If you are a modestly funded new business startup or a smaller business with not much marketing experience in-house, you are most vulnerable to falling into the trap of thinking that a shiny new website will get your business branded, noticed, and buzzing. It’s tempting to assume that you can just sit back and let the website do its magic, and then presto, the phone bands! But then it doesn’t.

Consider this: A shiny new website with no other marketing efforts is not much different than a shiny new business credit card that you never give to anyone. Read that right… you keep that box of 500 cards on the shelf just in case you need them. And when you are doing need one-you cannot locate them! This is where most businesses fail to achieve a successful website or e-commerce strategy. They are not able to grasp that a shiny new website is merely the first step of numerous that lead to online success.

Let’s dive below the surface and appear at the dissimilarities that are not so clear but most likely will have a significant effect on the success of your website, and yes, your businesses go-to-market strategy.

First of all, I totally get the lure of “free” and the appeal of paying “only” $$/mo for a site that gets your business up and running online. These sorts of SaaS website companies have their place in the world. Yes, there are times when I recommend these services to clients.

Here’s my message-in-the-bottle to those which have been marooned on a deserted website island, unable to make their SaaS (or template) website successful by any measure, much less turn it into a thriving destination to generate sales leads as most business owners want.

The very first lesson business owners need to learn about the Internet is that just possessing a “cool” website design (however you want to define that) is not really going to get you where you want to go. Fortunately, a fumbled website strategy will cost you a lot less than this colossal mistake: Imagine building a beautiful store where no-one moves because there are no roads.

“Preposterous! ” you say? Yes indeed, which is the essence of precisely what is going wrong when you only have a cool website and practically nothing else to support its purpose.

Of course, good website design is a ability that is an important part of your website strategy, but it’s just one part of a skill matrix that makes for an astounding website strategy. Here’s a test of just some of the competencies a proficient digital agency applies in regards to typical website project:

– Creative

– Graphic Design and style

– Logo Design

– Custom Programming

– Logos

– Advertising

– SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION

– Stats

– Video clip Integration & Promotion

– Social Media Integration & Promotion

– Hosting, Tests & Troubleshooting

– Safety

As you can see, when you hire a reputable website design company, you are in reality getting seasoned marketers, developers, and creatives who companion with you to not only get you online-that’s the easy part-but to work with you to help create  your website into a lead-generating machine, or whatever your purpose may be.

I think we all know the marketing hype around SaaS website services. Several of it is justified-much of it is not. Let’s flip the hype over on its backside and read the small print to learn what a business is to not get from an online website service:

– You are not getting a custom website that looks DISTINCTIVE.

– You are not getting a custom website that DOES just what you want it to do.

– You are not getting any unique functions that may be CRITICAL to the success of your online business.

– You’re not getting an online site development team who has your best interest in brain by working with you as someone.

– An individual are not getting a uniquely branded and placed website developed by MARKETING specialists.

– You are not getting top organic and natural GOOGLE rankings because SaaS-based websites have less than average SEO capability.

Upon the other hand, with an online SaaS supplier, this is what you are getting:

– An amateurish, template-based website that you pay on monthly FOREVER!

– A new DO-IT-YOURSELF service that requires you to be the expert on everything. How much time do you have to devote to this endeavor?

– OK, since you are going to be the MARKETING EXPERT, who’s going to actually run the company?

– A new SaaS website is a proprietary website (typically) TRAPPED on another host with no easy way to transfer. Professional websites use Wp or other open-source platforms that give you limitless hosting options.

– Unless you are paying HUGE SaaS BUCKS for digital talent (real people not only algorithms), you will only get a slight quantity of technical support and little marketing insight.

OK, maybe you are a jack-of-all-trades entrepreneur often portrayed in the SaaS website marketing promotions, and you really do have multiple skills that will make new leads or sales for your business. We wish you only the best. However, before you journey to further waters create hard-to-break responsibilities of a SaaS/template service, you might consider some additional facts of custom websites vs SaaS that you might not have regarded yet.

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