The Website Services Worth Paying For—From a Scrappy Entrepreneur

As entrepreneurs, we don’t want to spend any more money than we have to.

But, in some cases, a little extra spending makes your life a lot easier. I’ve had to hire a wide variety of services and contractors to help with different aspects of my business, and I recommend you consider the same when you require special expertise in critical areas.

Paying up front for this help will not only save you time—which is better spent building and running your business—but will also help you cut costs in the long run. When you DIY it, you risk doing something wrong, or having to hire someone to fix it, which means you now wasted both time and money.

When everything is right the first time, and the work is done well, you’ll likely save money in the long run. Here are a few services worth paying for, even with a small budget.

Freelance hybrid web designer and developer

Web design is an art—literally. While anyone can build a site that looks good to them (or good enough), a web designer will know how to create something that generates mass appeal. That takes knowing what colors look best together, what fonts are readable but unique, and what imagery is bold but tied to your brand.

When this person has development experience, which means they can write code, they’re able to take their design to the next level. That, in turn, opens up the opportunities for what you can do with your website. Rather than simply toying with limited theme options, they can create custom pieces, which makes your website stand out, and ensures the final product is what you want.

If you stay in touch with your designer/developer, updating the site will be easier as well.

Development experts at Treehouse explain:

“If you completely split the duties of designing and coding, there inevitably comes a point in a project where the coder ends up doing bits of design, at which point the design can start to degrade.

This isn’t the fault of the coder; it’s just real life. It’s just not practical to go back to the designer for a Photoshop mock-up every time a new section of the site needs to be designed/added.”

SEO specialists

SEO (search engine optimization) is a confusing area of marketing, yet it’s one of the most important aspects of your business and online presence.

Without proper SEO optimization, ranking within the first few pages of Google is nearly impossible. This means your website gets lost in the sea of competitors because it’s so hard to find, and if customers can’t find you, you’ll not only struggle to drive drive traffic, but it’ll be harder to make sales or get leads.

While basic SEO is possible to learn and implement without a technical background—thanks to plugins and tools that you can pay for—these options will only take you so far.

SEO is a multifaceted process, which includes updating listing websites, optimizing meta data, managing your link profile, and much more.

“To be effective, SEO specialists may need to work with an editorial or communications team to create content that provides its intended service while incorporating SEO,” explains Rich Hein, managing senior editor of CIO.

He continues, “They must also be involved with the company’s social networking strategy, work with design and development, advertising, and other departments and practices.”

Instead of juggling all of that yourself, while trying to learn what can feel like a new language, hire a specialist or consultant to do it for you. Not only will you rank higher in Google, but you’ll have a foundation in place to help you scale your business more effectively.

Our world is online, and your business needs to be able to compete in the digital space—without SEO, you’ll struggle to do that.

Managed hosting

As a brand new business, you may be able to live off of shared hosting. That’s when you turn to one of the many well-known hosting brands, like WordPress, to buy your domain and build a website. This is all done on a shared hosting environment, with many websites using one server, which means your site may run slower and you don’t get a personal account manager.

The greatest challenge for many business owners, however, is that maintenance is left up to you. If you don’t use managed hosting, you’ll need to worry about updates, optimizations, back-ups, security issues, setting up staging environments, and much more. If you can’t do all that yourself, you’ll need to hire someone who can.

That’s why many business owners and entrepreneurs choose to go with managed hosting, which ensures that your site run fast—and efficiently—and all of that hard work is taken care of by someone else for a minimal monthly fee, ranging from $25 to $150 each month, according to this guide, The Top 9 Reasons to Choose Managed Hosting.

The guide continues, “Yes, managed hosting costs more money, but you should treat this as an investment in your business. How much is your time, peace of mind, and data integrity worth to you?”

The answer: probably a lot. Luckily, there are many managed hosting providers to choose from, so interview a few and find the one that’s right for your business needs.

Pay for services, spend less in the long run

When you pay for work to be done well, and right, the first time around, you’ll spend less later. While some things you can DIY, others you cannot.

When it comes to your web presence, hire experts to make sure you’re ranking in search, your site looks great, and your website is secure and up to date. All of this ensures your online brand is clean, which is critical to running a successful business in our digital world.

from: Bplans BlogBplans Blog
via Jessica Thiefels

Source: The Website Services Worth Paying For—From a Scrappy Entrepreneur Via Business Advice.