I was speaking to a potential client this morning, and she was expressing concern over having had somebody on her team who was a “techie geek”.

Yes, he built her a website but he didn’t have all the qualities that she needed in that kind of a resource in order to help her build and expand her business.

What I mean by that is there are a lot of people who have a vast array of skillsets in the online marketing world such as programmers, graphic designers, digital marketers, and SEO specialists.

There are a lot of different components that come into play when we talk about having a website.

The trap many people fall into is that their next door neighbor, a friend or even their son has learned how to figure out how to build a website.

They go, “yay I’ve found somebody who can build me a website!” and go for it but end up being disappointed with the results. The reason isn’t because of this particular person they hired, it’s because this person didn’t have all the skills they needed in order to put all of those different considerations into place when it comes to building a proper website.

Branding Considerations

One of those factors is branding; you have to have the right brand design. How you are visually presented to your audience is extremely important. If the wrong colours, font choices and layout display (the way you are being presented) is wrong and is turning off your ideal client, then it doesn’t matter what kind of website you have.

You are going to be turning away more clients than you are attracting.

Technical Considerations

The other part is on the technical side; the programming. There’s a big difference between somebody who has learned how to download and install a WordPress theme that’s already been built and a qualified web programmer.

A programmer understands the back-end of how a website functions and can build a proper website. Like what we do here at eVision Media where we don’t use pre-made themes.

We custom design a template or theme for our clients so they get exactly what they need and exactly what their potential clients are looking for when they come to the site and so we don’t have to work within the constraints of those prepackaged themes. Yes, they are cheaper but they are often not working on your behalf.

You are going to end up losing more money in the long run than gained. A programmer would be able to take a custom design and create a website that looks exactly like that design and understands all the functionality that’s going on behind the scenes so that if anything goes wrong they can immediately fix it.

Marketing Considerations

And then there’s the marketing component which is the copywriting and visuals. How is your site being presented? What kind of text is on there? What kinds of images are being used that are going to attract your ideal client to want to hire you?

SEO Considerations

The final part is SEO. Just because you have a website doesn’t mean that miraculously all kinds of people are going to come to it and start buying from you.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. How a website is built directly affects the search engine optimization which affects how Google and other search engines can easily find your website.

So the better your website is built, the more SEO optimized it is, the easier Google and other search engines are going to find you by being higher up in the search engine rankings. Of course there’s more to it than that. There are other SEO techniques that you should be doing regardless of how your website was built.

If your website was built properly with SEO in mind right from the beginning, you are going to be off to the races quite a bit faster than if you use one of the templated websites.

Programmers are Not Marketers and Graphic Designers

Going back to what I was talking about hiring programmer: programmers are often not a marketer nor a graphic designer.

Yes, they can technically put together your website and make it function but they have may have missed those other areas; the graphic design, the brand presentation, and the marketing.

And that is going to break your site. It’s not going to be as effective as it could be.

In a perfect world you would want to hire a team of people where there’s somebody who understands the brand design, programming and technical part of it, the copywriting, marketing and SEO. And that’s what eVision Media is.

We are a team of people who are experts in all those different areas so if you hire us to build your website for you, you are getting all of those under one roof. That’s standard operating procedure for us when we build a website for a client. The site is customized and optimized and is going to get you presented way better than if you just had those pre-built themes or had a ‘techie geek’ put it together.

I say that very fondly because we have techie geeks on our staff but I would never ask one of my programmers to design something because that’s not in their realm of skill and expertise. I’m asking somebody who doesn’t know that skill to do something and that’s the kind of thing you are wanting to have happen if you hire a programmer to build you a website.

You are hoping and anticipating them to also know graphic design, marketing and SEO and the chances are really good they don’t. You need to ask because there are some generalists who can do that and know all of those areas but there’s not that many of them out there.

Do your due diligence and when you are ready to hire somebody to build you a website make sure you are asking them the right questions, do they know all of those other areas? If they don’t, give us a call and we’ll help you out with that.

I’d love to hear what you think – Have you resisted in starting or continuing to blog? Share your response below in the comments section or if you have a question, I’d be happy to answer.

About the Author, Susan Friesen

Located in the lower mainland of B.C., Susan Friesen is a visionary brand strategist, entrepreneur, and founder of British Columbia’s premiere boutique web development and digital marketing agency, eVision Media.

With over 20 years of experience in the industry, she is an expert in helping businesses establish their online presence and create a strong brand identity.

Her passion for empowering entrepreneurs and small business owners to succeed in the digital world has earned her a reputation as a leading authority in the branding and marketing industry.

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