How do you know when you should hire a professional?

Let’s be hon­est peo­ple no longer reach for the Yellow-pages when search­ing for infor­ma­tion. Instead they’re doing a google search. Don’t be tempted to go with an inex­pen­sive ama­teur or a friend of a friend who dab­bles in web build­ing. You need some­one who spe­cial­izes in cre­at­ing clean, secure, well-designed pro­fes­sional web­sites. This is the face you’re show­ing the world.

Given the amount of com­pe­ti­tion on the web, you need to do every­thing you can to stand out from your com­peti­tors. Cre­at­ing a great web­site goes a long way in help­ing to posi­tion you and your com­pany and explain what sets you apart from all the oth­ers. This goes beyond describ­ing the ben­e­fits of your prod­uct or service—this is about you and your com­pany estab­lish­ing credibility.

Tell your story by pro­vid­ing infor­ma­tion about you, your staff and your com­pany. This takes the anonymity out of doing busi­ness on the web and shows cus­tomers they’re buy­ing from real peo­ple they can relate to. Post your phone num­ber and/or e-mail address some­where on every page. If you don’t make it easy to reach you, some poten­tial cus­tomers will jump to the con­clu­sion that you’re unpro­fes­sional or pos­si­bly even disreputable.