Putting Your Small Business on the Web
If there’s any single question I get asked more than any other, it’s this one: “Hey, Jerry, you do computers and web stuff, so what’s the best way to get my business on the internet?” Usually this question comes from a small business owner, which often means they have a limited budget and no clue where to start. The web is now saturated with companies offering to host your new website, but do you choose one of those or go with a local web design company?
In today’s market, there are two basic approaches to putting a site online. Approach One is to go the traditional route of contracting a web designer and then a hosting provider, such as Interland (http://www.interland.com), to build your site for you. The second approach is to find a content-managed website provider, such as Verdigre (http://www.verdigre.com), which will allow you to create and build your site yourself. Both approaches have their pros and cons and we’ll go into detail below.
Approach 1
To help clarify the decision making process, I will first discuss the “traditional” method for establishing a web presence.
At the point you, the business owner, decide you need a site, the very next thing you need to do is retain the services of a web designer… not a hosting company or an ISP (internet service provider), but a person who is skilled in the technical art of building the actual website, regardless of who actually puts that site on the internet for you. Many hosting companies and ISP’s also do web design, but many do not, and many more will simply subcontract the design to a web designer. It is slightly more of a hassle, but I recommend that you work directly with a web designer, if you can, because you are more likely get to the site design you pay for.
Many web hosting companies, however, offer a slight break on the design and building of your site if you are hosting it with them. You will have to evaluate whether the discount, if any, is worth it. Be especially careful when you are dealing with a website designer that isn’t local. My advice is to ask for working references… actual up and running websites that they have designed and put online. If they have no references they may be good but inexperienced, which you have every right to expect to be reflected in their pricing. Make sure that they are capable of offering the features you want, such as event calendars, announcements, or online catalogs.
For a basic business website, you should expect to pay between $500 and $2,000 depending on the amount of custom graphics you require. A good website designer will provide a couple different look and feel samples (called “comps” or “compositions”) for you to choose from before getting down to work. They should elicit your input before and after the comp stage. If you don’t like any of the comps the designer provides it is customary to pay a nominal fee for additional comps. For sites that have e-commerce or shopping cart capabilities, as well as those that allow users to register or subscribe to a member service of some type, expect to pay a little more, as an actual programmer may have to be brought in. The same goes for sites that gather custom data on forms for storage or processing. These additional features may run you an extra $500 to $3,000. Very large sites, with lots of pages and submenus, may cost extra, simply due to the organizational effort required of a designer. Beware of pricing schemes, however, that charge you a fixed amount per page. The first few basic pages are what you are paying for. A designer should provide a plan for adding additional pages… as long as they keep the same design… without charging you as if they were custom building a new page.
Once your site is designed and built, you will need to identify a web hosting company whose job it is to make the site available to people on the internet. Keep in mind there is a difference between a web hosting company and an ISP. An ISP simply gives you or your business a connection to the internet so that you and your employees can use your web browsers and get email. A web hosting company hosts web sites. Many ISP’s are also web hosting companies. If you are going to use your ISP’s web hosting service, however, make sure that hosting sites is a mainstay of their business and they’re not just throwing your site on some spare server in a closet somewhere. Make sure they have the bandwidth to support your site’s needs. Often, the web designer you choose will have a preferred hosting company and will be able to advise you on the correct storage and bandwidth choices. You will, most likely, pay a monthly fee anywhere from $10 to $30 a month to have your site hosted.
The host will also help you register your domain name, like http://www.myreallygreatbusiness.com, which is basically the friendly name people type in to get to your website. This will usually cost some amount per year, from $10 to $30. Please heed the following, however: When your host acquires your domain name for you, make sure they place YOU down as the administrative contact for the domain. Otherwise, you will end up paying for a domain which someone else owns (usually the host), and when you go to move your website or sell the domain name to someone else, you won’t be able to because you will not have the authority to do it.
Careful, too, if you host your site with one of the many (many, many) hosting providers that are out there on the internet. Very often, these companies well sell you a place to put your site for $10 a month, but will neglect to mention that site design services are extra, or they will grab your monthly hosting fee, leaving it completely up to you find a website designer and have the site put up. Many of these companies will offer “site builders” or “templates” to get your site started. These can be problematic, however, because they may get your site started but leave you with ninety percent of a site with no way to complete the additional ten percent. If you are not a web designer yourself, make sure that the hosting company can actually deliver a real working web site that you can modify and maintain without hiring one.
My recommendation is to find a reputable local hosting provider, but if that’s not possible than stick with the more established and well-know hosts, such as Interland ((http://www.interland.com) or iPowerWeb (http://www.ipowerweb.com). In the later case, make sure you keep backups of your website (or have your web designer do it) and make sure you avoid paying for add-on features you don’t need.
Approach 2
The second approach is a fairly recent addition to the general website development community. It’s called “Content Management.” A content-managed hosting service makes it possible for you to build your website and manage (add, delete and modify) it in a friendly environment. Generally, these hosts get you started by providing you set of templates and designs to pick from and then let you customize from there.
There are many upsides to this approach and very few downsides. The need for a website designer is lessened or eliminated altogether because the starting templates are developed by professionals and you are given the tools to customize your site, using their work as a starting point. A good content-managed hosting company will allow you to change your site’s look and feel at any time while keeping your site’s content in place. This separation of how your site looks from the information that’s in your site is an important concept that’s only recently emerging. It’s a smart way to go because it let’s you get your website up and running fast and then, if you don’t like the way it looks two months later, you can change it without having to reenter all of your content.
You can always hire a website designer anyway, but their job will be easier, which means you’ll pay less for their services. Some content-managed hosting companies will even guide you through the process, recognizing that just because you can do it yourself it doesn’t mean you want to. The solution is ideal for restaurants and stores because owner’s can go online and change their menus or sale information without needing a web designer. Another advantage to this approach is that content-managed services often come with additional features (such as calendar of events, announcements, user registration) that would cost a small fortune to have built into your site in Approach 1.
The only downside to a content-managed web site is that hosting your own website on your premises is ruled out, but I would not recommend hosting your own web server to a small business anyway. Finding a starting template can be challenging, too. Many small business owners stress too much about how their site looks, however. My advice to them is to get online first. As long as it looks professional, most people are looking for information that’s well organized and easy to find. Customers will not select your business just because you have a fantastic looking site unless, of course, you are in the business of selling websites. One of the nice features of content management is that organization comes along for the ride with no additional effort.
As far as choosing a content-managed web host, the good news is that there are only a few to choose from. It’s a newly emerging technology. (Actually it’s an old concept, only recently made available for website hosting.) It’s important to choose a host that uses a well-supported content management solution. That will increase the number of look-and-feel templates you can use for your site. Standards such as the DNN (DotNetNuke) mean that even if the hosting provider doesn’t carry a skin (that’s the jargon for a look-and-feel template) that you like, there are literally thousands on the internet to choose from.
You will pay slightly more for a solution based on this approach, probably between $15 and $30 per month, but you may avoid the hundreds or thousands of dollars you might have spent otherwise. The process of registering a domain name is the same as in the first approach, and so are the issues… again, make sure you are the administrative contact on your domain name.
Beware that while searching for a host that does content management you may run across several companies offering to sell you a content management service (CMS) solution targeted at online documentation or for use by larger companies to use in their intranet/extranet solution. You want to find a solution such as Verdigre, Incorporated (http://www.verdigre.com) that is in the business of providing websites to small and medium sized businesses.
Jerry Holmes
http://www.verdigre.com
jholmes@verdigre.com
