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A small business website – whats that Wordpress thing?
I read Doug Richard's blog this afternoon, with interest, about how easy and affordable it was for a small businesses to have a website where the owner could change the content themselves for about £10 a month done DIY style. Doug's blog goes through the steps concisely, talking about how you can use Wordpress, which is free open-source software, and how you can use it to set up and edit your own website.
I'm a career IT professional and as I've chosen to run the Website Freedom site on Wordpress, my tupenneth might help fellow small businesses in West Yorkshire and further afield understand the great benefits from a Wordpress website. I advocate having a web designer do the tech work for you and then it is still possible to have a small business website online for £20/month, written off over a year!
Whats involved in website building using Wordpress?
- Lease your domain name – they're cheap £5-£15 a year unless the one you want has a sitting tenant and then they can cost £50k and more! The best place to get your domain from is the company you will use for webhosting as they will stitch together your domain and your webspace. Go DIY at this stage if you're very techy and web savvy but otherwise you can get lost in tech-soup!
- Who's a good webhost? I go by recommendation frankly because they all tend to have very similar specifications and the proof of the pudding is in eating their customer service! We've all been marooned on a customer service desert island at some time so its top of my list! Doug's blog talks about GoDaddy webhosting; there are thousands out there. One I like is Ecohosting because, like Website Freedom, they care about the environment and have carbon offset arrangements and provide excellent customer service!
- The webhosting company will usually give you tools so that you can install Wordpress onto your webspace and it needn't be difficult. You will then have a ‘default' Wordpress blog site with an ‘About' page. There's more than a few videos on You Tube about how to do this to help you get something online!
- You need to know what functionality you're looking for from your website and research some of the add-on tools that can be used to make your site work in the way you'd like it to.
- Decoration and look and feel are provided by things called Theme's which can be free or purchased. Like the add-ons, you need to have a look around and then download and install the one you like.
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Whats the truth?
Well, the truth is that its all about how web savvy you are! How much time you can afford to spend learning the more techy aspects – themes and plug-ins aren't like choosing the carpet and the wall covering. Its a similar thing to how you view fixing your car's engine problems! If you are technically minded and you have your Haynes manual then have a go it can be interesting and you might save yourself a pound or two. Your garage, however, is likely to fix your car quicker and know where to turn for a quick solution when they hit snags. I tend to find there is always a need to tweak some code somewhere to make a theme work just how I want it to. Its not quite as slick as plug it in and see your finished website first time! The web designer should also look after your website's interests in Search Engine Optimisation; the world of how to get to the top of Google!
I'd say maybe your time is better spent on what content you want on your website after all you are your business's unique expert! You don't have to pay a fortune to have a website built for you by a local website design company that will do the whole package. You will need to tell the web designer what colours and other decoration best fits your branding and give them your content to use of course. Some might offer extra services like Professional Photography for your products or services which can give an extra polished edge with your image.
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Whats the bottom line if a web designer does this?
A small business will probably want a minimum of 5 static web pages eg. home page, products, testimonials, about us, contact details. Wordpress gives you blog facilities too so you can do blog post like news items of new exciting products or services that you have just released. Blog posts won't be as easy to find through your website menus as a normal webpage would be but blog pages are lapped up by search engines because they are up to date…'fresh meat'! Website Freedom's complete package price for a 5-page website using Wordpress is currently £349 and you'll find many suppliers offering this for somewhere between that price and £499. A 20 page Wordpress web site is relatively cheaper per page and look to pay between £650 and £1200 for that. Of course features like e-commerce and product catalogues will add to this price so its worth discussing the options before making your choice.
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And what happens when the website has been built?
When you first see your site, there will be bits you want to change, but with Wordpress you now have a choice between letting your web designer do the changes or you doing them yourself! Do check that your web designer allows you to make content changes because this can be turned off! If you're after a simple, affordable website which is essentially words and pictures about what you do, then something like Wordpress can be an extremely cost effective solution for small and large businesses alike. Thanks Doug for highlighting this in your blog!
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What's editing your webpages like?
Changing the webpages that have been set up for you is not difficult if you're familiar with formatting a document in Microsoft Word. I have an example of editing Wordpress pages on Website Freedom…how to change your own web content. You'll see familiarish formatting symbols above the editing area. They do what you'd expect them to do but you should expect to get more instructions from your website builder after the site is built for you of course.
About the Author
David's career in Business IT spans over 25 years, starting as a graduate computer programmer with Cobol, then Oracle and SAP.
He has worked exclusively in the private sector, primarily for blue chip organisations. His career developed through IT management of two large factories, Business process consultancy and ERP systems implementation; 14 years of which has been heavily involved in implementing SAP systems and integration with processes in the real-time world of manufacturing and supply-chain. The last 7 years have been focused more on Supply Chain planning systems.
He is currently taking a career break working with smaller businesses and is having enormous fun!
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