It can be tempting for businesses to try and manage their own websites, and this is usually down to the misguided notion that it will save them money, when in reality, the opposite is usually true.
If you want to keep your content relevant, your images fresh and your website running as a well-oiled machine, it’s best to invest in the services of a professional website management firm, otherwise the following 10 disasters could happen to you:
- Failed website strategy
Without an effective strategy in place for running your website that’s based around information about your company, industry and customers, you may quickly begin to lose sales and completely miss your target audience.
- Ineffective or non-existent site tracking
If you’re a business owner with no experience or training in website analytics, it’s going to be impossible for you to track exactly what’s going on with your company website. Without effective tracking, you’ll never know how many visitors you’re getting every month, who they are, and where they’re coming from.
- Technical errors
Being able to create a website that’s tailored to the unique needs of targeted consumers, isn’t as easy as you might think. A successful website must be fully functional at all times and is about so much more than simply good content and images. If you don’t update your plugins and fix broken links, who will?
- Dead pages
A potential customer who attempts to access your website and is met with an error message, will go elsewhere, and in many instances, may never bother to check back in the future. A website management company will rectify dead pages instantly, something that you may not have the technical skills to do.
- Broken links
Without regular maintenance (which requires a certain degree of technical know-how) broken links can quickly begin to have a negative impact on your professional reputation and your page rankings.
- Content that’s outdated
Fresh, new and relevant content is the only type of content a website needs. If you don’t have it, you’ll simply find that visitors drift away, taking their money with them.
- Features that are outdated
Staying on top of all the latest developments in website features is a mammoth task, and one that busy business owners invariably don’t have the time to do. Yet, if you don’t keep the site’s features updated, it could become unsecure and possibly hacked.
- Ineffective web design
Perception is reality and your website if your 24/7 store front. If a visitor visits your website and finds a slow, ineffective website, they’ll assume your business is not up to par. Never underestimate the power an effective website can have to convert visitors into customers.
- SEO that performs abysmally—or not at all
A website that isn’t maintained or designed well, can have a significant (and often devastating) impact upon your site as a whole, and perhaps even more importantly, on your rankings in the search results pages.
- Wasted resources
If it takes a long time to maintain your website every day, week and month – typically because business owners don’t really have the skills required – you could end up wasting hundreds of hours that could have been spent on growing your business—costing you not only time, but money.
Can you manage your own website? Absolutely. But unless you really know what you’re doing and have the hours to devote to maintaining it properly, you’re always better off hiring a website management team like Towers Marketing Group to get it done professionally for you. Call us today and let us show you our website portfolio.
