After
years on the Net, I believe you need to learn how to
design your sites yourself, and here's why ...
Yes,
audio and video technologies are growing fast. But if
you hope to sell on the Net, it's critical to appeal to
your audience, those folks who are willing to pull out
their credit cards and buy your products. A huge
percentage of these are still on dialup and certainly
aren't very sophisticated and fancy techniques will
isolate you from many of them.
So what
are your choices if you want to build a website?
1.
Buy a Template:
This
can work sometimes. I've bought them myself and they do
look great. But there are some real problems with
templates:
• They
can be expensive - especially if you want multiple
websites. Good templates aren't cheap. The few I've
bought are in the $60-$70 range.
• If
you don't know what you're doing, you can waste your
money on templates that won't work for you. For
instance, you will often see templates with icons,
pictures, company logos, "Buy Now" buttons and more.
Yes, they look great. But when you download the images
they are not editable because if they are in jpg or gif
format, you can't make changes. The most common
'editable' images are in 'psd' format. If you own image
editing software, like Photoshop (which usually sells
for about $600), you can make the changes you wish. But
if you don't own this kind of software then forget it -
your images can't be changed.
•
Editing templates isn't easy. You might unwittingly
purchase a template that allows 8" of space - and your
copy needs 10" of space. Now what? Cheaper templates
require the purchaser to "slice" them. This is tedious
and time consuming and requires editing knowledge that
most people don't have. Higher quality templates allow
the owner to edit them without slicing, but they are
more expensive.
• Even
if you can edit your new template, do you really think
that you should allow a designer to dictate the
placement of your sales copy? Beautiful design does not
equal sales. Just because something looks good doesn't
mean it's a good sales site. Many novices are impressed
with the good looks of a template, but Madison Avenue
beauty doesn't equal profits on the Net. Earning money
comes from effective direct response marketing which
means testing the elements on your sales page and
changing them until you have a winner. If your design is
forced on you, you are limited in the changes you can
make.
2.
Pay a Website Designer to Build a Site for You:
•
Hiring a professional can be expensive. I currently have
a goal of building two websites each week for a year.
Let's assume I pay someone $500 to build a website
(which is quite a reasonable amount for a well done site
- it often costs much more.) That means I will be paying
$1,000/week, every week, for a year. My money is better
spent on marketing than design.
• Every
time you want to make a change on your site, you must
wait on a designer to make the changes. This is
expensive and can be time consuming, if the designer is
busy with multiple clients.
• Just
like a purchased template, most web designers are
focused on looks and appearance, rather than
functionality or sales. All the best marketers
acknowledge that plainer sites are more lucrative
because the focus is on the copy, the words, rather than
fancy graphics or beautiful colors. Take a look at the
top money-making sites on the net. They rarely are
flashy or dramatically impressive.
•
Relying on a web designer creates dependency. Generally
the motivation of entrepreneurs is freedom so waiting
for another person to make even the smallest changes to
your site isn't taking you in the direction you want to
go.
3.
Buy Site-Making Software:
Every
program I have seen involves a learning curve. One
popular site builder, for example, has a 500 page
manual, is expensive and a lot of the learning doesn't
transfer to other site systems. I looked at another one
recently with a 300 page manual. The time that you spend
learning these methodologies could be spent learning an
HTML editor that will make you fully capable of building
your own sites, whenever you choose, for almost zero
cost.
Spend
the time and learn do it yourself websites. I personally
spent two weeks in 'Dreamweaver Hell' several years ago.
All reviews indicated that Dreamweaver is the best HTML
editor, so I bought a book and determined to learn the
software on my own. The first book wasn't long enough so
I returned it for a second - and longer - book, which
eventually was exchanged for an almost-1200 page manual.
There were moments of frustration, tears, triumph,
cursing and the thrill of success, and I emerged able to
put together websites whenever I chose.
Saying
"I want to be an Internet marketer" and not learning how
to build websites for yourself is like wanting to be a
dentist - and refusing to learn about teeth; like being
a star athlete - and refusing to practice your sport. So
what if your first sites won't win a design award?
You'll get better. And you will be independent. Isn't
that the entire point of working on the Internet?
