Website Planning: Unrealistic Expectations
When planning a website, you might not know which expectations you’re setting for your website are realistic or not. If you’re not super web savvy, it’s always good to hire a web consultant to help you map out your “plan of attack” to ensure you’re getting the results you’d like to see come from your investment. A good web consultant will be straightforward with you about whether your plan is doable — that means they should be able to tell you, “Yes, this is possible,” or, “No, this is not possible.” If all you get is “Yes, this is possible!” from them, then either you have created a really simple plan, or they’re lying to you just to get your business.
Let’s explore some examples of Unrealistic Expectations:
- “I want my website to be as big as Facebook within the first month I launch it.”
This is impossible. Why? Facebook wasn’t created overnight. They have invested millions upon millions, years and years, into making their site as big as it is now. Having the attitude of “I want to be the next Google” will get you nowhere, unless you have Oprah or Queen Elizabeth providing you endless amounts of funding and you know ALL of the best web developers in the entire world that are willing to devote every waking moment they have to helping you.
- “I want to spend $60/month on advertising and get at least 10,000 new visitors to my site with that investment.”
If you break down the $60/month investment and look at it on a daily basis, that’s $2/day you’re spending to gain at least 333 new visitors. That’s $.006 for each of the 333 visitors. That’s less than a penny per lead, or new visitor! You have to be willing to spend money to make money. It’s always been this way in the brick & mortar world, and it’s definitely this way in the online world. If you don’t spend money to get the word out and let people know you exist, then they’re not going to know you from Adam.
- “I’m starting a news website and I want it to look and function like CNN.com, but I only want to pay $500.”
This type of expectation is similar to wanting to be as big as Facebook in a month. $500 might get you a very nice looking website, but it will not function like CNN.com. The “look & feel” of a website is merely one aspect that is considered when pricing a website. The overall functionality is the biggest aspect that is taken into consideration. It takes a great deal of time to get a website set up that functions like CNN.com. Depending on the rate you’re paying your web developer, you might only get a small portion of the functionality you want for $500. That’s not necessarily because the developer is overcharging you, but it’s because of the large amount time involved in building out the functionality. The Roman Empire wasn’t built in a day, and neither was CNN.com.
