Trying to build a website yourself

In the small business world, trying to build a website yourself can be comprehended in these ways:

• Son is building my site
• Your wife is building your site
• A friend is building my site
• "I have someone that will be handling that for me"
• "We are working on our website"
• "My sister builds websites for a living and she is going to help us"
• "I am building my site, I got it covered"
• "My daughters boyfriends mom is building the site for our business"

I have heard and came across so many other ways in which people build their site.  I met with a customer today who built her own site herself in 2001.  What an awful site it is too.  There are no useful links into her site, she has no beneficial text within her site and it is virtually impossible to have her site indexed by any search engines.  The site itself isn't even named with any useful indexable descriptions...it's just blank.  She virtually has a website that is blind to search engines.

It is worth your time to have someone that is good at search engine optimization, at least look at and consult with you regarding your website code.  Don't be to cheap to get a good website built.  Your competition is paying a lot of money so that your business isn't called.  Consumers are looking for that number they can call first and you need to have the opportunity to be one of the businesses that is being contacted.  Invest in the best site possible.  Just because a company will offer you a $150 website doesn't mean it will be able to help your business survive within the small business world.  In my opinion, it takes at least a 30 page site to even get anything that would begin to be competitive in this current market.

-iLocal Staff