Your Business Website
Did you know that your business cannot afford to not have a website? It’s true, in the 21st century, even the smallest businesses have websites, and the reasons are clear. Over 90% of all households in America now have some form of internet connection, whether it be high speed broadband, or dialup. Out of these 90%, about 65% start their search for new products or services online. Numbers like that tell you that you cannot afford to NOT have a website.
So you have decided that you need a website, now what? Depending on your computer skills, there are two options: Make your own website or get it made by a professional. We will dive into both.
Making Your Own Website
Making a website may sound easy, but it takes a lot of hard work and dedication, much like running your business. You will not only need to research about your industry, you will have to dive into a whole new industry, the website industry, as well.
First and foremost, you will need a name and a place to keep your website.
Your name, known as a domain name in the internet world, will be the way that people access your website. You will need to pick something that is easy to spell and to remember. There are literally billions of domain names currently, so you may have to get a little creative. Domain names are a yearly fee, typically around $10.00.
A host company hosts your website on their servers. Hosting is a monthly fee, ranging from $3.00 all the way up to $15.00+ depending on the type and size of the hosting. There are 3 main things to look at when you are deciding on hosting.
1) Space size- How much room with you have to host your website? Hosting size is measured in megabytes (mb). Take into account that a typical, status page is about one tenth of a megabyte, and go from there.
2) Bandwidth size- each time a visitor visits your right it takes bandwidth to display the website for him. Bandwidth is typically measured in Megabyte (mb) or Gigabyte (gb). The higher amount of bandwidth available, the more visitors you will be able to show your website too.
3) Special features- Since you are new at making websites, you will want to look for a hosting company that offers specials features for new designers. These features may include a website builder, forums, guest books, counters, Invite pages, and so on. This is especially useful as installing these types of features yourself can get somewhat complicated.
After you find a hosting company and a domain name, you will then need to build your website. Websites are coded in a language known as HTML. Unless you are extremely experienced in HTML, you will not be able to code a website by hand. Instead, you will need to use a website builder to complete the job.
There are several free website builders available online. Just use your chosen search engine and see what you come up with.
If you want to get a little more fancy and have more options available to you, then you may want to consider paid software programs such as Frontpage or Dreamweaver, both of which are available for about $100.
While making your own website seems better from a financial aspect, you also have to consider the quality and effort a professional teams of website designers can offer you.
Hiring A Professional
Hiring a professional may be your best option if you do not the time to build a website for yourself or if you want special features within your website.
Remember, the professional does this for a living and will provide you with the highest quality. They will also typically handle everything from buying and setting up the domain name to updating the website on a weekly basis.
A professional will sit down with you and discuss your ideas and aspirations. Once they believe that they have a good idea of what you are looking for, then they will create your website.
Hiring a design professional can vary, depending on your region, and what you want on your website. Typical prices are anywhere from a couple of hundred, well in the thousands.