Problems When You Get a New Website, and How to Prevent Them

Getting a new website is arguably the most exciting part of launching any new venture. You have had an idea for a new business, your mission statement and goals are written, you’ve even bought the?domain name!?

Now all you need to do is find a freelancer and pay them $200 to spin up a website in WordPress and the prospects will come flooding in.?

Right??

Um, not so fast…?

There are a lot of mistakes that people make when they get a new website that can cost them time and money, so they call us in to?clean up the mess.?

We would like to help you avoid making these problems so when you get a new website you’re set up for success and profit.

The new website looks different to the example

When looking for inspiration for a new website, it’s natural to look at the competitors in your niche and want what they have – but better.?

If you send example sites to your designer and they make a mock-up that looks like what you want, then you wait weeks or months for them to come back with a design that looks nothing like what you wanted, it can be heartbreaking.?

We even saw one case where the developer quoted thousands of dollars on a design, then delivered a site with a bootleg WordPress theme. They even left the demo phone number on the live version. Ouch!?

When you get to this point, it’s often too late to go back and start again, as you want to keep your project moving.?

Then, you’re stuck with a website that you don’t like looking at, and your enthusiasm for the whole project starts to slowly die.?

The good news is, it doesn’t have to be that way!?

We make sure you’re involved in the project along the way so if anything gets off course, we can quickly steady the ship and ensure it’s smooth sailing all the way to delivery.

You can’t update the website

When you get a new website, one of the first things you’re going to want to do is start to add content to it.?

If you don’t have access, you’re stuck…?

And we get it, not every busy business owner wants to get themselves into the weeds, burning hours of time working out how to add a blog post or update a menu when they could be focusing on dollar-producing activities.?

But, you should still have access so your team can make updates, or so you can organise?website support?for the important things like plugin updates and regular maintenance jobs that make your website really hum.?

We use WordPress for all the websites we build as it is the most popular content management system (CMS) on the planet, and?it powers over 30% of the internet and 70% of all sites with a CMS. It is also the easiest CMS for users to update.?

Once your new site is live we set you up with your administrator login so you can sign in and get to work on your dream.?

Your site gets no traffic

Your website is live, you shared it on Facebook and all your friends loved it, but after the Day 1 fanfare, nothing happens…

Where are all the leads??

One of the most common misconceptions people have about a website is that ‘if you build it they will come’.?

In reality, when you build it you need to have a strategy for getting it seen by your target market.?

Before we start building your site, we go through your?brand strategy?to help make sure you can generate new business straight away – not months down the track.?

In this process we start at the top and work our way down.?

What is your business strategy??

What is the problem your clients face, and how does your solution solve it??

Armed with this information, we can help navigate you past the pitfalls to work out the best direction for your website.?

Your website is too slow

If the pages on your website take too long to load, people won’t hang sound to wait. Google recommends a loading page time of fewer than two seconds to create a good experience for users.?

If your site is slow and people leave fast, Google sees this and stops ranking your website toward the top of search results.?

From there it is a slippery slide into Page 2 obscurity, and beyond.?

To ensure this doesn’t happen to you we build your website lean and mean.?

Every part of the code is optimised for speed, we make sure images won’t slow things down, and we only ever add the plugins that you will use and need.??

Tracking the numbers

You may have heard the saying by the late William Edwards Deming; “In God we trust; all others must bring data.”

Whether you’re religious or not, you will find that most companies these days say they are ‘data driven’ but are they really??

We speak to so many business owners who don’t have any form of?data analytics?set up, which means they don’t have access to information such as:?

• How many people visit their website each day
• Where they come from
• What pages they look at
• How long they stay on their site

And sadly, so much more…

This is the minimum data you need to have to help you make decisions, which is why we have this set up for you from Day 1.?

This means we can work with you to monitor how your site is performing, look at user behaviour, and uncover new trends which means you take the guesswork out of your efforts.

Summary

When you get a new website you should be excited about the opportunities that will come to you, and work on what you do best: delivering your product or service and giving your customers an incredible experience.?Contact Chillybin today?so we can support you to get your venture off on the right foot.