Website Creation Service – Why would you want this?
When you decide to make your own business website it’s very easy to buy a domain and some hosting and think “let’s see how this works, then” and go from there.
While this might seem like a great way to get stuck in and to get your site online, it might not be the best way to go.
Consider, for a moment, how much your website could be worth to you if it bought in new business and generated leads that could be followed up. How much is that worth to you?
More importantly; how much is that worth to your competitors?
It seems like a bit of a strange question to ask doesn’t it? Allow me to provide some perspective.
Let’s say there are two plumbers competing with each other in the same town. We’ll call them Jeff and Lee.
Jeff’s pretty keen to give the website a try himself. Go Jeff. He’s bought a domain and some hosting and he’s using an “easy to use web builder” and he’s managed to get a site up and running in a few days. The site is beginning to generate a trickle of business. Jeff feels good about himself knowing that he’s made a difference to his business. Good for you Jeff.
Lee, on the other hand, hates computers. He’s bought a domain and some hosting, and he gave the “easy to use web builder” a try and what he made looked like a 5 year old drew it with a crayon. He deleted his website because he thought it didn’t adequately represent the high quality plumbing work he offers, but he’s now a bit stuck. He knows he needs a website, he knows Jeff has got one and he’s getting business from it, but he doesn’t know how to get the same thing Jeff has got. What does Lee do?
Well, it turns out that Lee has started shopping around for quotes to make a website. His next door neighbour’s nephew has offered to “give one a try” for £50. He’s done a bit of googling and has found some companies offering websites for £1200 plus VAT. He also called his hosting provider and asked them. Now, not many hosting providers make websites for people (we do, but we’re a bit different, I’ll cover this later), they just provide the “home” for a site and a set of “utilities” that a site needs to run, but they were able to provide some advice, which was this…
When it comes to making a website there’s a lot more going on that just the website that people see. There’s also the website that search engine robots see and they use what they see (which looks different to what humans see) and things like how quickly pages load to work out the position of a page in search engine results. Consequently you can have a great looking website that nobody visits because it’s on page 704 of google search results, and you can also have very plain looking websites right at the top of google. Also, some people develop websites as a profession and get paid handsomely for this. Other people just to do the “appeal to search engines part” and they also get paid quite a lot. To expect that you’ll be able to pick all this up in a few days might be a bit of an ask, otherwise everyone would be doing it. To get a website that’s “universally good” you could end up paying between £400 and £1200 plus VAT depending on who’s making it. It’s also possible to pay the same amount and end up with a website that’s not that great. You can pick up cheap website making people off freelancer sites, but that’s a bit hit and miss as to whether it will be good, bad or both in different ways.
Lee’s brain is now beginning to melt. He just wants some new business and a website that adequately represents him. It’s even crossed his mind to give Jeff a ring and ask him if he’ll make him a website. He doesn’t do that though, he enlists the help of a nerd. Let’s call this nerd Eugene.
Eugene pops round to Lee’s and google’s “plumbers near me”. He looks at the top 5 websites and notices that a couple have ‘made by so and so’ or ‘created by so and so’ at the bottom, so he makes a note of these companies and looks them up. He also runs a few of the top sites through SEO tools like semrush. Lee asks Eugene what he’s doing and Eugene says “Lee, you’re not the first person to want a website”, and hands Lee a list of 3 phone numbers to call.
Suddenly Lee’s life has got a bit easier. He starts phoning these people on speakerphone while it’s still before Eugene’s self imposed bedtime.
Lee wasn’t sure about the first company, they sounded a bit pushy wanted a lot of money, and didn’t really listen to him. Eugene was making throat cutting gestures! The second company sounded OK and asked Lee a lot of questions and then asked him what his budget was and did some calculator sounding things (thumbs up from Eugene!). The price was a bit more than what Lee wanted to pay, but he made a note of them anyway. The third company was a person sounded like he’d just woken up. This person rattled off a list of statistics that got Eugene’s thumbs up, but that Lee couldn’t make head nor tail of.
Lee got his website made by the second company, which took two weeks. This was longer than Lee had expected as “it’s mostly just typing isn’t it?”. In this time Jeff’s had numerous jobs from his website and Lee’s only just got his off the ground. Lee is currently consoling himself with the fact that he’s finally got a website up and running despite the time it’s taken, and the expense.
So what happens next?
It turns out the company that Lee used know they’re stuff and Lee’s website is ranking well for plumber related search terms, specifically relating to his home town. He’s actually picking up more business from his site than Jeff is. Jeff is now finding that he’s actually getting queries from a town a few miles away, if any, which he finds a bit strange. Within 6 months, Lee has picked up enough new business and some contractual work which easily cover the initial expense of his website. He’s also had to take on an apprentice from the local college to help him out as he’s getting more new business coming in as each day passes.
As it turns out, Lee is getting what he’s paid for and seeing relative results. So is Jeff, but it’s less, because he did it himself and he’s a plumber and not a web developer.
Jeff didn’t know, it’s not his fault. Lee knew he didn’t know, so he paid someone who did know, who makes a living from that kind of thing (or just typing as some would put it).
Here at netnerd.com we know that it’s not to everyone’s taste this website thing. We also know you’re probably not going to pick everything up in a couple of days if you’re new to this kind of thing. That’s why we offer to make websites for our customers. We’ll also do it a bit cheaper than average, as you’re already paying to host with us. We’re also sat here at our desks typing. I mean, you might as well get something out of all that typing we’re doing. We’ve also been doing this a while, and we’ve also been doing a lot of experiments, reading a lot, and making it go faster.
You, like Lee, can save your brain from melting by taking advantage of our website creation service. All you have to do is get in touch with us, and well take you through the options.
Jeff’s been hacked by the way, he’s just paid for our malware clean up service. He didn’t know he had to apply updates…. and why would he? He’s a plumber.
