Three Reasons Your Site is Taking Forever to Build

Believe it or not, about a third of websites projects will take up to six months to complete and a third of them will NEVER get done. This is based on a study I did with my list and it concurs with my experience over the last 12 years.

There are three reasons this happens – and yes, these have happened to me.

1. There is no vision for what you are creating.

What is almost always a challenge when a client comes to you with a life or business challenge? You pry with some good questions and quickly find that part of the struggle is lack of clarity of the desired outcome.

Your website is no different. You need to know what your vision for your website is going to be. You will need to know what you want your site to do for your business. What specific results do you want? How will your site support them?

You’ll need to determine this as best as you can given your resources. Talk to other successful coaches. Clarify your business goals. Talk to marketing gurus. Research what you want your site to do. Then ask what kind of content and features need to be in it to support that.

2. There is no project manager.

Many clients are first-time managers without even knowing it. They think, “hire a web designer” and he/she will take care of the site – great! But many web designers are waiting for you to hire them AND manage them – for you to tell them what to do.

Herein lies a challenge. You don’t know how to manage them or what you want them to create and they (many of them) are waiting for you to direct them. No one has taken responsibility for managing the project to your desired outcome (assuming you’ve handled #1 above).
Thus, by default, you become the project manager (unless you’ve run across a seasoned web designer who has figured out that the project will need management).

So, just know that you will need to manage the effort and get it done. This means you should set deadlines (while conferring with your web designer), milestones and action steps. Then follow up as needed. You will act as a coach to your web designer.

3. You don’t know how to create good content.

Many coaches think a short bio and list of coaching services (assessments, modalities, etc), and their list of credentials will do the trick. While it will result in some sort of content, it will not be engaging or interesting to visitors. It doesn’t get them excited about you as their coach.

They key to good content is writing more about what your visitors are interested in than “how coaching works” or even “why coaching works”. While the logistics of coaching are quite interesting, they aren’t motivating.

Remember people might pay a little for someone to hold them accountable and cheer them on but they will pay lots to help them double their business, find a great career, save their marriage, or even save their life (health coaching).

Check out what other good coaching sites are doing. Study up on writing to market yourself as a professional services person. Speak to, get books from, sign up for courses provided by marketing gurus on how to create great content for your site.

In summary

To sum it up, the three things to help ensure your site gets done in a timely are (1) have a vision for your site, (2) identify the manager (you or the designer) and (3) learn how to create good content for your site.

My questions to you – Have you faced any of these challenges? How did you overcome them? Any other kinds of challenges that caused you big delays in construction?