You need a website that is uniquely and distinctively YOU; not a reused template like everybody else has.

To stand out to your potential customers you must find ways to differentiate yourself from your competitors and effectively communicate your Unique Selling Proposition. A generic, template website is usually not a very good way to do that. It does get you up and ‘on the web’ fast, but usually fails to transcend a subliminal message that your business is just another ‘me too’ in your marketplace.

Of course, maybe that is all your business is? But if not, and you are going to invest at all in a web-presence for your business, you should make sure that it is a powerful presentation of who YOU are and WHAT you offer.

Your website should help build your brand, showcase your strengths and accentuate the benefits of your products or services over all the rest.

You need a website that makes your potential customers feel confident about doing business with you.

Selling your products or services to new customers like adopting an abused puppy from an animal shelter, or trying to start up a romantic relationship with someone whose been jilted a few times.

Most of our potential customers have already had more than a few experiences with less than competent, less than honest or less than amazing businesses. Overcoming those obstacles and avoiding any association of you and your business with those other bad experiences has to be job-one in the sales process.

Do you feel like ordering dinner from a restaurant where you see little crawly things skittering around in the shadows and around the edges? That’s what happens to potential customer’s confidence in your business if your website doesn’t loudly and clearly communicate Professionalism and Quality.

Your brief opportunity to make a good first impression can be quickly quashed if potential customers come to your website and have a bad experience because it looks like a template, the pages load slowly, its confusing and hard to figure out what you are all about or where anything is.

You need a website that accomplishes the objectives of your BUSINESS PLAN.

I’m a strong believer in economy and utilitarianism for small business websites; that’s business-speak for ‘I don’t have time or money to waste on anything that doesn’t help my business do what it is here to do – sell products or services to customers who are satisfied with them, and to make a profit while doing so!’

Your website should have no other reason for existence than as an on-line tool to help achieve your business plan. That means you need to have a website that effectively facilitates at least some of your critical business processes, like lead generation and new customer acquisition, or customer service and technical support.

And it should do this in a way that faithfully represents WHO you are and WHAT you stand for as a business (your brand, your distinctives and your values). And it should inspire confidence in your expertise, integrity and credibility to every person who visits your website.

If someone who is trying to sell you a website isn’t making a strong case for why their product will deliver exceptionally well in these three ways, maybe you should look for other alternatives. Don’t settle. Get what you need! A website is a strategic investment for a small business. It is a crucial tool that can really help, but only if it is designed correctly and really works FOR you!

I do. Or at least I did, before I became an entrepreneur (that’s someone who, perhaps like you, is crazy enough to follow their dream and really make a go at starting and then running their own small business)!

That brings me to the topic of building your own small business website. There are many viable options for building a small business website other than looking to working with a company like IWS.

For example:

1. Costco and Sam’s Club offer build your own web site services to their members.
2. Many ISP’s offer website tools to their domain name or hosting package customers. Two examples are GoDaddy.com and Networksolutions.com.
3. There are many independent web-based businesses that offer website building tools, for example, web.com.

You should definitely consider this option for your small business website project if all of the following are true for you.

1. You have the TIME to do it. (Its often not as quick and easy as the marketing ads say, if you do it right.)
2. You have the ENERGY to do it. (You’ll need to fit it into your already exhausting schedule.)
3. You have the CREATIVITY to do it. (A good site for your business will have just the right mix of something new to differentiate you from your competitors, something really unique to brand your business, and a lot to make visiting your site a good experience for your visitors.)
4. You have the PATIENCE to do it. (Lots of steps to take, many issues to address, etc.)
5. You have the ENDURANCE to do it. (1-4 above)

However, you will probably find that your time would be better spent developing products and services, and of course working with your leads and your customers, rather than digging into the nuts and bolts of the backend systems of your business – like your website.

Small business owners, of all people, have the greatest need to focus on the main things that will drive the success of the business. There really isn’t any time to waste on building tools and refining systems if you never make it out into the field to get the real work of the business done.

To continue the farming imagagery, what good does it do to have a barn full of high tech tractors and the latest and greatest tools if the fields don’t get plowed, the seed doesn’t ever get planted and the harvest is not brought in.  If you are working in the fields, it can really help to upgrade your tractor, or even to buy one if you’re looking at the south-end of a north bound farm animal all day. If you have the time, skills and opportunity to make it happen by yourself, then that may be the best thing for you to do. But if working on the machine keeps you so occupied that you don’t have time to get out into the fields, well, the results are very predictable – and it happens to small businesses every day.

So, should you do-it-yourself when it comes to building your own website and managing your online marketing? Sometimes the answer is yes, often times the better answer is no. You would be better off finding some who would help you carry that load and get that set of business tools up and running to assist you in your work with your customers and products so you don’t lose moment, you just gain it where it matters most – in the marketplace!