Website development is something that can seem like a good thing to have a go at yourself. While it can be easy to do yourself, it’s likely that you’ll get a better result from someone who does it more often and has up-to-date knowledge of the process. As a generalist Virtual Assistant, I often help my clients create their websites. For some (even most) clients I’m happy to create and maintain their website, for others I recommend that they hire a website developer to create the site. It all depends on the purpose of the site and the skills I have compared to the skills on offer by a reputable website developer and the skills needed to create the type of website the client needs. Here are some guidelines on whether to choose a Virtual Assistant instead of a website developer to take care of your website development:
Functionality
If the website is just a simple website with basic functionality, then there’s absolutely no reason that any Virtual Assistant can’t create an awesome site. If you have complicated functionality that includes a lot of custom coding, then you’re far better off getting someone who specialises in website development to build it.
Content
What sort of content do you want? Is it something you can easily write yourself? Or is it essential that it helps you to reach sales goals or drive SEO? While you may be able to achieve either of those yourself, you’ll have a much better chance of it, with far less stress, if you engage someone to create the content for you. A copywriter with SEO experience can help you formulate your message to attract your perfect client, and provide a clear and compelling call to action that gets results.
Coordination
Of course, even if you do have the need to get a website developer to create your website, your Virtual Assistant is a great person to have coordinating the process. When you think of all the roles that come together to create a website: copywriters, graphic designers, SEO experts and coders – it’s a lot to keep track of. Your Virtual Assistant is ideally placed to coordinate as they probably already have relationships with your copywriter and graphic designer, and they have a knowledge of your business that can help keep some of the knucklehead stuff off your radar, leaving you with more time to make the more important decisions and get on with your day to day business.
Maintenance
Once your site is up and running, there’s no reason your Virtual Assistant can’t take care of updating it for you. This should include updating themes and plugins as well as adding, removing and editing content. Remember a frequently updated site is a good site, so don’t think of your website as a set and forget thing.
You’ll notice that cost doesn’t come into my reasoning at all. The reason for that is that hiring a Virtual Assistant to develop your website solely because they are cheaper will probably end up as a false economy that will cost you more in the long run. Either because of lost sales due to lack of traffic, or the wrong traffic, or because you end up needing to hire someone else to re-do the site sooner than you should need it. So when it comes to cost my advice is to spend what you can afford on website development and choose who is doing the work based on skill set rather than price.
Lastly, an important point to bear in mind is that some Virtual Assistants are also website designers. So don’t think that your Virtual Assistant is necessarily incapable of creating the website you want. If you’re whether they’re up to creating the perfect site for you, just ask about some of the other websites they’ve worked on.
