Why Building A “Set And Forget” Website Is A Bad Business Tactic

Before you sit down with your web designer or have a meeting with your design agency to discuss your website design or redesign ideas, first, read this post!

In what is called traditional web design, usually, the goal of the project would be to create a beautiful website that meets all of your business goals and needs.

After months of careful preparation, planning, and designing, you and your designer/agency would then move into what would seemingly be the “never-ending” process of building the website.

This entire process could take anywhere from 8 to 24 months to complete, depending on the scope of the project, right?

Now, let’s imagine for a moment that you’re planning to build a personal brand website, and you’ve been told by your web designer or agency that the project is going to take 9 to 12 months to fully complete.

You want the website to have 12 to 15 pages, including a blog, a custom homepage, several product sales pages, a lead capture page, a podcast page, a custom contact form and page, and all the rest of it.

Now, traditionally, waiting for that length of time for a design project to be completed, should, more or less, be expected.

But there are several things actually wrong with this approach, and to cut a long story short, what you could end up with in the end is something called a “Set and forget website” that simply will not work for you or your business, in terms of growth and future success.

The broken traditional approach to building a ‘set and forget’ website

The traditional approach to building a “set and forget” website means –

1. Because you’re waiting around for 12 months or more for your website to be completed, you’re going to lose the time in which you could be using to grow your business.
2. Additionally, you’re more than likely going to be faced with some big upfront fees from your designer/agency to make this design project happen and keep progressing, but probably not any faster.
3. There are also zero guarantees that your designer/agency will have your website ready in time. Sure, everyone will have your deadline in mind, but, the most likely scenario? It’s probably going to be a few weeks or even a few months past its deadline.
4. When your website is eventually ready for launch, you’re also going to discover that your new website will need additional improvements made to it.

So, once again, the likely outcome of this process is that you’ll end up with what is called a “Set and forget” website that might look great but will do very little to impact your business in a positive way.

Let’s do a quick recap.

1. No new website for 12 months or more means slow or delayed growth of your business.
2. Your website expenses will probably go over budget.
3. Your website launch will probably be late.
4. You’ll most likely find out that after the website has gone live, there will be many things that require changing, updating, modifying, and improving.

And how exactly are you going to know what kind of impact your new website is going have on your users once it’s launched?

You’re not going to know. It’s impossible to know for sure what impact your new website will have after launch, especially if it’s a redesign of your old website. And if it is a redesign, without user data or real facts to go by about your previous website, the new website might be a complete and total flop too.

And here’s the thing:

You and your designer will have most likely signed the project off as completed before that happens. So, when you do discover that you’ll need additional work done, it’s going to cost you even more money and time to rehire the designer/agency to make those changes.

Creating a “Set and Forget” website is bad for your business, or for any online business for that matter. It’s time-consuming, costly, frustrating, and produces zero results.

Is there a better and smarter way?

Yes, there is a better and smarter way to ensure your next web design, or redesign project makes a maximum impact on your business growth and success from the word “Go”.

How?

By using a method called, Growth-Driven Design, or GDD for short.

With Growth-Driven Design, you can have a “launchpad” website ready for launch in half, or even a quarter, of the time it would take in traditional website design.

How is that even possible?

Let me explain.

In Growth-Driven Design there are three key stages or processes.

1. Strategy
2. Launchpad
3. Continuous improvement

A GDD “Launchpad” website can be shipped out in much less time than traditional website design because of the all-important “Strategy” stage.

It is during this first super-critical stage that you and your designer or agency will have the opportunity to discuss literally everything.

It’s also the time when your designer/agency should learn as much as possible about your business, including goals, visions, learning about your current website (if there is one), target audience, ideal customers, buyer personas, and buyer’s journey, conversion goals, and what features you wish to have in your new launchpad website.

If the website project is a complete overhaul of an existing website, then the collection of user data and conversion metrics are also included in the mix.

Having all these important components means your web designer or agency can have your website ready in half the time, or less, than that of traditional website design.

Moreover, if this is a redesign project, your Launchpad website will be a better version of your old site.

What happens after the Launchpad website is live?

Designing a launchpad website can take anywhere between 30 to 90 days to complete, and once the website is live for the world to see, the project doesn’t end there like the “set and forget website” approach in traditional web design.

Instead, you and your designer/agency shift gears and move into the “Continuous improvements” stage.

This is the stage where your new website will begin to gather all new user data so that you and your designer can start making informed decisions on where and how to improve the website infrastructure, features, and user experience, build in new products and services, and overall, improve the conversion rate of the whole website.

The bottom line is this:

Traditional website design and creating a “set and forget” website is a broken methodology that no longer works. This is something I hadn’t realized myself, until becoming a certified GDD web designer.

So, if you’re thinking about a new website or a website redesign, make sure your designer or agency is familiar with the Growth-Driven Design process.

GDD will make your life easier, and most importantly, it will impact the growth of your business in a positive way, and you’ll get the results you need to grow your business effectively.

I wish you the best of luck, and if you have any questions, please feel free to send me an email.

Psst! Do you need a new website or website redesign? Click here to learn how I use Growth-Driven Design, as a certified GDD web designer, to create beautiful, functional, conversion-focused, and mobile responsive websites.