I am constantly asking myself
why people can't understand resources and limits when it comes to
building websites.
While it is easy to understand
if you rent 1000 sq ft store, you cant afford 1 million sq ft
like the local superstore.
You know the cost is just too
much for your business to handle.
While you pay a couple
thousand dollars for your space they pay a couple hundred
thousand dollars for their space.
And as a business owner you
completely understand those limits.
But for some reason when it
comes to websites, people can't grasp the same concept.
No one understands that
servers can cost tens of thousands of dollars and datacenters can
cost millions to operate.
Or that websites can cost
millions to build and millions more every year just to maintain.
Sites like walmart.com are not
built by one person in their spare time using an online site
builder like pageBuzz, and they don't build thousands of pages in
15 minutes when they have extra time.
I did a search and google has
over 12 million pages listed for walmart.com.
If you can build a page in 30
minutes, well, if you never sleep, eat or take a break, it would
take you just over 680 years to build that many pages. Of course
that does not include linking them all and organizing them into a
website.
How do they do it?
They have complete departments
of people, programmers and designers working around the clock,
they outsource jobs and pay contractors to build components and
work with system administrators to get everything right. They pay
more in one hour than you will spend in the next 10 years.
So when you buy a website for
$20 a month you can't expect the same resources. You can't expect
to click a button and have the same feature as walmart's website
when they probably had 20 people working on it and spent $100,000
adding it to their website.
It is very common for our
customers to expect too much and many will leave if they can't
click a button and have a finished website that looks like they
spent a million dollars.
Well buddy, that is not going
to happen. Not at pageBuzz, not at godaddy, not at web.com not
anywhere.
Stop looking at companies that
have hundreds of people working on a website and trying to
compare what they have done with what you are doing with your
website in YOUR spare time and on a limited budget.
Honestly, $50,000 is nothing when it comes to designing and
building a professional website.
If you had one full time employee working on your website, well
is that hard to understand it would cost you no less than $50,000
a year just for that persons salary?
If you have that kind of budget, then no problem, you can have
the same type of website.
But if you don't, and your budget is $20 a month, that does not
mean you should give up and not compete online.
Having something is better than having nothing.
And you should be able to have something great even with very
little effort.
But you need to understand your limits, whether financial,
technical or other resources, you are not a billion dollar
company like ebay, amazon or walmart, so don't expect a billion
dollar website.
If you are a small plumber with 1 employee you won't be bidding
on building a 2 million sq ft facility, because you know that
requires hundreds of employees and is just beyond the scope of
what you can do yourself.
Just try to remember that when you build your website.
There is only so much you can do, you can't complete with the big
companies with unlimited budgets. They can always do more in
business and online.
So rather than trying to compete with them, just do your thing.
If you are trying to compare what you do with what they do, and
you expect to have the same website, the same look, the same
features by spending a only few dollars and a few hours a month,
well, you will never get there.
So be mindful of your limits and settle in for something more
reasonable.
Something more manageable.
Look, if you don't have a quarter of a million dollars to buy a
Ferrari or RollsRoyce that does not mean you can't buy a Ford or
a Chevy for $20,000.
The Chevy still gets you to work and does what you need it to do.
And despite the Ferrari and
rolls being so much better, there is still a huge market for the
fords and cheveys.
So your website does not have
to be the rollsroyce of websites to bring value to your business.
Even with a simple plain look and basic information your
customers can get all they need to know about your business.
When you sit down and work on your website, don't get frustrated
when you can't build a website like youtube.com, which,
incedently costs google over half a billion dollars a year to run.
Yes, BILLION!
Now, I might be wrong and you may be a person that has an extra
billion to run YOUR website for a year, but if not, then keep in
mind that your website is just $20 a month and your resources are
limited.
Just do the best you can with
what you have.
Don't worry about the design as much as the substance.
Having an amazing design means nothing, if you don't have the
information that people are looking for.
So spend your resources where they count the most and don't try
to match what it took hundreds of other people to do.
When people visit your store
they don't expect you to have the same products as walmart, and
when they visit your website they don't expect you to have the
same website as walmart.
The Internet did not become
popular because companies like walmart could control everything.
It became popular because companies like yours could complete
with companies like walmart.
Take a lesson from us.
Sell what you have, your
strengths, the benefits of doing business with you, and don't try
to compete with billion dollar companies on their level.
We have to compete with
companies that can sponsor race car drivers, buy super bowl
commercials and spend millions a month running TV commercials.
How do we do that? You are
looking at it!
We appeal to people on a more
personal level.
Here I am talking to you,
selling myself and my product.
You know who we are and who
you are working with.
I can't say the same about Mr
WEB.COM, or MR GODADDY or MR GOOGLE.
But I can tell you, here at
pageBuzz.com, you can talk to me, Mark, the owner.
You can get help, support and
confidence that we have your back when you run into any problem
with your website.
And for our customers, that is
so much more powerful than any super bowl commercial with half
dressed bikini models.
