A website consultant is an IT expert who specialises in making, promoting & improving websites & online systems for others. Find out how!
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What’s a website consultant?
The best Internet or website consultants will have years of hands-on experience in both the creation of all types of websites and projects as well as extensive experience in marketing these projects and turning them into successful endeavors.
Web developers or web designers usually have a more focused or specialised area of expertise e.g. web design and build or backend development, as opposed to a website consultant who specialises in the whole process from initial identification of goals and strategic planning through to build completion, testing, launch and post launch monitoring. Website or Internet consulting often involves simply providing advise if you do your own work or have your own in house or contracted developer.
How does a website consultant operate?
Another interesting aspect to consider when thinking about engaging with an Internet or website consultant is that they don’t necessarily need to be involved in the whole process. You may already have an existing web presence and may only require search engine optimisation work or the design may need updating. Maybe you haven’t started your online journey yet and simply want a chat and a point in the right direction. All these scenarios are perfect examples where a website consultant can save you money and time.
At Lars Jansen Website Consulting I more often than not tend to make suggestions, create plans and offer advice rather than do the work myself. I can point you to the web development companies and services that best suit your goals and budget, and match your required outcomes to services best suited to your project that would be cost effective for your business. I will take on some projects myself depending on my current workload or, if I think I can provide a better service to you than other services available in your location.
What can a website consultant do?
Depending on your website or project type, and what your requirements are, a website consultant can either advise on or implement and execute the following and more:
- Identify project goals
- Sales targets
- Market share
- Search engine rankings (Search Engine Optimisation)
- Pre-project assessment to help the client decide what they actually require technically to meet their goals.
- Who is the target audience?
- Where is the target audience?
- Which technologies best suit the expected use? Do we need a database drive website or will a static HTML website work just as well?
- Content creation
- Turning content/copy into content that converts visitors into customers
- Quality CTA’s (call to action)
- Building the website and/or backend
- Hosting and email options. These will vary depending on the size of the project, whether or not it is a static or dynamic website (i.e. database driven backend or content management system) and how much traffic we expect your site or app to receive
- Ensuring design and coding best practises are followed
- Valid HTML and CSS for example
- User-centric designs
- Correct content structure
- Navigation that makes sense to both website users and also search engine bots themselves
- Readability
- Branding consistancy
- Responsive across devices (Over 60% of website traffic comes from mobile devices)
- Accessibility eg. Can blind users navigate your website?
- Online marketing
- Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising
- Content marketing
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Video marketing
- Affiliate marketing
- Text messaging
- Offline marketing
- Radio
- Television
- Promotional items
- Events and workshops
- Billboards
- Magazines and newspapers
- Flyers
- Sponsorships
- Direct mail
These are just some of the services I provide as a website consultant. Probably my main service and the one I get the most satisfaction from is simply sitting down and having a coffee with someone who’s about to get started with a great idea and helping them avoid the traps set by, sometimes, dodgy or cowboy web design businesses.
This service is free (unless you pay for the Cappuccino!) and will be the greatest investment of your time before you start spending money. There are plenty of tricks to keep your costs down. For example it may suit your project to simply buy a pre-made template or theme and apply it to your site or app rather than invest in having a full site design coded from scratch.
The website development process
If I’m overseeing or running a complete web project myself, my typical project workflow would consist of:
- Identifying goals
- Strategic planning
- Site structure, design, and content strategy
- Content development and creation
- Content integration and site build
- Fine tuning, testing and launch!
- Marketing
- Ongoing site maintenance
Of course, if you only require some SEO work and some Facebook marketing, or perhaps you simply need a redesign and you’re happy with your marketing I can mix and match my services to your requirements.
Find out more about me on the front page and feel free to get in touch with me today and we can catch up for a chat!
