Too much of this can be a detriment to your website’s growth. You won’t sell a thing until it goes live.
My opinion is that it is more important to get the site functioning then push it live and it will start to
evolve over time. In the first few months you’ll discover new ways to adapt your custom Web design or
decide you really do need that contact page your developer suggested, and you can implement these
changes as you go. Don’t waste a week wondering if you should choose rounded corners or square. Just
set the site live.

Building Success out of Failure

One reason for not pushing a site live was that they were actually embarrassed that people might see
it. I suspect this is a superficial fear. My customers we’re comparing their site to others, whether they
were a competitor or not. I can understand wanting to be better than a competitor’s site, but the reality
is that your competitors went through their own trials and failures (yes, failures) before they got to this
point.

Failing fast was an idea introduced to me by Avinash Kaushik (kaushik.net). The concept is to build
the site knowing that it will. The key is to be prepared to meet that failure with a strong rebound. You
can grow from the failure and make your site better for another attempt to fail. As you learn from you
mistake you’ll bulletproof your site and the time between fixes will get longer and longer. Eventually
your site will be better than the competition, but none of it can happen until you push that site live.

You may not think you’re ready, and you may not believe you’ve caught all the bugs, but it isn’t going to
start attracting new customers until you put it out there in the world where it can grow and change to
provide the kind of experience your visitors expect.

Your site will never seem like it’s ready to go live. No matter how many times you go over it, there will
always be something to improve. Stop your holding back and put it out there for the world to see.

The day your website is “complete” is the day you take it offline and throw it away. A successful website
represents constant improvements and implementing visitors’ requests. It requires innovation and
intuition. You should plan on creating a flexible site that will keep up with the market. No matter how
incredible the design or how perfect the programming, there is always something more you could do.
Just get over it and put it out there.

More than Just Design

All too often I will make a site live for a client just to have them call a week later to ask what’s wrong
with their site and why they don’t have any orders. My question to them is always: “What have you
done to market your site?” It’s amazing how many of them think that just being online is enough.

Innovation and creativity make your site stand out from the crowd. There are over 350 million websites
online right now (yes, I counted them all), so you have to use SEO Web design best practices, pay-per-
click programs, ads on the bus or social networking sites to give your website an edge. If your site isn’t
standing out over your competition it simply isn’t complete.

Think of your site like you would a brick and mortar shop. Getting people into the shop is the first step
but then you have to keep them there. You need to pay attention to the trends in the market and make
the necessary adjustments or your site will fail. Look at Facebook and Google for example: both are
billion dollar sites but they’re constantly introducing new features to stay on top. Your website, even if
you’re just selling widgets, is no different. If you want your widgets to sell better than your neighbor’s to
stay on top.

What’s the Solution?

One very effective way to encourage this evolution is to implement a feedback form on your site. This
is a quick and easy way to get information from your visitors, and most people won’t be put off by
answering a few quick questions. You’ll gain valuable insight into your customers’ expectations and you
can start to make the necessary changes. There are countless ideas and technologies that you can add
to your site to make you stand out from the millions of others. You just have to push it live and then be
ready to adapt to a changing market.