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Already have a website? Is it delivering the results you need?

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Common website mistakes

Building a website yourself?

Thinking that you can build your own web site?

Do you really have the expertise and time?

Would you call a plumber or an electrician to install a toilet? Would you retain a mechanic or an accountant to do your taxes? Would you go to the casino or the bank for financing? Sounds risky, doesn't it?

You'd go to an expert for these services. A website is as important to your business as your accountant or your bank. Why risk it? Put your trust in professional website designers and developers.

You need to consider whether or not the website you build today will take care of your needs as your business grows or evolves. Here are a few things to think about regarding do-it-yourself websites and templates:

1. Can you grow the site?

  • What do you do if you want to add new pages?
  • How big can the site grow?
  • What are the costs involved?

2. Can you add new features?

  • Can you add a blog? a form mailer? an event registration? a customer list?
  • Can you add social networking?
  • What's the cost?

3. Who's going to take care of making the site visible to search engines?

  • SEO is an ongoing task requiring regular updates, and it's a lot more involved than simply adding key words.

4. How customizable are those templates you're getting?

  • Are you making do with a pre-made template, or would you rather have a customized pages that show off the best of your business?
  • Is the content in the template visible to search engines?
  • Can the titles of the template pages be changed? (Important for SEO)

5. Beware of franchise or affiliate deals that include a website and shopping cart

  • Descriptions of items in the database may not be visible to search engines
  • Can't add local information
  • Tech support costs and hours
  • Limited features
  • Are you forced to pay an unnecessary monthly maintenance fee?

6. Do you have the ability?

  • You're pretty good at what you do to run your business, but can you design an effective website that gets the proper message to your potential customers?
  • You might be computer savvy, but setting up hosting and the URL, testing and taking care of SEO are a lot different

7. How much is your time worth to the business, and do you really have the time to do the website properly?

  • Good design and good copy always take much longer than you plan, and the "minutes to configure" are rarely as advertised.

Call 703-615-2149 and talk to us before making this decision. If afterwards you still want to build your own website, Mercury can offer support during the process.

  

 

OK, you read this, answered all the questions to your satisfaction, and you are confident you can build the website. What's next?

We can still help you by providing assistance during the process. 

Support Services for building your own website:

Create a Website

WebSite Tonight®, an advanced, template-based Web site building tool, allows you to build and publish a fully-functional storefront Web site in a few easy steps. WebSite Tonight® also includes hosting for your unlimited-page site.