Over the past month, we at Candybox marketing have been redeveloping our corporate website (that will be launched in the next two weeks). It has given us tremendous insight into why companies outsource this type of job to external agencies, even if they have the resources to complete it. During this process, we have come up with the Top 5 reasons why companies should outsource their website development.
1. Your priority as a company
A company’s website is reasonably argued to be the most important marketing / communications tool that is seen every day. Although it should be your top priority, the task quickly falls to the bottom of the projects list because of the demands of your business, paying customers, and daily management of your operations. Once you hire an external company, you can be assured that it will remain their top priority until the task is completed.
2. Specialized Resources
To have a successful website, we believe it takes four key resources to make it a successful project that you company probably doesn’t have. Here’s a quick list of staff you will need:
- Project / Strategic Management – Without proper management and goal setting, your website may not end up doing what you had originally planned to achieve. Project Managers can help connect the dots from concept to launch.
- Design – Your web developer has design programs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he is a designer. In most cases, designers & web developers have completely different skill sets and are constantly fighting the left vs. right brain battle.
- Web Development – Don’t allow your designer to simply ‘convert’ their pictures using a program like Dreamweaver. These programs adds a tremendous amount of junk code are terrible for search engine Optimization. You need a good developer.
- SEO Development – Your web-developer will make it work, but an SEO developer makes sure that your keywords are carried through from the image naming convention to your sitemap. Without this phase, your pretty little sight may not see the light of day if it doesn’t generate natural organic traffic.
3. Simplicity of your Message
Most business owners / marketers are supposed to be the website director, but can’t see the forrest for the trees. Having someone involved in your website, who is not part of your business, will help you clarify what your main messaging is.
4. User perspective
Outsourced companies can help you think about the end user. Every good website is built from the end goal backwards. For example, if you want to generate a Real Estate website to generate leads, you need to find out what will make website visitors provide their information. Everything else on the site should be focused on this one objective.
5. Cost of Building
The time associated to generating the website flow, design, development and having a company optimize it for search engines is usually more than you think. For a simple 10-paged website, you may spend over 200 labor hours and 3 months of planning. We typically turn around websites in 2-3 weeks because that is all we do.
So take it easy on yourself, and give us a call.
