When you have a health issue, often you go to see your family doctor, describe the issue to them, and let them refer you to a specialist. This is because a medical professional that specializes in a certain discipline — such as endocrinology or somnology, for example — knows much more about the issue at hand, allowing them to not only diagnose your problem more accurately and efficiently, but also tailor treatment to what is best for your body while keeping in mind the latest medical advances.
Surprisingly enough, the experience of getting a website shouldn’t be too much different (though you’ll likely skip the first step of seeing a general practitioner!). Why would you go with a general company — marketing, web development, or otherwise — who doesn’t know your basic needs as a tour operator? They would be starting from square one in terms of understanding your business, whereas a guaranteed tourism specialist already has a base of knowledge in play.
Let’s talk about some circumstances under which you would decide to go with a specialist.
1. You feel like explaining your business to your current developer (or getting a quote from a potential developer) is either like talking to a brick wall or pulling teeth.
We have all experienced inefficient communication at least once in our lives, but you should be able to have a certain level of rapport and understanding with your developer. At the end of the day, your company’s website is in their hands, and in this day and age, a website is the very base of any company. Similarly, if it’s difficult for your developer (who, let’s face it, may be you yourself) to understand your needs and/or translate those needs into a functioning website, then it may be time to look into making the switch to a specialist.
2. Your sales haven’t seen any increase lately, or they aren’t where you want them to be.
A specialist that works in your same industry is more than familiar with what your target audience responds to well. Maybe your current site doesn’t have the information displayed in a logical hierarchy or has certain elements that don’t serve your website visitors. Want to take a guess at who has the best chance of correctly diagnosing that issue for you?
3. You have unique website needs that need to be well understood and perfectly implemented.
Have you spoken to your development team about a particular function that your site needs in order to be as easy as possible for your clients to use? Has the answer always been, “Sure, we can do that right now”? I didn’t think so. Luckily, a web development specialist is far more likely already to have many of the features you’ll need—or better yet, be able to develop something especially for your site. And in the off chance that they can do neither of the above, they can come up with a creative solution to your problem, at the very least.
Okay, so now you know that you need a specialist. Even if you don’t fit the above criteria, let’s be honest — going with a specialist is a good idea anyways. Why? Because they focus all of their energy and resources on excelling at one particular task (in our case, for example, it’s web development for tourism companies), so the likelihood that they are good at what they do increases exponentially.
Are you convinced yet? Great, that’s what we like to hear! But how do you go about picking a specialist? There has to be more than one in the world, so you have to decide how you’re going to choose between them. Luckily, we have a couple of bits of advice for you.
1. Ask for recommendations from your colleagues and/or competitors.
Think about colleagues or even competitors of yours that you know are doing well. Can you identify any key factors that would help them succeed? If not, it may be a good idea to get in touch with them and see what they are doing that has attributed to their success. This could be anything from great in-house content writers, to a killer SEO agency, to a web development team that does it all for them. Find out what services they use — and maybe those services could be good for you too.
2. Check the credentials (and portfolio) of each developer you’re considering.
Before you go scheduling calls or putting down a deposit, make sure to thoroughly research the developers that you have in mind. First things first: is their own website functional and beautiful? Do you like the look of it? Do you like how it’s organized and written?
Now, surely they have a portfolio available for you to look at. See if you can find their most recent website launches, and see what you like or dislike about those sites. This will allow you to either a) decide they are not a good fit for your company and/or b) come into a conversation with them about what you want and what they can do for you.
What’s the takeaway?
The long and short of it is a specialist is going to propel your company ahead rather than let it plateau. So, it’s up to you whether you want to go with a specialist or not… our point of view is that anything else is too risky. So get to looking around!
PS: Maybe you don’t need to look around much. Looking to chat with our team at Tourism Tiger and let us handle your website needs? No problem. Just get in touch with us, and we’ll take care of you.
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