Over the past couple years, I have been managing websites for a few local businesses in Tri-Cities, Washington. During this time, I have also been studying SEO, website design, best practices for blogging and more. I have learned so much through this time, but one of the major things I have learned, is that every local business, large or small, should have someone managing their company website.

Why? That is what I will dive into in this article.

Your website is the first place your customers will visit.

Now, you may have customers visit your social profiles first, but before taking a step into your actual place of business, they will (normally) check out your site first. Whether just to find a phone number, or learn more about your company and what you sell, most potential customers will first visit your site before they ever make the effort to visit your local business.

First impressions matter.

Whether we like it or not, first impressions can make, or break, the image that your customers have of you. When people visit your site, you need to have fresh, up to date information about your company and brand. You don’t want them to see links to events that happened weeks or years before on the homepage or see an ugly photo taken on your early 2,000’s digital camera.

Your website is where people will visit your (virtual) location.

Do you leave your store dirty and dusty with products in the same locations for years at a time?

I don’t think so. Just like your actual store, you need to update your virtual location to be fresh and inviting to potential customers.

When people open the door to your site, you should make them feel like you are ready for business and happy to serve them, just like you do in your physical business location.

Things change.

When you got your site designed for the first time, your designer thought about the current goals you had at that time for your company.

If it has been five years since you have updated your home page, chances are there is a lot of information that just doesn’t accurately portray your company.

You will want to have fresh, high-quality images that stick out and represent work you’ve recently done at your service company, or amazing new product photos each week that highlight the latest and greatest from your store.

Events should be highlighted on your home page.

Are you a company that hosts events or visits shows? Your events and updates should be in a location on your home page that can bring out people that visit your site for the first time.

It can be extremely frustrating if you want to post something, but have forgotten the password to your backend to make an update. Having a person that is dedicated to keeping your site fresh and up to date will eliminate the headache of this.

Design practices change regularly.

The web is an extremely fast moving place, and best practices for website design is changing at a similar rate. If you don’t have someone that is dedicated to keeping your design fresh, you will be forced to spend a lot of money every few years to redesign your website, instead of having your site constantly updated and fresh.

Conclusion

Although it may be easy to think that you can do everything yourself, I really don’t recommend it. Things will go out of date, and you will not accurately portray your brand online. Many local agencies will partner with you to keep your website up to date and fresh, and most often pricing is less than the cost of a full time (or part-time) employee. Design agencies have the employees skilled in each of the areas above, so they can do each of the above in a highly skilled manner, whereas if you hire a full-time employee to do this, they may not have the skills necessary in one of these areas to truly make your website reflect who you actually are, online.

Thanks so much for reading. How do you manage your site? If you do it all yourself, have you been able to keep up?