Your first website. How to prepare and save money too

Many small businesses are afraid of getting a website because of the cost involved. But there are many options available and many ways to cut costs.

Doing it yourself
As much as I am for helping small businesses and finding ways to cut costs, I have learned from experience that your website is not something you want to do yourself. There are far too many affordable options these days, and being that your website is the first impression some get of your website, it needs to be professional, functional and effective. But if you just have no budget at all, and you need something quick I suggest getting a website tonight account with godaddy or signing up with wordpress. Keep it simple, just one page with your basic information and logo if you have one. Don't go crazy, don't add a bunch of widgets or add ons just because you can, don't go crazy with fonts and colors. A simple black or white background with an image and your information. Website tonight even has a template for a coming soon page if you don't want to deal with it. Get a domain name, and set it to forward to wherever you have your page. Whoever you get your domain from can help you with this.

What you can do to in the meantime While you are trying to find a designer or raising the money for a website, you can do a couple of things to prep.

1) get your domain name. It is very important that you select the right name. Not just to make your site easier to remember but to make it easier to find. There are many elements involved in this process that need to be considered. Here is a great link that can help you. http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/domainname.shtml

2) Since you are getting a domain you can choose your host. Hosting accounts is the space where your website will live. Getting it yourself can save time to the webdesigner and also give you control of your account. Some places like http://www.gowahine.com sometimes offer a free domain or $1.99 domain with the purchase of a hosting account. Just get the very basic hosting plan, you can always upgrade later.

3) Get a logo. In most cases a web designer can design one for you. But again, if you are on a budget and you need to save money you could check out something like. Template World who offers logo templates. Again, I strongly encourage that this only be a temporary thing because this is the branding of your business and should be done professionally. But some of these logo templates can offer a nice temporary solution. Keep in mind using these templates, you run the risk of someone else having the same design as you.

4) Work on your content. The better you are prepared with your content the easier and sometimes cheaper it will be to work with your designer. When you meet with a webdesigner he/she will base their quote on how much time it will take to build your site. IF you come in unprepared, the designer looks at that as additional work they have to do. Coming to the table with everything ready to go, will help keep your cost low.

5) Local listings and social media. I have some other articles here that go into detail about this. You need to get prepared to market your site in a cost effective way. There are local listings you can get yourself listed on, (google maps, local.com, bing, yahoo maps etc.), there are business pages for facebook and yelp. A Twitter account is essential. Be sure to add your new domain name to everything you do online.

CURRENTLY DRAFTING, COME BACK SOON!