Gotcha!
Yeah, that’s a complete April Fool’s.
But seriously…website design and development is a complicated process. You can probably get one for free, somewhere, but we wouldn’t recommend it. Here’s why:
1. You get what you pay for. Free websites are usually outdated and clunky. If it’s cheap, you come across as ‘cheap’.
2. A website that hasn’t been designed with the end in mind is just an online brochure. All our websites include the development of a 12-month content marketing plan, in which we help you identify your niche/industry areas of focus, and 12 months of suggested actions that link to your website. Powerful stuff.
3. It’s your marketing hub. All your marketing activities should centre around your website. Emails should send people there; blog posts on social media draw people back to your site; social media accounts are linked to from your site; and I could go on about landing pages, automated follow up sequences, online product purchases, and more.
4. You want it to reflect your personality and image. Free or super-cheap websites look like everyone else’s. We don’t mind starting with a template (we often use WordPress templates as our jumping-off point), but there are days and days of time and design work and effort put in to make sure it looks like you, your firm, and your people, with your voice. Otherwise someone visiting it will not know who they’re visiting (or care).
5. You’ve got to value the process yourself. Seeing your website as something that just has to be done, ticked off the list (like ordering letterhead or buying a kettle for the office), means you may not understand what’s involved. When we build websites for accountancy firms, we have long conversations about who you are as a firm, what you do well, the clients you enjoy working with, your most profitable products and services, your chosen niche/industry areas. (If you don’t know what those are, we help you define them.) We may suggest a branding overhaul, if yours is outdated and would clash with an awesome new site. We set up Google Analytics, with monthly reports sent to you. We help you integrate your email marketing system (or set that up for you, if you don’t have one). And as mentioned, we have now begun including a full, 12-month content marketing plan so you are actually doing something with your site. Building you an amazing new website that just sits there is really pointless.
6. We value our own work. Yes, we could knock out a cheap website for a few hundred quid – but we won’t do it. It would not be right for you the client, you’d be ultimately disappointed, and what’s more you would get absolutely zero business from it. And you’d probably be really annoyed with us and speak ill of us to others. Nope, we value our website-building skills pretty highly – and we’re proud of our good work delivered to accountancy firms who previously had an old, outdated, useless site (as Henry Jones puts it, looking as though it was developed in the last century).
So, sorry for crushing your hopes of a free website delivered by tomorrow morning…nah, who are we kidding. We’re not sorry at all. 🙂
Have a great Easter weekend and when you’re ready for a website that is truly a marketing hub, drop us a line.