All of us have our own talents, personality traits, mannerisms, and sense of style. This makes us one of a kind, and usually, we like that. So, why not apply that same thought to a website? This week, we’re talking about why it is important for your website to be unique.
Here’s a statistic for you: Last month, the NetCraft Web Server Survey estimated that there were around 156 million websites on the Internet. This number may be a little low, if anything, but you get the point. There are a lot of websites out there! How can you have a unique website in that type of a crowd?
Designing a Website
When it comes to designing a website, you have a few options:
- Find an “off-the-shelf” web design template available for free or to purchase.
- Design your own web template.
- Hire an experienced web developer to design your website.
Option number 1 takes very little effort or money and is probably the best idea for those of you who don’t know how to design a website or have very limited funds. The problem would be that you may not find a template that matches the colors of your organization and hundreds of other websites could be using the same exact template.
Option number 2 is a bit unpractical unless you’re an experienced web developer yourself. First of all, you would have to know basic HTML coding, which could take weeks or even months to learn. Secondly, you need the right software for designing, HTML layout, testing and transferring files. This could get quite expensive. Finally, if you design it yourself, and have no experience, the quality of your website will most likely be very poor. But at least it will be unique, right?
Option number 3 is the best choice for creating a high-quality, unique site. A good web designer can listen to the client, and use their creativity, skill and experience to create a website that exemplifies your organization’s personality and values.
Why Is It Important?
I’m sure many of you are thinking, “So what if my website is not unique. What is so important about having a unique website?” There are two reasons that having a unique website is important. First, having a one of a kind website will help your website’s visitors to remember you. For example, let’s say there is a company, named “The Widget Factory” that sells widgets online (I won’t go into what a widget is). This company has 10 other competitors that sell the same kind of widgets. It just so happens that The Widget Factory hired a great web designer (we’ll just name him Mike) to design their site. They wanted a great, eye-catching Flash header at the top of their website that would leave an impression. So Mike threw out the idea of having their name (The Widget Factory) appear with moving gears for some of the letters in the name that would turn throughout the website viewer’s visit. They went with this idea.
Bill and Tammy were looking to purchase a few widgets for themselves, so they decided to shop online. They saw the Flash header on The Widget Factory’s site and thought it was pretty neat, but they were more interested in the product. They shopped around for widgets all day but didn’t make a decision. The other competitors did not stand out enough for them to be remembered the next morning when they decided to purchase their widget. They remembered the uniqueness of The Widget Factory’s site and chose them instead.
Another reason that having a unique website is important is because it shows your members and visitors that you care about them and put effort into what you do. I understand that maintaining a website’s content takes a lot of effort alone, but when a visitor visits a site and sees that the design is high in quality and obviously created just for your organization, they will know that you are serious about what you do and that you strive for excellence in your work. This is a great quality for an organization to have and can give you an excellent reputation.
A unique website is simply a great value. People tell me all the time they’d love to have a custom-designed website but they can’t afford it. Now some of these organizations are truly just scraping by, but some of these are organizations have budgets of six figures or more. I sometimes wonder… how much did they spend the last time they painted their church building or office? How much was the carpet or the sign out front? How much was spent on the design and printing of the last brochure? Probably thousands. Your website is the first impression most people will have of your church, school, ministry or business. Spending a few hundred dollars to make that first impression an excellent and memorable one is one of the best investments you can make. But then, I’m admittedly a little biased. 😉
So if you are serious about your organization’s website and have the means to do so, hire a good web designer to create a unique and memorable site. You’ll be glad you did!
If you have a unique design for your website, tell us about the impact it’s had.
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8 Comments
Catchy title! Made me look!
Me too David – I liked the double play on it. Never seen that one done with Unique – (you neek) up on it. GOOD ONE! ☼ ♫ 🙂
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