Do–it–yourself works great for home improvement but may be a disaster for your home page.
I recently tried to help a client referred to me by a business colleague. She was unhappy with her company’s web site, specifically her profile page, because she wasn’t getting any business from it.

Apparently I wasn’t fast enough for her. She decided to sign up with a web hosting company that offered sites that you can custom–make for yourself.

Ouch!

Why do I say that? Because she signed up with them for all of the wrong reasons.

Now, don’t get me wrong. These businesses do have their place in the web marketplace.

First of all, not everybody is in a position to hire a good designer to build a custom site for them. Building a site from a template with a menu of items that you can add is great — in some cases.

However, there are pitfalls to watch out for that a web novice will fall into easily.

Does anyone know you’re there?
Her problem was that her web page wasn’t generating any business. Well, these sites all offer search engine optimization. In other words, they’ll help you get listed near the top of a search list when someone goes to say, Google or Yahoo, and looks for a specific keyword that relates to your business.

Good luck with that.

Optimizing your web pages using keywords is so old school that hardly any of the search engines use that criterion for ranking a site. If you sign up with these companies, they’ll submit your site to a dozen or more search engines. Big deal.

Don’t expect to see your site in the top 10 on a search unless you list your site’s homepage title word–for–word. Even then, it could be 6 months before you show up.

Congratulations! You got ripped off!
Specifically, you need a ton of reciprocal links to other web sites or thousands of visitors per day to get the high rankings. It’s kind of a Catch–22 — you need the visitors for the ranking, but you went for the search engine optimization package to get the ranking, to get the visitors… oh, forget it!

If you want to get visitors to your web site, the visitors have to know that you’re out there. That means advertising! The Web is not a shortcut to success by any means.

Great expectations
So, why was this lady’s page not generating business? I can’t know that for sure, but my guess is she didn’t advertise it.

A lot of people think the Web is magical. Put up a web site and watch the traffic come rolling in to it.

Yeah, right.

That’s like hanging a sign over your door and immediately expecting the walk–up traffic to be lined up around the block. If nobody knows you’re there, you won’t get much business.

I’ve approached many businesses, family and friends included, about designing their web site. I wish I had a dollar for every one of them that said, "Oh, I’ve got one but it doesn’t get me a lot of business" or "I had one a while back but I never got one customer from it."

In the words of Homer Simpson — "Doh!"

Again, and I can’t stress this enough, people have to know your web site exists before you can attract visitors to it. Period.

They found you… now what?
Of course, once they get there, make sure your layout doesn’t drive them away. I covered this point in a previous newsletter [design4IMPACT Vol. 3 No. 5: Web Site Errors] — you can view it on my newsletter page.

These package—program web hosting sites give you a laundry list of cool things that you can add to your web site.

But, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Too much stuff is confusing.

Add to that the fact that most of the templates are designed by programmers, not graphic designers.

Programmers will code what is familiar to them — the tried and true. They aren’t paid to know what will work and what will not.

This means that you may be completely locked into where you can, and cannot, display images, text and other goodies.

If the placement doesn’t enhance the readability of your site, nobody is going to stick around to read what you have to say.

Summing up
The lesson that I want to drive home is this:

Make certain that you know what you’re doing before spending a wad of cash on a template web site and then advertising that site. If the site is ineffective, you’ve wasted your money on the site fee and the advertising expenses.

Who knows? It may actually be cheaper to hire a designer. Do your due diligence and make the decision that’s right for you.

After all, it’s your money.

Dave Keizur is a graphic designer and web marketer working out of his home office in Renton, WA.

Dave has completed projects for nationally known companies such as Boeing, The Shane Company, Nightingale–Conant, Intuit and the Amway Corporation, as well as for lesser known companies and public service organizations such as VitalMax Vitamins, Naturecast LLC, BNI Northwest, LeTip of South King County, Keller–Williams Realty and the Renton, WA Lions Club.

He is a member of the Graphic Artists Guild. His FREE monthly newsletter, design4IMPACT, is available for signing up at www.d4imarketing.com. Dave has also recently created a new video product Discover Lost Money That Is Owed To You with other projects coming in the near future.