Mistakes happen when friends or family get involoved with your Website design and SEO. Simple as that!
1) Basically it will never get done. Why? Cause they are doing it for free and they just may get around to your website if they feel like it if they have a spare few hours. Months and months will go by and nothing will have been done. This is a certainty. After all, what they might promise you after a few drinks at the family BBQ, may not actually transpire. My guess is they will have forgotten about it. We get a lot of people coming to us at Hopping Mad Designs who have waited literally 6 months or a year and still don't have a site. We are left to pick up the pieces.
2) If things go pear shaped then so will the relationship, fights dohappen, lines in the sand drawn – a total nasty scenario. It’s easy to leave a designer, but a relative is not so easy. Calling and hassling them is not on if they are not getting paid for this. Imagine what it would be like if you only spent the money and got a professional outfit to help you out!
3) In the internet world, if your business has even the slightest chance of succeeding, you need to be working with a professional web and SEO team. Your website will never rank on Google and will not be designed for maximum customer conversion if it is handled by an amateur. Google has made ranking a website very specific and for this reason, you need an experienced SEO agency advising you on strategies and ways to out maneouvre your competition.
4) What experience have they got with SEO – the slightest bad link or the smallest on page website error can result in your website not ranking. Seriously, are you going to leave your business or livelihood to someone that has the ability to jeopardise it. Get real….this is your life you are trusting in the hands of a non professional – so be warned of the really bad outcomes that are awaiting you. Google penalties, lost clients, no money, loosing staff are just the beginning.
5) Are you going to leave it to them to write the copy, choose the images and handle the hosting, domain name registration and manage the whole project – how are they going to do this on a shoe string budget, after school/uni hours etc?
Most likely not. All you will get is a template that will look the same as every one else.
6) If you are in a competitive industry then you are going to need a site designed that is better than the opposition. The designer your choose MUST be able to create a site that will not only generate new business but also lays the groundwork for a search engine campaign. This takes a lot of skill and is not something that can be added later on once the site goes live. Everything needs to be mapped out early on, right at the first briefing meeting where your designer and SEO manager can plot the course for your online domination. Left to someone who has little or no interest in your websites success and who is doing this as a favour to you is simply a recipe for a massive meltdown. No jokes – I have seen the results many times before of what can happen to a website and the internet marketing if left in the hands of a relative.
Look, it’s your business and if you want it to work you can’t have an off handed ‘she’ll be right’ approach to this. It just doesn’t work!
You may have been able to do this a few years ago when you had other forms of marketing to rely on for new business. But, the competitive landscape for digital marketing is too sophisticated and needs someone who knows what they are doing to guide you. Like anything you need done for your business, you should have a professional look at it. Saving money up front may seem like a great idea, BUT I swear to you that in 99.99% of the cases things do go belly up.