GeersSullivan Website

Posted on 9th December 2014 by Christabelle Harris

Creating a new website or rejuvenating an existing site brings about the same challenges. Recently we launched our new website which was a year in the making. Mistakenly we thought we could make the website more affordable by writing a lot of the content ourselves – how wrong we were! Our experience through this process illustrated that we were in fact the wrong people for the job, in that our input was required, however the crafting of the written material should be performed by someone who is an expert in advertising or marketing or even journalism for that matter. The written content gathered from within our firm read like a taxation advice letter however it was only when reviewing it with the website experts that we realised this and it was then that we changed our plan for the better. In reflection of our experience this process has highlighted the vital importance of getting the right advice at the right time. It is very obvious that the chances of succeeding in business are elevated when you engage the right advisors.

If I could pass on our learnings from this experience it would be the following:

1. Be very clear on the role your website will play in your overall marketing, this could range from a portal to gather information, a sales platform or just a plain “business card”;
2. Speak to a number of website and content developers to ensure they understand your business and in particular your culture;
3. If the site requires a lot of input from people within your business have your website advisors drive the process and hold them accountable;
4. Set a budget. Just like building a house having a budget means you have a greater chance of controlling costs;
5. Ensure the infrastructure behind the website is such that it can be accessed easily so that small changes and updates can be performed simply;
6. After the site is launched seek good advice to drive as many people as possible to your site!

One of the downsides of taking a year to complete a website is you are already thinking about improvements and developments that you can implement to keep improving it, so stay tuned for the next launch