{"id":3506,"date":"2016-11-02T13:13:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T19:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flowww.site\/dont-put-the-wrong-stamp-on-your-website-passport\/"},"modified":"2022-02-10T17:54:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-11T00:54:46","slug":"dont-put-the-wrong-stamp-on-your-website-passport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kayakwebsites.com\/dont-put-the-wrong-stamp-on-your-website-passport\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Put the Wrong Stamp on Your Website Passport"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is an expression activists use. It\u2019s one I happen to love: Think Global, Buy Local<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reminder that we should always be aware of the world around us, while doing our best to support each other close to home. It\u2019s good karma; and as it turns out, not a bad marketing philosophy.<\/p>\n

To help you understand why, let me run you through an experience I had just last week\u2026<\/p>\n

It was on Friday morning, following a week of events and four-hour flights. I had visions of a relaxing weekend floating around in my mind. But first, there were the final details of the week to attend to. So, I sat down to go through my messages. The first one I opened read something like this:<\/p>\n

Dear Mr. Milanovic, please, at your earliest convenience, could you please send login credentials to your client\u2019s DNS and FTP settings? Most sincerely, Grupta.<\/em><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cMore spam from India\u201d I thought, \u201cI wonder why my filter didn\u2019t pick this one up?\u201d Ready to toss the message, I almost missed that the email was CC\u2019d to one of our longtime clients. This particular business owner had reduced his web budget all the way to zero dollars and had eventually gone inactive over the past two years. My team had been maintaining his site simply to keep it alive, only requesting reimbursement for annual hosting and registration fees we paid to a provider, without markup.<\/p>\n

In reviewing the rest of the message, I was able to confirm that it was legitimate. From there, it was a simple matter of following the thread back to beginning \u2013 the Indian company had approached our client several weeks back.<\/p>\n

The rate they offered for a month of service was roughly equivalent to what we charge for a couple of hours, and it included service items like search engine optimization, Google AdWords management, and even a brand-new website (which had already been completed as a show of good faith). The overseas firm even included \u2018basic\u2019 hosting costs as part of the package.<\/p>\n

I can understand how my client saw an offer that was too good to refuse. I might have done the same, were it not for the fact that I know a little bit better.<\/p>\n

Given that most business owners don\u2019t have the technical savvy to assess these things, let me share my view on the different \u201cservices\u201d and \u201cadvantages\u201d that were actually being offered\u2026<\/p>\n

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A Low Monthly Rate<\/h2>\n

This one is the easiest to tackle. I\u2019ll freely admit that it\u2019s not difficult for a company halfway around the world to charge less than I do. That\u2019s especially true when you have access to cheap or child labor<\/a> at roughly 30 Rupees \u2013 or right around sixty Canadian cents \u2013 for a day\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

I can\u2019t compete with that, and common decency would prevent me from trying even if I were located in a different country.<\/p>\n

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Search Engine Optimization<\/h2>\n

Within the SEO description, there isn\u2019t any clarification about whether this would involve on-page or off-site optimization. In creating the client\u2019s website, we would already have optimized all the possible on-page elements<\/a>. Given our track record in this area (we\u2019re really good at it), there isn\u2019t any reason to think we\u2019d overlooked an obvious area to improve.<\/p>\n

In fact, what was really holding the site back, on Google or elsewhere, was the declining amount of attention the client had paid to it. With no budget, ads, updates, or content generation\/sharing activity to attract new visitors, the site\u2019s opportunity to rank was essentially at a standstill or dropping.<\/p>\n

Presumably, the overseas firm may be offering SEO \u201cservices\u201d that would either include a) doing nothing, or b) creating low-quality content, or worse, c) deploying black hat linking schemes that improperly create link farms, classified ads, and spam link submissions.<\/p>\n

Each of these has been clamped down on tightly<\/a> by Google in recent years, meaning there\u2019s no benefit to trying them, but lots of punitive reasons not to. And nothing to stop firms from selling them anyway.<\/p>\n

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Google AdWords PPC Management<\/h2>\n

Many Internet marketing providers love<\/em> to pitch pay-per-click services, because industry practice is to charge a commission rather than a management fee. That\u2019s not just a difference in phrasing, it\u2019s an entirely separate approach to doing business.<\/p>\n

I have an issue with the commission model because it tends to reward poor website performance. Ads that perform badly due to poor user experience cost more, and thus require a bigger budget. In that way, suppliers are paid a bigger rate for weaker campaign set up and management. So the \u2018management\u2019 might be free, but you can bet there\u2019s a commission charge in the fine print.<\/p>\n

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A New Website Thrown In Free<\/h2>\n

The offer to create a new website is a power-play that’s hard to resist.<\/p>\n

\"free<\/p>\n

You can imagine that amongst all the new business inquiries we get from potential clients, is a request for a refreshed web presence \u2013 it is easily in the top two or three pain points.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because a new look and feel is music to the ears of a business owner whose site is getting outdated, or one who hasn’t seen the kinds of results he or she had hoped for.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, a website redesign is hardly ever a fix for the real problem or bottleneck \u2013 instead, it\u2019s the way the website is (or is not) being maintained or utilized. As they say, it\u2019s the craftsman not the tool. When an otherwise functioning website is starved for updates and fresh content, it\u2019s going to grow stale no matter what it looks like.<\/p>\n

To create a brand-new website \u2013 and for free, no less \u2013 sounds incredible. What a show of commitment and determination! Behind the scenes, however, the reality is that a website can be automatically converted into a new design in a matter of minutes.<\/p>\n

Even if the overseas provider is working manually, it would amount to around 10 or 15 minutes per page. There may appear<\/em> to be a dramatic difference, but the actual website could very likely be much worse because of what\u2019s going on under the hood.<\/p>\n

When we migrate from one website or layout to another, there are dozens of questions we have to ask ourselves, and among them are\u2026<\/p>\n