Heres the paradox:
1.To have a functioning website you need a webdesigner.
2. To generate traffic you need SEO.
3. To sell stuff once people get there you need good copy.
Whilst I can see people saying they combine the roles of web design SEO, are there many who also write great copy?
Let's break that list down a little further:
1. To have a functioning website you might need:
1.1 A graphic designer (logos, illustrations, etc)
1.2 A web designer (layout)
1.3 A web developer (functionality)
(for web development do you then get a server-side coding specialist, a browser-side coding specialist, a database specialist, an ecommerce gateway specialist, a security specialist, a testing specialist etc)
1.4 Somebody who can write good English content
etc
2. To generate traffic you might need:
2.1 Marketing (not just internet marketing but other non-internet marketing too)
2.2 Onsite SEO
2.3 Offsite SEO (e.g. link building)
2.4 PPC (Pay per click advertising, e.g. adwords specialist)
etc
3. To sell stuff once people get there you might need:
3.1 Sales skills
3.2 Good English wording
3.3 Copywriter
(but most of tasks 3.1-3.3 may affect your 2.2 onsite SEO too)
3.4 A buyer to source your products cheaper so you can make your prices more attractive
3.5 A business guru to make your company more efficient, so you can make your prices more attractive
3.6 A business guru or product guru to improve your products or services to make them more attractive
etc
Now if you assign different specialists to some or most of those roles you're talking about at least several different specialists! Do you really want several different companies supplying your web presence?
The threads on this forum are a great example of how people disagree about things, even specialists in the same field, but more so specialists in different areas thinking their area is the most important.
If you as a business owner take on different specialists, then you are the overall solution provider, and you take responsibility for the risks involved in trying to get the right balance of priorities for the different tasks, and trying to get different people working together. Not every team of people will gel together. In some ways specialists are less likely to gel in teams, because the more specialised you become the less you understand about the roles and needs of other people in the team, especially when your work impacts the work of others in the team.
If you as the business owner go to a web solution provider, then hopefully it is the solution provider who takes on the responsibility for providing the overall solution, using specialists where necessary, or using people with a larger skills matrix, or using an existing team of specialists (who work together well) to do this.
The other main point I'll pick up on is English skills. Not advanced copywriting skills but simple English communication skills. If you go for a web solution provider from another country (e.g. India, Eastern Europe) you might well need to provide either your own English copy, or get someone in to provide that if you cannot do it yourself.
But even with a UK-based web solution provider, the business client usually provides their own copy anyway, in one starting format or another, since they know their business better than their web solution provider.
Also, surely most business owners have some marketing and sales skills for tasks 2 and 3? As well as at least basic written English skills for task 1 and some of task 3? (MS Word's grammar checker and spell checker can help with this)
Most of the business people on this forum seem to communicate pretty well. I wouldn't expect most of the business people on this forum to code up an advanced website, nor get their site to the top of google, but I would expect most of the business people on this forum to string a few sentences together explaining what is good about their company, services and products.
