Small Business Website Traps
There’s no doubt that, in this day and age, just about every small business needs a website. Even in small country towns more and more people are going to the Web to search for information about the goods and services they want to buy.
Because there’s such a need for small business websites there are plenty of people around who make a living from building websites for local businesses. Some are very good at what they do while others … no matter how professional they might look and sound … simply have no clue.
Many, whether they’re good or bad, will try to hold on to you as a client … and that’s fair enough … but it’s what they do to retain you as a client that can really hurt your business. Good web designer businesses will seek to keep you as an ongoing client by offering you services that go on adding value to your small business.
The not so good web design businesses will seek to keep you as a client by holding you hostage and you need to be aware of some of the tricks that they use. Here are two of those sneaky ways that we’ve come across in the last year.
Owning Your Domain Name
Many web design businesses will offer to purchase your domain name for you … and that is quite reasonable. If you’ve never done it before you can end up paying a whole lot more for your domain name than you need to and in small business every dollar counts.
However, if you do elect to have the web designer purchase your domain name, make sure that they transfer it into your name as soon as possible. We know of one designer who purchases many domain names for his clients but seldom transfers them into the client’s name. That means that if the client ever wants to take their business elsewhere they can but they have to leave the domain name behind and start all over again.
Content Management Systems
Content management systems are scripts that many designers use to build out a website. There are definite pros and cons when it comes to content management systesm and, for what it’s worth, we prefer to use straight HTML to build websites for clients. We see the disadvantages of content management systems as far outweighing the advantages.
There are many content management scripts out there on the Web; some are free and very well supported and some are not. Some content management systems are custom-built for clients and if that is what you need you will be able to take the script with you if you take your website business elsewhere after your site has been built.
Some web designers have their own unique content management systems that no other designer has access to and they use them to build clients’ websites whether such a system is needed or not. The end result there is that if one of their clients wants to take their business elsewhere the new designer has to start from scratch and do a complete re-design of the website and if you’re that client it’s going to cost you a lot of money.
So make sure that your web designer is either using straight HTML or a content management system that you can take with you if you elect to move to take your business elsewhere.
Getting your small business online can have great benefits for your visibility and your cash flow but it can also cost you a lot of money if you get caught by an unscrupulous designer who is prepared to hold your business hostage simply to put more money in his or her pocket.
