Dynamic Website on the Cheap
February 28th, 2004
As any small business owner can tell you, a website is a great way to communicate with customers, generate business, and pour money right down the drain.
For a small business, maintaining a website can be a chore — it can be someone’s full-time job. Most small business owners can’t afford to keep a webmaster on staff, but most would like to have a website that was current and offered customers access to relevant information.
Once a website is up and running, the dilemma is to outsource the management or to take care of it in house.
The outsourcing option is attractive because the website is in the hands of quote-unquote professionals. However, they often prove to be much more costly and much less helpful than first promised. Plus, their main objective is to make money, not to ensure that the website is aligned with the company strategy and contains latest information. Outsourcing that can create a disconnect between the business and the website — which end up negating any possible benefits that were first anticipated.
Given that hiring a webmaster is not in the budget, taking care of everything in-house (and by in-house I mean yourself) seems impossible. Small business owners have stiff necks from wearing so many hats, and acting as webmaster is just adding to the collection. Granted, not paying those quote-unquote professionals is nice [accountant hat] and having control [CEO hat] is even better, but what about the added time [accountant hat] that could be spent with kids [parent hat], the better half [spouse hat], or personal time [fantasy dreamer hat]?
With technology these days, it’s easy to publish content to a website — even for someone without a great deal of background in the web. WordPress is free software that can serve as the publishing interface for press releases, front pages, or anywhere else where content needs updating. With minimal setup and tech expertise, you can modify this service to join seamlessly your website’s look and feel.
The secret to success with this method is with the initial setup of the website. Combining technologies like cascading style sheets, scripting technology like ASP or PHP, and XHTML will create a small business website that is not only easy to use and update, but looks and functions like the websites of the big boys with huge budgets and dedicated webmasters. Some careful planning in the beginning will make it easier to reach customers with your website, generate business, and keep the money around instead of burning it.
Entry Filed under: Web