by Bill Cherry
Every business needs a website:
Now days every business needs a website. That includes small one person businesses like authors, lawyers, insurance agents and freelance professionals.
Customers expect every respectable business to have a website.
If a business doesn’t have a website, potential customers start to wonder, “What’s wrong with this business?” Not having one makes people distrust the business.
Example: I coached a student who told me she wanted to get a certain business franchise and ask me to give her my opinion of it. We went to the Internet to check out the businesses’ website and to our surprise the company had no website. Her response was, “Gee, they must be a scam.” Every business must have a website.
Now I’m going to talk about how you can create a website for your business very inexpensively. I will tell you step by step how easy it is to create the website yourself,
but first I need to provide some basic information about the website building business.
To hire or not to hire a web designer:
The whole issue boils down to do you want to create your website, or do you want a professional web designer to create it. One of the main questions you must ask is, do you want to take the time to learn the programs used to create your website, or do you want to shell out the cash to have it done. Do you have more time than money or more money than time?
You also must consider your level of computer skills and your ability to deal with the frustration of creating a website. Some people enjoy learning and doing new things on the computer and they are good at it. Others are computer challenged and attempting to learn a new computer skill sends them into a comma. These people think every computer should be sold with a gun and two bullets; one for the computer and one for themselves.
Website design costs: the sky’s the limit:
When it comes to the costs of building a website, you can spend as much money as you can get. It is not unusual for a website designer to charge $3,000, $5,000, or more to create a website. The truth is you often don’t get what you pay for.
You can get comparable websites designed for as little as $500 on up to thousands of dollars…for the same website! Why the difference? Designers charge what the market will bear. As in all professions there are the good the bad, and the ugly. The best web designer’s are paid the most and the lesser ones get paid less.
If you are on a tight budget, call a community college or university computer graphics department. Get a junior or senior to create your website for a big discount. He needs it for his portfolio.
How do you know if you are getting a fair price?
It is difficult. There are three basic areas of design, 1.) The visual appearance, 2.) The architecture that makes the website operate and 3.) Special effects.
The visual appearance includes layout, design, colors, photos, text design, and the content of the pages.
The architecture is how the website operates, what it does and how the navigation buttons like “About Us,” operate.
Special effects are features like moving images, music, video etc. Usually the more features a website has the more it will cost. Get several quotes form different website designers.
Now the Low Cost Website:
The first step is to find and choose a web host. Every website is hosted by a “host.” This is a major website where many websites are parked until they are used. It is kind of like a parking lot full of cars. The parking lot is the host, and the individual cars are individual websites.
There are many different web hosts available from which to choose. Three good ones are: www.networksolutions.com, www.web.com, and www.godaddy.com. Every web host has a monthly fee, from $10 to $50. This hosting fee is an every month cost. The low monthly hosting fee can be as little as $10 dollars a month and that can be your only cost.
Be sure to get these web host features:
Web hosts come with various features. Make sure the web host you choose has the following features:
A web builder with a wide selection of pre-designed templates of every business category should be available. If you are a florist there should be 10 or 20 great looking florest templates to choose from.
It should have a price between $15 and $50 a month. Don’t lock into an annual contract until you are sure you will keep the website for a long time.
The web host should have free features such as the ability to download files like e-books, to add audio or video to your website, to accept credit cards, to have moving pictures and to be able to make any changes in your website easily.
If you want to sell products on your website:
The only other cost you may have with your website is if you accept credit cards from people who buy your products. There are two choices here; first to have what is called a merchant account, and the other is to use Paypal for payments.
A merchant account will cost you around $15 a month plus a per transaction fee of around .20 cents, and a 2.4% fee of the purchase amount. You will have to pay the monthly $15 fee whether or not people buy from you.
The other option is to use a Paypal account, www.paypal.com. A Paypal account is free to sign up with and it allows you to accept payments on your website. Paypal is probably the best way to go if you are short on cash.
Total cost for the website:
So you don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a professional website. Choose a web host that has a professional looking template and your only cost will be the low monthly hosting fee. That’s all. Add a free Paypal account to accept payments and you are in business.
So any business or individual business person can afford a professional looking website. Now you know how to do it.
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