Why Launching a Website is Like Delivering A Baby: Part I

Five weeks ago I found myself in the delivery room in a hospital. My wife was in labor giving birth to our first child. This experience was perfectly new and unique to me and I didn’t fully know what to expect. I had never gone through this process before and I had more questions than answers.

Will the baby be healthy when it is delivered?  What happens if the baby gets sick?  How much will the doctors and hospital charge me for the delivery?  Who do I go to if I need help with my baby after it is born?

In preparation for the birth I spoke to friends, I spoke to family members, I attended training classes, and I read books.  I did everything I could to prepare myself for this upcoming event.
The weeks leading up to the birth and the weeks since have been like nothing I have ever experienced before…mostly great things but certainly some anxiety, some uncertainties and unnecessary worries.  

As I reflect on the birth of my first child I can’t help but relate the experience to my professional life.  To me I saw the experience very similar to that of launching a new website.  Sound crazy?  Let me explain…

I can break down the birth process into the following stages:

• Conception
• Pregnancy
• Birth
• Growth/Maturation

I can parallel these exact stages to the lifecycle of a website:

• Conception…selecting and pairing with a digital marketing agency
• Pregnancy…working with your digital marketing agency to develop the look and feel of the site
• Birth…launching your newly built website
• Growth/Maturation…growing your website by adding interesting, valuable and dynamic content

To continue the analogy…

All my friends have babies, my relatives have babies, I have been around babies my whole life but I have never had my own baby. Having a baby was new to me despite my exposure to babies. My own baby was a new experience…a unique experience.

Often times business owners find themselves building websites for the first time or redesigning and building a new website. Their friends have websites, their peers have websites, their competitors have websites, they might have inherited a website when they purchased a business, but they themselves have never built, designed, launched, and managed their own website.

As we approached our delivery date I had questions about my soon-to-be born child just as a business owner would have about a website launch:

How much time will it take to launch the website? How much money will it cost? How much traffic should the new website generate? How many leads should the website generate? How many new and unique customers should the website generate?

In part two of this blog I will address steps that a business owner launching a new website should consider to ensure a predictable and smooth process. I look forward to helping you understand clearly what should be considered when creating or launching a new website.

With the proper strategy, launching a new website can be a fun and easy process without many uncertainties and anxiety. Just as you would prepare for the birth of a child you should also diligently prepare for the launch of a new website. Stay tuned for more on this topic…  

Image courtesy of renjith krishnan via FreeDigitalPhotos.net