Quite often at Clare Associates we find ourselves picking up the pieces of previous attempts to solve business problems, especially with the company website. Usually these problems can be traced back to the decisions taken when this website was first developed.
The first type of business has money to spend, but no time. They say to their expensive web designer “We need a website. Here’s lots of money, go and make it happen.” The expensive web designer goes away and creates a fantastic looking website. It’s got everything – fancy effects, beautiful photography, even the buttons have that lovely rounded feel. For some reason, expensive web designers often come from an art and design background rather than an IT background, so they do what they know best.
The second type of business has rather more time than the first. They’ve done a little research and they don’t think they can afford an expensive web designer. But they can afford that son of a friend who knows how to “do websites” and who won’t be very expensive. And in any case, he’ll have the time to keep improving the site, adding more content and generally keeping it up to date.
To be honest, neither of these approaches is likely to get the business the website it needs. The first, expensive, website will look good, but it is going to be difficult to keep it up to date with new products and news about the company. It might not show up in search engines as well as it should. The second, cheap, website will be cheap, but it might look clunky and old-fashioned. And the company may still depend on this son of a friend to make occasional updates.
There is a third way. Continue reading