If you are a business owner, you should have a website. Whether your business is landscaping, dentistry, or rocket science, you need a website. Many old-style business owners think that the internet is overrated, which indeed it might be. However, the internet IS the place where everyone turns to find information about products and services they are looking for. So, simply put, if your business does not have a significant web presence or at the very least a working website, you WILL lose potential customers.
In an economy like this, I can understand that you may be wary of trying new things and risking your hard-earned money. Thankfully it doesn’t cost all that much to buy cheap web hosting and get started with a website, so you can probably afford it, regardless of your current financial situation. All you really need is a domain (which costs about $10/year), and cheap web hosting (which costs $40-$60/year). You could potentially spend a lot on a slick custom design, but that’s not necessary.
If you’re new to websites, I suggest keeping it simple for now. Read a few guides to starting a website, or simply use the wordpress.org software. If you install Wordpress on cheap web hosting you’l have a very user-friendly backend to work with. You can also browse through a variety of different sites to find some good themes for your website. To do this, simply Google “Wordpress themes” or “free wordpress themes”, and find one that suits your business.
Basically you’re looking at a $70-$100 investment, most of which will go towards cheap web hosting. It may seem like a lot now, but I guarantee that your business will improve with even the simplest of websites. So please, do yourself and your business a favor and start a website today!
Written by Web Hosting Expert on Sep 23, 2009.
