'My Son Built Our Web Site'

[Jason Molinet]

Talking to several small business owners in recent months, I get the occasional cringeworthy line thrown my way: "Oh, we've got a web site. My son built our web site.''

Well, excuse me for being a pessimist. As handy as your son might be with html code and Photoshop, if he doesn't run his own web design business, then your web site likely is missing several key features to help it stand out in the crowd.

For starters, search engines regularly crawl sites. And if yours doesn't have all the alt and meta tags in place, then you are in danger of being marginalized. Choosing the right key words to put in the tags is just as important as the tags themselves.

And then there is SEO. Few people properly understand search engine optimization. You son almost certainly doesn't. If your site is stuck on Page 8 of Google rankings, no wonder! Pay a professional to optimize your site and you should see real results.

The bottom line is you get what you pay for. Little Joey might be able to whip together a functional family genealogy page. But when it comes to your business, why leave something as important as a web site to an amateur?

[Jonathan Weiss]

As someone working in the web design and development field, I definitely agree with you. I have come across many clients who swear that their site looks great because their nephew built it during recess at Middle School. Not to criticize the youth and their capabilities, but when it comes to business you're going to want to stay clear of not so much the younger crowd, but the inexperienced. Would you send out that same nephew to handle your public relations or lead your marketing campaign? Having him set up your web site is no different.