This is actually pretty simple:  don’t.  If you want to get real results from your site, you need to be talking to someone who understands online marketing and has a proven track record of success, not just someone who wants to “build you a website.”

If you’re in the market for a new website, you need to make sure that you’re asking the right questions. Or at least, that the firms you’re talking to are asking you the right questions. I cannot say this enough: web design has become highly commoditized. There is a very low barrier of entry to being able to call yourself a “web designer.”  My father has built a website before, but you don’t want him building your business a website!

Everyone has a cousin Max, or knows someone who can “build a website,” but if you’re interested in really driving growth for your business through the Internet, just walk away…

Cover via Amazon

Here are some thoughts to consider if you think that you need a (new) website:
Building the site itself is only the first step.  This isn’t Field of Dreams, and you are not Kevin Costner. If you build it, they will not come. Get that idea out of your head altogether.

If you are going to launch a site, a good rule of thumb for most SMBs is that you should devote 25% of your budget to the site itself, and 75% to driving traffic and promoting it. So, if your web designer or firm doesn’t mention anything about what they are going to do after your site is launched, thank them for their time, and walk away.

Online success requires your interaction, so if anyone talks to you about building a site that cannot be easily updated (by you) in the future, then you need to keep interviewing vendors. There is absolutely no reason to build static websites anymore; not unless you are a true designer and can’t code your way out of a paper bag.

There are some amazing, free products that do all this for you! WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, just to name a few. If your web designer can’t build you a site on some type of content management  system, then you need to look elsewhere. There are many opinions over why you should use open-source or proprietary, but that’s another topic entirely.

Lastly, if the people you’re talking to are only asking questions about your taste in colors, and the kind of content you will have, and what imagery will be used; then walk away. Don’t get me wrong, those are all very valid questions, but that isn’t ultimately what will make your site successful. If you keep with the 75/25 rule, then on 1/4 of your discussion about the site should revolve around the site itself. The other 3/4 of the discussion should be focused on your business and what will be effective at marketing it online.  How is your audience, what appeals to them, what are their pain points, what are your differentiators from the competition? These are questions that can lead to a successfully developed website that will have some legs under it.

If you’re in the market for a new site – make sure you talk to at 3 firms, too.  It is very difficult to compare apples to apples when it comes to web design/development, and also with online marketing. TALK to your prospective vendors and make sure you feel comfortable with them, and have a high level of confidence that they know what they are doing.  Look for case studies, check references, do your homework and see if they can back up what they are telling you. Find out what/who they use for project management, and how they can ensure that your project will be completed on time, within scope, and within budget.

Good luck, and if you get stuck – we can always help you vet them out! 

I have a lot of mixed opinions about content management systems, and suffice it to say that there is no one, single solution that will work for situation.  However, I do feel that it makes zero sense to develop sites without one; the technology has come to far along to have a static website.

Content management is a must for building a successful web presence for a variety of reasons. If your prospective design firm isn’t talking to you about a CMS, then they may not really understand what it takes to bring about true online success.  Choosing a firm that understands how to make you successful is important, and so is understanding how a CMS factors into the online mix.

Definitions:
In order to make the distinction between the two, I’ll define a proprietary CMS as one that is built from the ground-up by a particular development/design shop. The cost for these systems is likely figured into the overall cost of the web project.

Open Source content management solutions are developed through the collaboration of many individual developers who contribute to code to the project in hopes of building a better mousetrap, so to speak. Open source software typically has no cost.

Pros and Cons:
There are many reasons for one system or another depending on the needs and the goal, but here are some points to consider:

What does the site need to do?
Seems pretty straightforward, but this needs to be drilled down to a granular level right off the bat. If the main goal of managing the content on your site is to allow someone in your organization to update the homepage copy and image gallery every quarter, then that is very different from needing a site that allows users to register and post their own content, or includes e-commerce capability.

The more complexity that your site most have, the less likely that a proprietary CMS will be a good fit for you, for the simple fact that in a proprietary system, that functionality will likely have to be developed from scratch.  Open source platforms like Joomla and WordPress have thousands of already completed plugins and components that can be installed, which saves a tremendous amount of development effort. Odds are, someone has already thought, “I would really it if my WordPress site also did…” and a component was developed for that specific reason. The open source community, being the nice folks they are, would then post that for the rest of the world to use. Pretty sweet.

Who is going to be maintaining the site?
How savvy is this person, and how often will they be making these changes? Often times, the motivation for building a proprietary CMS is that the end-user if considered more than the functionality.  Meaning that a proprietary CMS may not do as much, but it can do specific tasks much easier than something like Joomla. We have colleagues who have gone the proprietary route, and their system is so simple that a lobotomized monkey could use it. That’s awesome if you have a really non-technical person who is going to be maintaining the site, and the site will really serve as an information-only web presence. That is definite advantage for the proprietary systems. Open source systems vary in user friendliness. WordPress is idiot-proof, but Joomla and Drupal are software; and like most software, you would have to be shown how to use it initially.

What are the cost differences?
The differences in cost can range widely, so that’s a tough one to answer.  Due to the decreased functionality of proprietary systems, and the fact that the people who built it know the thing inside and out – you can often land a custom website with a proprietary CMS for relatively low investment.

That’s not to say that you can’t find someone to slap a Joomla site together for you on the cheap either. There are some questionable firms out there who are offering $500 Joomla sites with a pre-made template. The flip side of that is that we’ve worked on open source CMS projects that reached into the $50k range.

A better question is: how much will it cost you to start over?  Or, how much are you willing to pay to have your site worked on down the road?

What are you going to do in the future if…
Say you have a falling out with your development team for whatever reason, what would you do? Obviously, you need to find someone else who can work on your site. The issue with a proprietary CMS is that it is proprietary and most firms who offer these solutions do not really “sell” you the website in the traditional sense.  You own your site and it will be online, as long as you continue your relationship with that firm. But if you ever decide that you want to move your site to a different provider or have another team work on it, you may find that you’re out of luck.

I have worked with several clients over the years who were badly burned by this policy. And it may not really even be the proprietary developer’s fault. Simply put: you probably cannot move your site to another server and have it work. These sites need special libraries on the server, so moving the site to a cheaper hosting provider, for example, is impossible. That’s another thing to consider, too: hosting cost.  Hosting your proprietary site with the developer is likely to be more expensive. They like to call this “hosting & maintenance” but there is very little you can do about it, since you must host with them.

If you want to change hosts and you’ve gone the open source route – then no worries!  Host wherever you want, any decent hosting provider in the world will be able to accommodate you. If you need to have someone else work on your site for whatever reason, then you’re fine. There are thousands of people/companies that can work with open source CMS platforms. For that reason, you can truly “own” your website, and not just lease it from the original developer.

Summary
The first thing we try to nail down with any client is: what is the goal. I think that’s a really good place to start when considering a content management solution. Know what you need right now and what you don’t, but try to think about the future, too.  If you might start selling online in 12 months, that should factor into your criteria.  If you’re never going to need any more than an online brochure, then that will certain help you know which direction you should go.

Some related reading:

• Content is king when it comes to Web sites (news.cnet.com)
• Joomla versus WordPress – CMS development (teabreak.pk)
• How Did WordPress Defeat Joomla And Drupal As The Best Open Source CMS? (blogherald.com)

Here’s an interesting thing that I’ve noticed that is great news for marketers:

Precise stats on cart abandonment are tough because they range widely depending on the source, but if you take the mean then something like 50% of people who add something to their shopping cart never check out. That seems pretty high to me, but let’s be honest we’re all guilty of doing it – right?

Here’s another situation that was interesting to me along those same lines.  I went to go check out Angie’s List the other day. If you’re not familiar with the service, it’s a fantastic idea (especially when you’re trying to find someone to paint your new condo on the cheap!).  During the signup process, I never  realize it was a paid service – until I had already given my email address and created a password for my account.

That’s a good idea for their service, because now they have me!

I was short on time and didn’t want to go find my wallet and complete the signup process, so I closed the laptop and off I went.  True to my A.D.D. nature, I didn’t remember to go back and finish the checkout process, so guess what happened next? Angie’s List sends me an email a week that says “we noticed you didn’t finish signing up, so here’s a coupon” that would allow me to use the first month without paying for the service.

Image via Wikipedia

Smart strategy, and one that is easily achievable for your organization if you put a little thought into how you structure the calls to action on your site. Think through the service and information that you can offer on your site, and find ways to capture information about your site visitors. With cart abandonment (and signup) rates being whatever they are, why wouldn’t you want to reach back out to someone who expressed some interest in your products or services, but may have just gotten sidetracked?

Targeting and segmentation are the name of the game – so use the tools at your disposal: analytics, lists, etc. and improve on what may or may not be working on your site.  My favorite quote that relates to what we do was by Lord Kelvin over 100 years ago: “If you can not measure it, you can not improve it.”

A recent Comscore article shows that Facebook and Twitter Access via Mobile Browsers has Grows by Triple-Digits in the Past Year, which really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. I don’t know about you- but it seems that everyone I talk to these days has an iPhone, Droid, or Blackberry.

The rise of mobile technology has some neat (and somewhat frightening, in the Big Brother-sense) implications for how we can be targeted by marketing/advertising. Applications like Foursquare publishes your location to the world, which could allow a monitoring application to watch for anyone who “checks-in” at specific locations.  Think about the implications of checking-in on Beale Street in Memphis on a Saturday night, and then getting a reply that offers you no-cover entrance, or 2-for-1 on your first cocktail at a nearby blues club?

Consider what that technology could that do for restaurants: giving them the ability to offer location-specific specials for lunch or dinner?  What about B2B organizations (a lot of whom seem to be struggling with ways to use social media tools) who want to target locally?  It would be relatively simple for an application to cross-reference someone’s check-in location (like in your company’s office complex, for instance) with specific keywords in a Twitter profile data.  I could then send a message to anyone who is listed as a CMO or Director of Marketing that checks in at Memphis’ business incubator, Emerge Memphis, a message that said “Good to see you in our neck of the woods. If you’ve got 10 minutes, stop by and we’ll show you something neat that we’re up to”.

Alright, I may want to put a little more thought into that message itself, but the point is: I can get hyper-specific with who I am targeting and what messaging I send to that person.

A Better Mobile Web
My other thoughts on the rise of mobile are nothing new – I love that mobile technology gives us so much freedom and instant access to information, but I hate that web site (not app) developers are not catering more to mobile users.

Web sites need to get smarter!  This presentation from Razorfish’s John Petengill points out how mobile users do not want their Internet experience to be watered down. Check it out – very short, but powerful (plus its a really cool presentation).

Valeo is proposing an optional, mobile-friendly version of every with every new site project that we have pitched in the last 6 months.  Why wouldn’t you want a mobile site if you’re developing a new web presence?  Give mobile users a better experience, because their numbers will continue to rise.

There’s a lot of hype about having a mobile app, and there are some great companies who have developed an application that will build mobile apps for you. Our neighbors, Resolute Interactive, has developed their Appanda software that allows you to design and publish your own iPhone and Android app through a web interface. (Shameless plug: check out Valeo’s app on iTunes that was built using Appanda)

This is a break through for anyone who doesn’t want to hire someone like Resolute or Valeo to build you a custom app, but don’t forget about your website, which still has the power to drive far greater amounts of traffic to your online presence. Having your own mobile app is great – but between a mobile app, and a mobile-friendly version of your site, which do you think has more potential?  I’ll give you a hint- mobile apps are not showing up in search engine results…

Looking to the Future
Not huge in the States yet, but sure to be crossing the oceans and coming here soon, I think QR codes will play some part in the mobile future.  I’m not quite ready to talk about that yet – but we’re working up some ideas, so I’m sure we’ll have something for you sometime this year.  Stay tuned…

Some interesting reading about Foursquare:

• Facebook About to Drop a Bomb on Foursquare? (socialmediatoday.com)
• foursquare fascination (timesunion.com)
• Putting Foursquare-esque Technology to Work… at Work (socialmediatoday.com)