When you are done reading this page, you will save money and get an effective online presence, all because I am going to tell you exactly what you need that makes it easier – and cheaper – for you to get your business online.
A warning
You must start with the end in mind, otherwise, I must warn you, it will be difficult to get a good deal for your website.
Your website – like any other business project – will be dependent on three variables; quality, time and cost. You want to increase the overall quality of your website, chances are you will also end up increasing the overall cost and the time taken to get the website up and running.
And chances are, you are not as well-versed in technology as say, a web agency salesman who’s primary job is to exploit the obvious gap in information. To combat that, you must start with the end in mind. What is it that you want out of your website? should be your first question, and you should at least give it some thought to arrive at an educated answer. Here are some possible answers:
- Have something online, so potential customers can contact my business
- I want to show a gallery of my business products
- I want my existing clients to contact me via the web, to save on communications cost
- I just want my business represented online; just a three to five page website so people can contact us, know more about us or browse our product/service area
- I just want to use the email on my own domain, because it looks professional; the website itself can be a decent brochure-type page.
The reason you must have a fair idea of what you want from your website, is because arriving at the reason is not that difficult, but the benefit to your business is immense. Imagine…you already know what you want, so some ‘guru’ or ‘salesman’ can not tell you what you need. You already know what you need.
Technology is cheap, and technology is easy
Remember these two words; cheap, and easy. If you are spending two thousand dollars to get your 5-page business website up and running, then this is not cheap. If you find it confusing to make changes to your website, then this is not easy.
The most essential things are free or near-free.
The backbone of your website is your Content Management System (CMS). It will help you make changes, change your website design/theme and optimize your website for search engines (Search Engine Optimization is demystified later on this page). But here’s the thing: your CMS is free!
For example, I use WordPress, possibly the best software for managing websites – free or paid!
The technology world has moved forward in such a way that things like bandwidth and web space is now cheap, as in really cheap. For high-volume websites, things are still different, but as opposed to what some web agency guys might have you believe, your business website is not supposed to be a high-volume site, but a highly-targeted one. When I say high-volume, I mean sites like Facebook and YouTube!
What about your website design?
To sum it up quickly: there are three types of designs/themes that you can get for your website:
- Free themes
- Pre-designed themes (costs anywhere between US$ 35 to US$ 100)
- Custom-designed themes (starts at around US$ 600, easily going up to US$ 2,000, sometimes a lot more)
Free Themes
The first thing most savvy business owners, like you, would go for are the free themes. I mean, they are free, right? Well, I don’t recommend the free designs and themes, because unless you are a graphic designer or a web developer, you’d have to get the free designs tweaked to fit your website. That defeats the whole purpose of getting a free theme, now doesn’t it?
Pre-designed themes
You can easily find a theme that not only looks good, but performs well too (something that the Free themes have a hard time doing!). I recommend you go for these themes only because they are so cheap.
Starting from something like 35 US dollars to not more than about a 100 bucks, these themes are easy to implement, have a great functional side to them (you can easily edit a lot of items, for example).
You can check out my own pre-designed business website designs to get an idea. Another resource that you would like is WooThemes. If you like something you see, then you can easily set it up on your own website.
Custom-designed theme
These are expensive. As much as 5,000 US dollars for a blog design! The costs are wildly varying. You should only consider custom-designed themes for your website if you have like a department that can deal with the design agencies. I do not recommend them for any business owner because you can easily get your website up and running using the pre-designed theme option.
Special Note on Website Design: In my experience, I have seen business owners fuss too much about the design; about how the website looks. Although the look is important, but it is not important enough to spend more than a maximum of 300 US dollars. I know, I know, you will hear people quote anywhere between 500 to 3,500 US dollars for a website design. But do you really need a ‘custom’ design? Again, having the ‘end in mind’ is what will help you answer that question.
If you selling printer supplies or home fittings for example, design is definitely secondary (or much lower in the list of priorities). People will come to your website not because it looks good. Google, the most visited website in the world, really, is just a blank page with a search bar and a button. YouTube, on the other hand, does not have much text, but thumbnails of videos. That is design taking a back seat, with the ‘purpose’ of the website getting all the attention; just like how it should be.
So how much my business website “should” cost?
OK, so I am probably going to make a lot of ‘web agencies’ angry at this, but you should not spend more than 500 US dollars. In fact, even if you try to add some more functionalities in to your website, you will be still be under 500 bucks.
Yes, in 500 dollars, and possibly less:
- You can get hosting for a year at US $ 125 pear year.
- A domain for anywhere between US $ 12 to US $ 16 per year.
- Get email on your domain (free, comes with the hosting!). You can – and should – look into going for Google Apps to manage all of your business communication, including email. Installation is free and support (if you need it) costs around US$ 70 per year.
- A website design for less than US $ 100 (one time payment)
- You can get an email management system, like Aweber (US $ 19 / month) to start a mailing list for your customers or potential customers.
- Get someone else to install everything and get the website up and running (US $ 80 – US $ 100) – you can do all of this yourself (which will cost you only in time), as I show in my video tutorials for business owners. It is all very easy once you get down to doing it, and installing everything mentioned in this list will take you not more than an hour or two. Max.
As you can see, the above list has a lot of other goodies, and what is the total cost coming to? Not more than a one time payment of US$ 450!
What about recurring costs?
- Hosting + domain yearly cost: around US $140 per year.
- If you have Aweber, then you give Aweber US $19/month, that comes to US$ 228/year. (If you do not know what Aweber does, or what is Email Marketing, don’t worry, I have a small e-book that tells you why you should at least consider using email marketing for your business. The report is free, download the report 13 Reasons Why You should use Email Marketing)
- If you want support for Google Apps, add another 50 to 70 bucks a year.
As you see, the cost per year can vary from a simple 140 to a maximum of around 400 US dollars per year. Even with so many essentials on your website, you are spending way less than what you would have to pay if you have not read this page!
Good luck in your business,
And God bless!
Best wishes and regards,
Momekh.
My blog on Life ETC
Contact page, click here.
Twitter: @momekh
Blogstarta Hosting gives you hosting space, Google Apps installed on the domain, free domain name, WordPress specialist support and a tight set of designs to choose from.