Valuable Advice: The Tea and The Tea Cup

Most business owners have a strong personal identification with their web site. Done right, a web site is a personal statement on style and value for a small business owner, which is understandable psychology. Thus, conversations about web sites can get emotional, which is fertile ground for someone trying to sell you a new web site, when your current site seems lacking. It is also why so many business owners are oversold new web sites when they only need a content refresh.

The Valuable Advice: Understand how web sites are built so you do not overbuy web services.Think of the content of your web site like tea in a tea cup.You can pour Earl Grey out and replace it with Chamomile.It can be hot or cold.You can fill it halfway or all the way.Now think of the web site programming as the teacup.If the cup is broken, you need a new one.If you need more tea, you don't have to get a new teacup, too.

At Dog Star Media, we have a simple set of questions to determine if you need a new web site built:

1) Is the software malfunctioning beyond repair or update?

2) Does the site require functionality that can only be added with a new site?

If the answer is no to both, usually the desired updates can be done with a content update, which is a much less time-consuming and less expensive endeavor.To understand a content update, use the Tea/Teacup analogy. The "teacup" is the Content Management System (CMS) programming of your web site.The vast majority of small business web sites are not hard-coded, they are built with a CMS.  So, you don't have to rebuild a site to make major changes, you can just change the content. Adding pages, changing text and pictures, adding functionality… all the things that come up on most punch lists for new web sites, can be added through content updates.

Quick word on content updates: They can be minor or major. At Dog Star Media, we try to let user experience statistics tell us if you need a more than a basic content update and, if so, how much and where. Even in the case of a major content update, it is less than building a new site from scratch, both on the calendar and for your wallet.

If you want to take evaluate the improvement of your web site, please email us here.