Case Study: Do-It-Yourself vs. CMS
Do-it-yourself websites may seem like an easy way to get started online quickly. But those websites can run out of steam quickly, limiting your options when you need them the most. Here’s how we remodeled one of those sites for a local business woman, allowing her to turn her website into a powerful sales tool.
Simple was enough at first
Freelance copywriter Elizabeth Carter started writing magazine articles and website content in 2005. She wanted a simple website to showcase her writing samples online for potential new editors, but she didn’t have a budget – or a need – for anything fancy.
At the recommendation of a writer friend, she checked out a well-known online do-it-yourself service. She picked out a template she liked, spent a few hours writing a couple of pages and uploading her portfolio, and voila! She had her website!
Over the next few years, however, Elizabeth’s writing career developed into Freelance Writing Solutions, with 90% of her business coming from small- and medium-sized companies; she was writing brochures, press releases, sales letters, and website copy – not magazine articles, as she had in the beginning.
As her business changed, she needed to market herself differently. She knew a regular newsletter would allow her to highlight her expertise and help to establish long-term relationships with her prospects and clients. But to get the most benefit from a newsletter, she knew she needed to grow her list of email addresses. Although she had collected a sizable list through networking, she wanted to do better.
Growing business = different needs
She wanted to tap into the power of her website by placing a subscription box prominently on her home page. She also wanted to add an incentive – a special report she had written that she wanted to give to visitors for free, in exchange for their email address.
But her do-it-yourself website wouldn’t let her do any of that. To add that functionality, she would have to upgrade to a more expensive version of the service, but even then, she’d have to write her own code (which she didn’t know how to do), and she’d have to choose a different template, which would change the look of her website (which she didn’t want to do either). She was stuck.
Frustrated, she began to look for other options. But she was worried – money was still a concern, and she liked being in control of her own website. She updated her website content frequently, and she didn’t want to have to go through someone else every time she wanted to make a change. Could she find a happy medium – one that gave her the functionality she needed, while staying within her budget and allowing her to control the content of her website?
A simple CMS solution
We met Elizabeth through the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce. After discussing what she’d like her website to do for her business, we presented to her a simple, cost-effective solution.
We suggested developing a Content Management System (CMS) website that would allow Elizabeth to easily update her website whenever she wanted. Within this CMS framework, we could add a module to her home page that would capture email addresses and automatically send an email to new subscribers with a link to the free special report incentive she had created.
Together, we chose a skin for her website that closely matched the template she had been using. In fact, the new skin allowed her to upload her logo to the banner, which she hadn’t previously been able to do – giving her branding a big boost. She was thrilled.
Her email list is now growing at a respectable 12% each month – and we’re talking about ways to improve that even further. She’s also taken advantage of the flexibility of her CMS site and reorganized several pages to make them more visitor-friendly, which has more than doubled the amount of time visitors spend on these pages. And because we installed analytics tools on every page, she’s using this data to set ambitious yet attainable goals for improving traffic to her site.
Elizabeth is pleased with the new options we’ve opened up for her Freelance Writing Solutions website, and she’s confident that as her business continues to grow, her website will grow along with it.
To see Elizabeth’s website, click here.
To see how we’ve helped others just like you, click here.
Case Study: Do-It-Yourself vs. CMS
Do-it-yourself websites may seem like an easy way to get started online quickly. But those websites can run out of steam quickly, limiting your options when you need them the most. Here’s how we remodeled one of those sites for a local business woman, allowing her to turn her website into a powerful sales tool.
Simple was enough at first
Freelance copywriter Elizabeth Carter started writing magazine articles and website content in 2005. She wanted a simple website to showcase her writing samples online for potential new editors, but she didn’t have a budget – or a need – for anything fancy.
At the recommendation of a writer friend, she checked out a well-known online do-it-yourself service. She picked out a template she liked, spent a few hours writing a couple of pages and uploading her portfolio, and voila! She had her website!
Over the next few years, however, Elizabeth’s writing career developed into Freelance Writing Solutions, with 90% of her business coming from small- and medium-sized companies; she was writing brochures, press releases, sales letters, and website copy – not magazine articles, as she had in the beginning.
As her business changed, she needed to market herself differently. She knew a regular newsletter would allow her to highlight her expertise and help to establish long-term relationships with her prospects and clients. But to get the most benefit from a newsletter, she knew she needed to grow her list of email addresses. Although she had collected a sizable list through networking, she wanted to do better.
Growing business = different needs
She wanted to tap into the power of her website by placing a subscription box prominently on her home page. She also wanted to add an incentive – a special report she had written that she wanted to give to visitors for free, in exchange for their email address.
But her do-it-yourself website wouldn’t let her do any of that. To add that functionality, she would have to upgrade to a more expensive version of the service, but even then, she’d have to write her own code (which she didn’t know how to do), and she’d have to choose a different template, which would change the look of her website (which she didn’t want to do either). She was stuck.
Frustrated, she began to look for other options. But she was worried – money was still a concern, and she liked being in control of her own website. She updated her website content frequently, and she didn’t want to have to go through someone else every time she wanted to make a change. Could she find a happy medium – one that gave her the functionality she needed, while staying within her budget and allowing her to control the content of her website?
A simple CMS solution
We met Elizabeth through the Naperville Area Chamber of Commerce. After discussing what she’d like her website to do for her business, we presented to her a simple, cost-effective solution.
We suggested developing a Content Management System (CMS) website that would allow Elizabeth to easily update her website whenever she wanted. Within this CMS framework, we could add a module to her home page that would capture email addresses and automatically send an email to new subscribers with a link to the free special report incentive she had created.
Together, we chose a skin for her website that closely matched the template she had been using. In fact, the new skin allowed her to upload her logo to the banner, which she hadn’t previously been able to do – giving her branding a big boost. She was thrilled.
Her email list is now growing at a respectable 12% each month – and we’re talking about ways to improve that even further. She’s also taken advantage of the flexibility of her CMS site and reorganized several pages to make them more visitor-friendly, which has more than doubled the amount of time visitors spend on these pages. And because we installed analytics tools on every page, she’s using this data to set ambitious yet attainable goals for improving traffic to her site.
Elizabeth is pleased with the new options we’ve opened up for her Freelance Writing Solutions website, and she’s confident that as her business continues to grow, her website will grow along with it.
To see Elizabeth’s website, click here.
To see how we’ve helped others just like you, click here.