Web Design is a Waste of Time: and Other Small Business Rhymes
Their website looked terrible.
I mean totally un-shareable.
Ok, I’m done rhyming. But really, the website was awful.
As a millennial and a business owner, I was horrified. How could a business as successful as this one have a website that looked so outdated?
I’m not an arrogant person, especially when it comes to design, but I definitely felt like I could help them up their website game, thereby increasing their traffic, thus doubling their sales. The improvement in design and function would be so great, they would have to realize an increase in their bottom line.
At the time, I didn’t have any experience in building websites, but I did have a Masters degree in engineering and business, so I could probably figure it out.
Ok, maybe I was a bit arrogant.
If I’m being totally honest, I remember daydreaming about this project going SO well that I would be asked, no, IMPLORED, to become a decision-maker in this small business (remember, my first ever website), and given a seat at the leadership table. I’d be featured on Forbes “30 under 30”. A wunderkind of my time.
In reality, I stumbled my way through building the new website (it was my first website, after all) and I finally (way after my initial deadline) finished it.
In my humble opinion, my new site was significantly more polished and modern, and it explained the business better than the old one. I hit launch and waited for the traffic to soar and for the new business to come rolling in.
Crickets. The new website looked great, but, as you may have guessed, it did nothing notable for their bottom line.
And then six years later I turned 30 and didn’t make it to the Forbes list. SAD!
Now, this isn’t a tale about the necessity of advertising, or “getting eyeballs”, or doing a proper website launch. No. I’m not going to share my 4 SIMPLE TRICKS TO INCREASE TRAFFIC AND CAPTURE LEADS!!
This is a tale about priorities.
Don’t waste effort on web design.
There, I said it.
Now we must work from principals to particulars, so there are always special instances where this isn’t the case. But let’s imagine you and your business aren’t the outliers here
As a web-designer, it seems counter-intuitive for me to write this whole article about why you don’t need good web design. However, I’m also a small business owner who has worked with many other small business owners and seen a lot of effort wasted on things that won’t grow a business- web design at the wrong time being one of them.
There is this idea out there in the design world that web design is correlated to the revenue function of a business. Meaning, if I improve the design of my website, I will increase my revenue. I’ve found that while this may be true for massive companies with hundreds of thousands to millions of monthly views, it’s not true for the small business owner with modest web traffic.
All parts of a business must grow together. If the web design of a business’s site is top-notch, but the business owner doesn’t clearly and deeply understand her customer’s needs and wants, there will be a lot of wasted effort. Businesses die from wasted effort. This is why it makes sense for large companies to put so many resources towards things like web design — they’ve built a business that now necessitates it. As small business owners, we often default to wasting our effort on the less impactful parts of our business because working on them makes us feel good.
All parts of a business must grow together.
Have you ever spent hours fixating on something like finding the exact right shade of blue for your “logo refresh”? Here’s a hard truth for you- the shade of blue you choose will most likely have zero impact on the success of your business. It might make you happy, and that is important, but when we’re talking about your bottom line- nope. So, spend your time and effort accordingly.
Businesses Die From Wasted Effort.
For an entrepreneur or small business owner:
A well-designed website is not as important as talking to your customers (or potential customers).
A well-designed website is not as important delivering your services on time and at a high standard of quality.
A well-designed website is not as important as taking the time to think about what you want to do with your business and directing it accordingly.
A well designed website is not as important as your health, your family, or your relationships.
It’s a matter of prioritization.
Here are 3 things the small business owner should prioritize in his business before investing heavily in a flashy web design. And to be sure, these aren’t easy things to do - this is what makes business hard. Don’t shy away from the hard.
Understanding your goals (for your business and yourself). If you don’t understand your personal and business goals, you will be pushed around by the winds of ‘other opportunities’ and might end up totally lost or worse, building a business that you didn’t intend to build and becoming resentful of it. An over-designed website won’t help.
Clarifying your marketing message (which is different from “creating” a marketing message). If you don’t have a clear marketing message, you’ll be stuck in the soloprenuer world, living from gig to gig. Your business growth will always be directly tied to the amount of your time that you have to put into it. Clear messaging about what you do is especially important with the growing world of freelancers and entrepreneurs starting new kinds of businesses don’t fit into the traditional industry molds of the past. Remember, businesses grow from you, out. You make a sale to people you know or bump into, and if you’ve delivered a great product, that person will refer you to more people. But if you don’t have a clear marketing message, past clients will struggle to know how to refer you to potential clients, even if you did a great job for them. Web design won’t solve this problem for you.
Talking to your customers or potential customers to really understand what they need and want. If you don’t sell your product the good-ole-fashioned way (face to face), you’ll end up spinning your wheels trying to understand what your customer wants and needs, going through endless design iterations and tweaks. You can solve this problem much faster by talking to people one-on-one. An in-person sales strategy can actually scale much faster, at least in the beginning, than people give it credit, as long as you’re refining and clarifying your marketing message based on real feedback as you go.
But the great thing is, spending time on these things will actually help you when you do get ready to invest in a new website. I think my fellow web designers would agree that it’s much easier to build a compelling site for a business that knows their goals, their key messages, and exactly who their customer is and what that customer wants than it is for someone who just wants a site that just “looks good”.
these aren’t easy things to do - this is what makes business hard. Don’t shy away from the hard.
So, how much “design-wow” do you need?
For a small business, I’ve found that the best way to think about your website is as a credibility tool. The goal should be to maintain, reinforce, or build upon your already-established credibility as a business.
Many times, for the small business owner, the best thing to do with your website is make sure it won’t turn away potential customers who have been referred to you. People will most likely be looking at your website because they’ve heard about you, either in-person or online, or from someone else. Make sure your website isn’t going to turn them off from wanting to reach out to, or work with, you.
Here are a few basic questions to ask yourself to make sure your website isn’t a “lead killer”:
Does everything work?
(functionality such as links, buttons, etc?)Is all the information current?
(Events, employees, calendars, contact info, etc. (Pro tip: a blog where the last post was over a year ago looks bad, remove the publishing dates unless you’re blogging regularly.))Does my website look modern?
(Ask someone you trust, “ does it look like my website was built in the last 5-ish years?”)Is my site mobile-friendly?
(More people will look at it on their phone than on their computer today.)Can someone easily find out how to either purchase (if you’re selling something online), find your location (for retail), or get in touch with you?
(Put it on the home page, in the header, or in the footer (or all three))Are your pictures high-quality and sharp (read: not-blurry)?
(Unsplash images are great)
If you’re doing well on all the above, then someone who has been referred to you won’t be turned off by your website.
Once you’ve got a handle on some of your business basics and you’re ready to spend some more time and money on your web presence, go crazy with an amazing new design that will “wow” everybody. In the meantime, stick to the basics and focus on the key elements of growing a small business- understand what you’re building, clarify your messaging, get to know your customers, and make your next sale.
What happened with that company from the beginning?
What I didn’t realize about that business was that they had spent years developing strong, meaningful relationships with their clients and community, and that was ultimately the driving factor of their growth and success.
Today, I’m in the middle of working with this same company on another website redesign, and this time we’ll be focusing on using their website to bolster their already-high credibility — and hey, maybe I’ll make it to Fortunes “40 Under 40” list.
