What is Better: Template Based Vs. Build It for You Website

[leonard]

ITC problem
(lrixford)earlier this year I was looking at companies like ITC. I was very disappointed with your company. I spoke with vice president of sales Don Hobdy, and told him i would either visit with him or if he wanted me to speak to someone else, that was fine. i clarified that i wanted to know if you could do some things I wanted. I emphasized that i would only talk to someone that was very experienced, because i have a very customized website and i wanted to do more customization.
He said he preferred to have someone call me, that was fine.

When i received the return call, it was immediately clear that he did not understand some things i was talking about. I asked him how much experience he had. He said 4 months. I ended the phonecall.

 

[ltcadviser]

Hello,

I am asking this for an independent agent only.

I am a novice when it comes to websites. I am curoius which most people think is better, a template based website versus paying someone to do it all for you ?

Or maybe doing it all yourself ?

If so what software can allow a novice to build their own site and have it still look good and possibly easy changes ?

What I see:

Template based:

Not knowing what the template will allow before purchasing it. Not knowing how easy the changes are to make in the future. Often have a recurring monthly fee. Must fit what you do into a template that you communicate to a designer.

Build it for you:

Pros: Have a professional looking site. Somebody to make changes for you in the future.

Cons: More expensive. You must know what you want and need before it is built. Changes will cost in the future.

Build it yourself:

Pros: Do you know how. Time and effort. Less expensive.

Cons: Time and effort. Possibly not as good as if you paid someone.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions ?

Lead generation:

Does any of the above ( template, build for you, build for yourself) have an impact on your potential for SEO or PPC marketing ?

Steve, your answer lies in what you want to use your website for; what arena you are working in; who is your target market; and who are you competing against for your business, etc.

I chose the hire a designer route. My website is now 5 years old and probably needs redone or refreshed, optimized for mobile, etc. and all of this is on my to do list, (and has been since 2012!) but hiring a professional designer was invaluable for me 5 years ago. I am in a competitive space and design mattered. My initial cost was high but the ROI was significant. My designer is in your town of San Francisco if you ever want to meet with them.

 

[lrixford]

ITC problem
(lrixford)earlier this year I was looking at companies like ITC. I was very disappointed with your company. I spoke with vice president of sales Don Hobdy, and told him i would either visit with him or if he wanted me to speak to someone else, that was fine. i clarified that i wanted to know if you could do some things I wanted. I emphasized that i would only talk to someone that was very experienced, because i have a very customized website and i wanted to do more customization.
He said he preferred to have someone call me, that was fine.

When i received the return call, it was immediately clear that he did not understand some things i was talking about. I asked him how much experience he had. He said 4 months. I ended the phonecall.

Leonard,

Do you remember who you spoke with?

While we have a few people that have started in the last year, our sales team generally have years of experience. Sales people are also not the designers behind the scenes. You don't want them to be. If they were responsible for selling and designing, you might not like the results because they are not dedicated to the task.

Meanwhile, the actual design team that you work with after you choose your design with a sales person is the real talent behind the scenes. These dedicated website coordinators and graphic designers have an average tenure of five or more years of experience in designing websites on the platform.

Exclusively from our offices in Dallas, this group has developed more than 6,000 websites using the platform. By far and away the most of any dedicated insurance website provider out there. I can assure you we can do what you need to have done.

Finally, you now have reached me. I have been developing websites since 1996 and insurance websites since 1999. I wrote the Insurance Website Builder product and I know every in and out possible.

Let's talk.

 

[JohnWalker]

I chose the hire a designer route. My website is now 5 years old and probably needs redone or refreshed, optimized for mobile, etc. and all of this is on my to do list, (and has been since 2012!) but hiring a professional designer was invaluable for me 5 years ago. I am in a competitive space and design mattered. My initial cost was high but the ROI was significant. My designer is in your town of San Francisco if you ever want to meet with them.

I agree working with an experienced developer is invaluable. It can also be a significant advantage to work with developer(s) that have experience or specialize in your industry and actively participate in it.

If you can stomach the bill, my advice would be to invest in the right SEO team to update, maintain, and grow your site. A well rounded team will not only include a developer but also have access to dedicated individual(s) that specialize in designing, coding, content creation, marketing, social media, and management not just one individual that can "do it all".

The ROI you can get working with a great SEO team can be worth their exuberant fees

 

[vic120]

I agree working with an experienced developer is invaluable. It can also be a significant advantage to work with developer(s) that have experience or specialize in your industry and actively participate in it.

If you can stomach the bill, my advice would be to invest in the right SEO team to update, maintain, and grow your site. A well rounded team will not only include a developer but also have access to dedicated individual(s) that specialize in designing, coding, content creation, marketing, social media, and management not one individual that can do it all.

The ROI you can get working with a great SEO team can be worth their exuberant fees

The question is how do find a good SEO team?

They all make great claims but as I understand few deliver,You can waste a lot of money paying the wrong people.

Especially because it takes so long to get results and when do you know it is not working ? after 6 months a year?

 

[ltcadviser]

I agree working with an experienced developer is invaluable. It can also be a significant advantage to work with developer(s) that have experience or specialize in your industry and actively participate in it.

If you can stomach the bill, my advice would be to invest in the right SEO team to update, maintain, and grow your site. A well rounded team will not only include a developer but also have access to dedicated individual(s) that specialize in designing, coding, content creation, marketing, social media, and management not one individual that can do it all.

The ROI you can get working with a great SEO team can be worth their exuberant fees

I stopped doing ALL SEO 3 years ago. I do not do any social media either. Finding the right SEO team is just a waste of time as they all could suck. I had a great black hat seo guy 6 years ago, but that ship sailed. Rather do nothing today than pay SEO circus clowns a few thousand a month for nothing. But if you know someone that is not a clown tell me.

 

[lrixford]

The question is how do find a good SEO team?

First find someone who specializes in insurance and build a content strategy. At the same time they would be optimizing the site with inlinks, outlinks, and schema. Make sure they are willing to review their work monthly. Re-evaluate yearly the ROI and determine to stay, move on, or do it yourself.

I am sure someone on this forum could talk about how the SEO services provided by ITC works. In fact vic120, I know you have talked to Mark, he'd be happy to give you references.

 

[JohnWalker]

I stopped doing ALL SEO 3 years ago. I do not do any social media either. Finding the right SEO team is just a waste of time as they all could suck. I had a great black hat seo guy 6 years ago, but that ship sailed. Rather do nothing today than pay SEO circus clowns a few thousand a month for nothing. But if you know someone that is not a clown tell me.

I totally agree. From my own experiences, 99% of SEO's are trash. My strategy has been to just keep learning how to do it myself and testing people through trial and error until I find someone better at it than me. I'm still looking...

The problem for you is that if you're not going to optimize and market your website, you might as well not have one. Who cares about mobile responsiveness if the site doesn't get any traffic. It's like spending money on designing a fancy business card then getting it printed on the best stock and never handing it out.

Unfortunately I can't help you find the right SEO because I haven't even found that person. I'll have to limit my advice to some examples of strategies I personally use and have been successful with. Here are the 3 categories of link building I participate in and some examples of sites I have links on.

Link Earning - These are the "best" links according to Google. They can provide trust and authority to your site and a single link can be the difference between not ranking and being #1. The problem is these types of links can be time consuming to acquire and campaigns can be tough to scale. This involves things like creating quality content and networking.

-www.huffingtonpost.com - got this through blogging kick ass content
-www.nerdwallet.com - contribute content as an editor
-www.csudh.edu - started a scholarship
-www.longbeachhomesrealestate.com - realtor that sends me referrals

Link Building - This is a more technical approach to SEO and considered "grey hat" because it involves creating links you control. I only use these tactics on websites that have high domain authorities and have trustworthy metrics in Google's eyes. This involves finding creative ways to get your link onto popular websites. Don't judge these links by how they look but rather on the domain authority and page authority these links are on. Just remember spammy tactics on quality domains can still be considered quality because of a domain's trust and authority.

-www.realtytimes.com - Domain Authority of 70
-www.wordpress.org - Domain Authority of 100
-www.drupal.org - Domain Authority of 97
-www.earthday.org - Domain Authority of 84

Link Buying - I love buying links. Not link networks or other low quality "black hat" tactics but soliciting real quality webmasters or contributors to "sponsor" their endeavors. I like this tactic because it allows me to use my sales skills and buy high quality links for super cheap.

-www.meetup.com - $25 sponsorship
-www.investopedia.com - $40 sponsorship
-mrsteel.wordpress.com - $60 bribe

Once you get the hang of the different ways to get links you'll realize how easy it is to outperform $5,000 a month SEO companies. I studied the different white and black hat tactics, learned what works and what doesn't, then went out and started trying to get links from the best domains I could find. If you look at the small list I provided, all the sites are very reputable and trustworthy in Google's eyes and most SEO's would charge you and arm and a leg for links from pages and sites like my examples. I just don't always use the most "white hat" ways to get them.

BTW for you non-technical folks out there you can visit any of the examples I provided and right click anywhere on the target page then select "view page source". From there press "ctrl + F" and type in "shiftins.com" to find the exact location of my link

 

[CHUMPS FROM OXFORD]

MrSteel hasn't added content for four years. Is that really a good link?

Just curious.

Robert "Shark" Mastedon
Crittingin Insurance And Sandwiches
Oakland, Ca.
Service Since 1959

 

[ltcadviser]

The problem for you is that if you're not going to optimize and market your website, you might as well not have one. [/I][/B]

Thanks for pointing out my problem, John. The fortunate news for me is that the website that I do not market nor optimize somehow manages to keep me busy enough so that I neither have time to market it nor worry about link building. But thank you for sharing your opinion.