Last Saturday night we went to the new Resorts World casino at Aqueduct racetrack. The place was packed, there were six people waiting online at each slot machine waiting to play. We waited a half hour to get a players card and waited a half hour for reservations to the buffet. That was just for reservations, we then had to wait another half hour until it was time for our reservation.
The new casino is 3 floors but in a hurry to open they only have one floor open. It was an absolute horrible experience for us. Imagine waiting at a casino to lose your money? It was just insane, I am sure it will be much better when they open the other 2 floors but it got me thinking. When should you open your website to business.
When Is Your Website Ready?
This past week I watched a friend of mine throw together a website in a few hours. It was a complete website that had everything a website needs. Then I came across another website that was launched at the same time and it was not ready for prime time at all. While the first site had everything this site was missing some key ingredients like a privacy policy, contact us, about us, a search box and no social media. Their logo didn't look so hot either. Nothing about this site made it look professional at all.
Will the second site ever be ready is the real question as odds are the webmaster will move on to another project and “forget” to do these things. I know I have done it myself. The first site out of the box is offering a great user experience and will end up with natural backlinks because it looks more trusting. They even have an email signup which in my opinion no site should launch without.
I can hear you already saying “But Vinny I will go back and fix these things when I have time.” Really! If that is what you believe then I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Most webmasters don't have a launch plan, most I know don't have a go back and fix later plan either.
To have a successful website or blog you need to have a plan, and something that makes your site unique. You also need a syndication plan, just writing a page of content doesn't cut it anymore.
Joe Sousa says
OK, which one of my sites did you look at? I have at least 15-20 of them that I have started and almost finished but haven’t added the finishing touches.
And you are right. If I don’t get my sites “finished” the first time I will rarely go back and add the important stuff like about us pages and email forms and the like.
vinny says
I am guilty of the same things Joe, What I ended up doing was take one website a week and included all the important things. I made a list and that system worked out pretty good for me.