Websites For Small Businesses - The Cost-Effective 3 in 1 Approach

Nowadays, whatever your line of business, and however small it is, you're likely to want a website.

And you'll likely have three main concerns: what it's going to look like, what you're going to put in it, and how you're going to use it to attract customers.

Fortunately, there's an easy solution. One that not only covers all these areas, but also the major issue for almost any small business - that it mustn't cost too much.

The site design and structure

Starting with the design, you have essentially three choices: a free template, a fully customised site, or a mixture of the two.

The problem with free templates is that you want your website to look professional - and be successful. Free templates, not surprisingly, tend to look cheap and generic. There's also the problem of getting all the technical details right - the coding and so forth.

Ok, so how about the fully customized option? Great - if you've got plenty of time. And even more money. In the UK, completely customised websites built from scratch can easily be a thousand pounds or more - and that's before you've even thought about the content or search engine optimisation. So for most new businesses, completely custom-building a website is out.

So where does that leave you? It's best to go for the middle ground. Find a company that offers a wide variety of flexible templates, but which you can pay a reasonable amount to customise to your own needs.

However, make sure you pick a reputable company. Assess what they've done for other people, check their credentials and ensure you know what they can and can't do for you - and at what price. And it's worth choosing one that will provide hosting at a reasonable fee - with regular technical updates included.

The site content

As with the site design, you have some choices to consider when it comes to your website content. Few small business owners have much design experience, so are happy to leave this to others, but we all know how to write...don't we?

Certainly, many new business owners choose to write the copy themselves. But there are two main drawbacks with this approach.

The first is the ability to write good, convincing prose. Nothing can put off a prospective customer more quickly than copy that's badly spelled, poorly punctuated and grammatically suspect. The copy also needs to be concise, interesting and compelling.

If you're not certain you or one of your employees can achieve all this, it's worth paying a professional copywriter to make sure you're saying what you want to say in the best possible way.

There's also the matter of using the copy to attract the search engines - and, by extension, the customers. Which brings us to the third essential ingredient of a successful website.

Attracting visitors

The third area is the one that's most important, yet commonly gets neglected or even ignored altogether.

You can have the most fantastic looking site filled with compelling content, but if your aim is actually to attract new customers, it's not going to do you much good if they never get to see it in the first place.

This is where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes in. There's a lot you can do (and pay) on an ongoing basis once your site is up and running. But there's plenty more you can do - for a whole lot less - at the beginning.

Search engine optimisation copywriting can be the difference between a website that attracts lots of customers and one that's rarely visited. The ability to know what keywords to choose and how to use them in such a way that they read well to both customers and search engines is priceless. So it's worth ensuring that your copywriter is not just first rate with written English, but knows exactly what they're doing when it comes to search engine optimised copy.

The design and structure of your site also help in attracting and keeping visitors. Therefore make sure your chosen website designers">website designers use designs that are both Google-friendly and user-friendly.

Of course, there are many other factors involved in SEO. Regularly adding and updating content and a little link building are the main ones. But that's for a later date, once your site is up and running. SEO copywriting and a search engine-friendly site will give you a massive head start.

Why the 3 in 1 approach pays off

As you can see, the various elements of a successful low-cost website are all closely inter-linked. Therefore if you can find somewhere that offers a complete website package, with design, copy and essential search engine optimisation, so much the better. Not only are the three elements likely to work better together, but you're likely to pay less.

So, what can you expect to pay? It is possible to find a complete website package for just a few hundred pounds. You just need to know where to look...

Copyright Peter Wise