The Revolution of Control: Why Businesses Should Take Control Of Their Website
Outsourcing website builds and management is common practice in many businesses. It’s always been viewed as the easy, cost-effective option. Giving businesses that vital online presence for minimal effort. But in recent years, we’ve seen a new trend emerging. One where businesses are bringing their digital management and website development back in-house. It’s a sensible move, that allows greater control of what can be a brand’s greatest asset. But why does it matter, as long as your websites are performing well?
Why Is It Important For Businesses To Take Control Of Their Own Website?
Web development and control have traditionally been outsourced because to create a unique and quality experience, a high degree of technical know-how was essential. Especially if you wanted to create an engaging and robust digital interface. Employing the full-time developers capable of creating and managing a website that was original and would set a brand apart, would not only be costly but a waste of talented resources that could be focused on building the product itself rather than the marketing material for it.
But while a high degree of skill is necessary for web design and creation, advanced WYSIWYG solutions mean that continued site management is a far less complicated process. Making in-house web management more plausible. This is important for a couple of reasons.
Website Growth
A website that can be easily managed in-house is a website capable of rapidly responding to current affairs, customer trends, and business needs. It is always growing, becoming a living and breathing entity, that not only smashes all SEO requirements but gives customers something to keep coming back to. It empowers your team to be able to regularly update and grow the content, ensuring it increases ROI and climbs the search rankings.
Costs
You don’t need me to tell you that cost-cutting is on the agenda for every UK business right now. With the economy flatlining and a recession very much in the offing, finding ways to economise is high on everyone’s list of priorities. And bringing website management in-house is actually a great way to reduce long-term costs.
While there will, inevitably, be initial development and training expenses, this will pay for itself within a few months. You don’t necessarily have to cut-out a supporting agency, but you can have them focus on the more tricky and bespoke tasks, while saving budget on simple text and image updates, or posting new content.
ROI
As well as cutting costs, it’s important that your website delivers a strong return on investment. And you can only really optimise ROI when you have the control to be responsive. That agility, and the ability to act instantly, is what makes a website earn its keep. And with in-house creatives taking control, bypassing clunky go-between processes, your website begins to deliver a greater return. The investment you made on the initial build has a lasting impact, and resources can be focussed on worthy tasks like testing, optimisation and new features.
What To Look For When Seeking To Take Control of Your Business’ Website Management
Seek a low-code or no-code solution – By working with an agency capable of delivering a website with a low or no-code backend, with solutions such as Webflow, you are immediately opening your website up for in-house management. It is a decision that needs to be made at an infrastructure level for this to truly work.
Look for scalability – Some websites are more scalable than others. Building a design component system that puts all re-used components (such as navigation features) all in one synchronised place makes website management simpler. It ensures consistency, enabling any changes to the master component to be reflected throughout the site, so updates are quicker and easier. While requesting the provision of a clearly defined library makes it simpler for the creation of new pages when necessary.
Simplicity – While you want your website to look professional, you don’t want to have to jump through multiple hoops every time you want to add or change an element. Ask for each component to be named clearly, so that they will be understandable to the uninitiated. Request the creation of page templates that can easily be customised by team members with no design experience. Ensure that every element that is likely to be needed can be easily identified.
Documented training – Over time, your personnel will change. Your web designer may retire or move away. If you’re going to build longevity into your website, you need a creator willing to deliver a fully documented training standard. This is a lengthy process that some developers with baulk at, but tools like Loom and Tango can simplify it. Ensuring that regardless of employee turnover, you will always have the means to manage your website.
Moving website management in-house can be a daunting prospect. But website management can also bring such value to your business that most businesses regret not doing it sooner. This is why RCCO’s new specialist Webflow development agency, Ramp, was created – to make the step toward in house management an easy, stress-free process.
Jordan Richards, Founder and CEO of RCCO
Jordan was one of the youngest Google apprentices, starting at just 18 and staying on for three years to become a creative lead. He has since become the founder of digital design agency RCCO, a 20-person team working with tech giants and exciting start-ups with investment. He is also co-founder of WILD, a video production studio working with PureGym and Revolut, and has recently launched Ramp – RCCO’s new specialist Webflow development agency.
