Very often, we hear from clients “I need my website updated” or “My website doesn’t look good.” And then they tell us they called “a guy” who says he can do the whole thing for a low, low price.

Right. And a one-man band is an orchestra.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is making our clients understand the scale of what is involved in the basics of making a website, of which the written content and search engine optimization (SEO) is a very large part, but not the whole enchilada. I’d like to cite a great article called The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period! by Stoney deGeyter.

I think the list summarizes in an eye-popping way the volume of work that goes into a website, and the reason website creation — if done properly — takes time and lots of effort. Now, like everything else on the web, many of these thought points have changed, but this list should give you an idea of what is involved.

So the next time you need a new website, or even an update, keep this list in mind. You may be tempted to hire what we call the “one-man band” website designer, who supposedly is a creative copywriter, graphic artist, web coder, database programmer, adviser, and marketing expert.

Ummm … no. Please take a few of the points from the article and ask your would-be one-man-band some leading questions. If they can’t answer all of them, then they will stumble on your project. Why? It takes a team to create a website, period.

If they say they can single-handedly produce you a website that will generate traffic and leads, but cannot answer a few checklist questions, well — that’s just embarrassing!