience, where the sales team seeks to determine the customer's intentions or needs before guiding them through the store to introduce them to the products and physician database company. This approach allows the customer to move from awareness to evaluation and, if done well, to purchase.
Create scenarios to anticipate customer needs
Online, we don't have the opportunity to help customers in person, so we need to build scenarios to anticipate their needs at every stage of their journey.
The goal is to deliver an enriching and intuitive experience that drives conversion.
Loyalty
Buybacks
Loyalty
Whatever term you use, it's all about planning your customers' journey based on their needs.
Website building platform or custom design?
Most popular website building platforms offer mobile-optimized theme templates. You can insert your images and text, adjust a few settings, and hit a button to publish your content.
However, their website planning support ends there. If you find a theme that meets your browsing needs in every way, great! In that case, a website building platform is probably right for you. Keep going.
However, if you have mapped out your customer profiles, content needs, and user journeys, you will probably realize that these predefined themes do not provide an optimal user experience. You will need to modify them and, therefore, will need to call on an experience developer very quickly.
You may have some technical skills, so if the changes are minor, you may be able to do them yourself. However, you need to understand that the more features you add and change, the more likely it is that you will need to hire a professional at some point. When that time comes, they will spend time deconstructing what you have done (which will cost you money) in order to put everything back together and improve the website.
Ultimately, making changes to a basic structure or theme requires a customized approach, for which you will need a professional in the field. The update that will then be necessary will not necessarily be simple.
So far, we've only talked about the look and feel of your site, not about integrating any custom elements you might need. These include the thousands of plugins and custom solutions you can use to add functionality or that you could use to integrate your website with other systems. You should think through all of these options to make sure they are technically feasible and appropriate for the content of your site.
How to evaluate performance?
Profiling your site's users, knowing where they come from and what type of content they are looking for is crucial to building your online presence. Without this information, you have no way of knowing if the website you are creating will help you achieve your goals.
Google Analytics can be easily integrated into many website building platforms. Some platforms even have their own measurement systems (e.g. Shopify). Integrating Google Analytics into a website is not difficult. However, it is yet another step to add to the site building process that is not part of the turnkey offering of website building platforms.
A $150 website probably won't meet your needs
When considering a new website for your business, whether to support a marketing campaign, launch a new product, or get the word out about your products and services, don't just think about cost: it's just as important (if not more so) to think about the content of the site and the unique experience you're trying to deliver.
This way, you will ensure that you maximize your ROI, that is, convert visitors into potential customers or sales, instead of just building a website at the lowest possible cost.
Someone may have told you, “I can build your website in a few days for just $150.”
You may well choose this option. But I hope you understand that before you make a final decision, you need to think through a few details to determine what will work for you and your business.
Back then (say the mid-1990s), websites weren't as technically complex: they were simple sources of information about a company, much like online brochures.
Nowadays, they are part of a complex ecosystem. They are linked to other business and marketing tools, and have a variety of functions (customer portal, inventory management system, accounting system, marketing content automation tool, etc.).
No matter how complex it may be, a website is (or should be) an integral part of a company’s sales and marketing strategy. There are many factors and metrics to evaluate and consider when calculating the return on investment (ROI) of a website. But it all comes down to conversion. A website should be designed to successfully convert interest and intent into customers or sales.
Website building platforms are better than ever
The way we build websites has evolved a lot over the years. Think highly engaging visuals, thoughtful, data-driven user experiences, complex e-commerce sites, and thoughtful design approaches.
In addition, the time and money required to build a website have decreased significantly. Website building platforms now offer built-in tools that allow you to, for example, optimize search engine results and performance metrics. They offer a good balance between usability, flexibility and cost. They enable people with little or no web design experience to quickly build a professional website at a low cost.
If these affordable options are within reach, why pay thousands of dollars for a website, and in what cases?
It's not about creating a website, but a sales tool
There is a difference between designing a website and creating an effective, conversion-driven sales and marketing tool that will help you achieve your business goals.
Building a high-quality website that gets results takes time and effort. In other words, it’s worth trying to understand what return you can (or should) expect based on your investment.
Here are some things to consider before you turn to a website builder platform or hire a specialist.
High-quality websites provide interesting, customer-focused content
One of the biggest challenges in building a website is designing content that meets the needs of your customers while reflecting the value of your products, services, and brand. To do this well, you need to ask the right questions so that you don’t get bogged down in the technical and conceptual aspects of building your website.
Questions to Ask When Creating Website Content
About the customer
Do you know exactly who your main customers are?
Can you clearly and confidently describe the unique benefits your customers can expect from your products and services?
Can you identify and describe your competitive advantages?
About Content Creation
What is the difference between good and great content?
How much does it cost to create great content (images and text, even videos)?
Do you know if the content will resonate with your customers' needs?
How will you distribute the content?
Conversion-focused content should be focused on the customer and the value of the products and services. You should develop tailored content by creating a site plan that will help you:
determine your priority segments;
establish typical customer profiles;
ensure your messages match your brand's key offering;
provide customer testimonials.
In short, you can ensure that your site content drives conversion by figuring out exactly why and how customers choose your products and services. Only then will you be able to craft content that sets you apart from your competition.
Think about your customers’ needs and create content that meets them. This will help build trust with them and demonstrate that your company’s offering (and core values) are a match for what they’re looking for.
Figuring out what sets you apart from your competition takes time and effort, so it comes at a cost to you no matter what you decide. However, if you do it right, you can turn that cost into an investment that will increase your conversion potential and ROI.
4 Stages of the Online Customer Journey
Choosing content that is customer-centric and the value of products and services is the first step in creating a conversion-focused website. The next step is mapping that content to optimize the customer experience.
Don't try to sell me something: offer me solutions.
When visiting a website, the user goes through four key stages, which must be taken into account when mapping.
Awareness
Assessment
Conversion
Loyalty
Each stage has different types of requirements associated with it. Depending on how a person found your website, you need to assess what content is most relevant at each stage and anticipate how to deliver the right content in the right place to guide them through the process.
This process is similar to an in-store experience, where the sales team seeks to determine the customer's intentions or needs before guiding them through the store to introduce them to the products and physician database company. This approach allows the customer to move from awareness to evaluation and, if done well, to purchase.
Create scenarios to anticipate customer needs
Online, we don't have the opportunity to help customers in person, so we need to build scenarios to anticipate their needs at every stage of their journey.
The goal is to deliver an enriching and intuitive experience that drives conversion.
Loyalty
Buybacks
Loyalty
Whatever term you use, it's all about planning your customers' journey based on their needs.
Website building platform or custom design?
Most popular website building platforms offer mobile-optimized theme templates. You can insert your images and text, adjust a few settings, and hit a button to publish your content.
However, their website planning support ends there. If you find a theme that meets your browsing needs in every way, great! In that case, a website building platform is probably right for you. Keep going.
However, if you have mapped out your customer profiles, content needs, and user journeys, you will probably realize that these predefined themes do not provide an optimal user experience. You will need to modify them and, therefore, will need to call on an experience developer very quickly.
You may have some technical skills, so if the changes are minor, you may be able to do them yourself. However, you need to understand that the more features you add and change, the more likely it is that you will need to hire a professional at some point. When that time comes, they will spend time deconstructing what you have done (which will cost you money) in order to put everything back together and improve the website.
Ultimately, making changes to a basic structure or theme requires a customized approach, for which you will need a professional in the field. The update that will then be necessary will not necessarily be simple.
So far, we've only talked about the look and feel of your site, not about integrating any custom elements you might need. These include the thousands of plugins and custom solutions you can use to add functionality or that you could use to integrate your website with other systems. You should think through all of these options to make sure they are technically feasible and appropriate for the content of your site.
How to evaluate performance?
Profiling your site's users, knowing where they come from and what type of content they are looking for is crucial to building your online presence. Without this information, you have no way of knowing if the website you are creating will help you achieve your goals.
Google Analytics can be easily integrated into many website building platforms. Some platforms even have their own measurement systems (e.g. Shopify). Integrating Google Analytics into a website is not difficult. However, it is yet another step to add to the site building process that is not part of the turnkey offering of website building platforms.
A $150 website probably won't meet your needs
When considering a new website for your business, whether to support a marketing campaign, launch a new product, or get the word out about your products and services, don't just think about cost: it's just as important (if not more so) to think about the content of the site and the unique experience you're trying to deliver.
This way, you will ensure that you maximize your ROI, that is, convert visitors into potential customers or sales, instead of just building a website at the lowest possible cost.
Someone may have told you, “I can build your website in a few days for just $150.”
You may well choose this option. But I hope you understand that before you make a final decision, you need to think through a few details to determine what will work for you and your business.