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A lot of founders who have businesses that aren't reliant on the internet dump money on a really nice website thinking it'll be a great marketing tool. Then the

A lot of founders who have businesses that aren't reliant on the internet dump money on a really nice website thinking it'll be a great marketing tool. Then they end up disappointed when their website isn't generating any leads. The web is so competitive nowadays, simply having a site (even if it looks great) won't do you any good. 10-20% of a budget should be spent on web design and 80-90% on actually marketing the website. So if you have a 5K budget you should spend around $500-$1000 on the website and the rest on marketing the website. If you can't get something built for under 20% then maybe just put up a facebook or google places page in the interim. A website can be a huge distraction from time better spent going out and getting customers. Also, if you're a designer doing basic business websites, keep in mind on-page SEO practices. It really bothers me when designers completely disregard search engines and do their clients a huge disservice. Designers who can talk about basic SEO principles have a huge leg up. At the end of the day, a business owner is only really interested in more business. I'm not suggesting this is the OP, but a common mistake I see amongst founders

neltnerb 12y ago
Excellent advice! Thanks for the comment! In my case, I have a pretty good sense of who my customers are, and I'll be reaching out to them in person on the phone or through my networks. So mostly I just want to make it so that when I call them up and tell them who I am, and they immediately check out my website, it doesn't send up red flags.
robotpony 12y ago
It's a common mistake for medium and large companies too. Most budgets are poured into design and development, which encourages adding requirements, more design, etc., not leaving anything for ongoing content development and marketing. The result is a site with more pages than it needs and pages that are all boilerplate, puff, and sparsely related to pushing the purpose. The effort is distracting and mostly futile, especially lacking marketing time and effort. If I can make a recommendation, the only pages that should be added to the web are those that make the it better. Are you a web services company? Expose your service as part of your site (Github does this by providing a Google-searchable central hub of OSS projects). Are you a non-profit? Obsess over getting people involved instead of spreading your message: adding people builds up your voice, spreading your message spreads you thinner (and adding people spreads your message with less effort). SEO is best played as adding, building, and providing useful things (or collaborations). And the best improvements in search rankings is had by providing useful things for people to reference (the Github example again). If you're not providing something to link to, preferably a never ending stream of awesomeness, SEO and other marketing become difficult. I've been part of many very wasteful website projects, with dozens of about pages, blog listings, categories, and other nonsense that on their own do not make something worth investing in. Put up as little as you can, make it useful, and focus on marketing what you do to people with the rest of your $.

neltnerb 12y ago

Excellent advice! Thanks for the comment! In my case, I have a pretty good sense of who my customers are, and I'll be reaching out to them in person on the phone or through my networks. So mostly I just want to make it so that when I call them up and tell them who I am, and they immediately check out my website, it doesn't send up red flags.

robotpony 12y ago

It's a common mistake for medium and large companies too. Most budgets are poured into design and development, which encourages adding requirements, more design, etc., not leaving anything for ongoing content development and marketing. The result is a site with more pages than it needs and pages that are all boilerplate, puff, and sparsely related to pushing the purpose. The effort is distracting and mostly futile, especially lacking marketing time and effort. If I can make a recommendation, the only pages that should be added to the web are those that make the it better. Are you a web services company? Expose your service as part of your site (Github does this by providing a Google-searchable central hub of OSS projects). Are you a non-profit? Obsess over getting people involved instead of spreading your message: adding people builds up your voice, spreading your message spreads you thinner (and adding people spreads your message with less effort). SEO is best played as adding, building, and providing useful things (or collaborations). And the best improvements in search rankings is had by providing useful things for people to reference (the Github example again). If you're not providing something to link to, preferably a never ending stream of awesomeness, SEO and other marketing become difficult. I've been part of many very wasteful website projects, with dozens of about pages, blog listings, categories, and other nonsense that on their own do not make something worth investing in. Put up as little as you can, make it useful, and focus on marketing what you do to people with the rest of your $.