If you happen to be a business with a workforce of two to three people and you want to have a website, you might be wondering should I just get my tech-savvy son/daughter/uncle/neighbour to do my website with a template? Or should I spend some money and employ a website designer?

Sometimes the answer is: You don’t know what you don’t know.

Let’s see if I can spot the websites that have gone the DIY route and bought a template online. Let’s Google ‘Kitchen Designers Brisbane’. It looks like the websites that made the first page really had some time and effort put in. Nice designs, lots of handy content, and completed titles (including their location).

So the first lesson is: If you want to be found in Google’s first page, the first step is optimised titles, more than three pages, real content, and no Java.

You can also rely on a Local Business listing to bring in some active searchers. Look at your competitors – do they all have website links? Are they good websites? What can we do to ensure your business stands out?

What about design? For highly impressionable public in a competitive market, if your design looks a bit odd, is not easily navigable, and looks a bit last century, you might find your visitors fleeing in under 1 minute.

Some people do start off with a customised WordPress site, which is OK for a while. However, WordPress was designed to be a blog tool for quickly updated content… it may well display dates and times every time you change a page. As we have done here, WordPress is perfectly OK to append to your main site as a Blog. It helps with SEO too, if there are regular postings.

What about conversion? When you write the content for your website (or your wife or mother writes it), will it connect with your target market?

Nett magazine says, “Confusing, long-winded or ungrammatical copy can damage your brand… your copy needs to be well-structured and economical.”

A copywriter will incorporate your unique selling proposition, make your target audience think “wow I should do that”, and follow up with a clear call to action.

While it is normally up to $2,000 for copywriting of a 5-10 page website, here at Red Planet Design we are lucky to have an in-house copy writer. So we can ensure your new website is written well for a super low price (with optimised titles and headings), including initial consultation and revisions. Just ask for a written quote.