BarriosRatcliff689
De BISAWiki
Is the website for the small business outdated and amateurish? What does that say about your company? But, websites can cost thousands of dollars, right?
Yes, they are able to but, they don't need to. In this article, we'll discuss the choices that you have to obtain the website you want, while keeping much more of your hard-earned money to invest in to the core functions of the business.
The barrier to entry as a "web developer" or "web designer" reaches an all-time low. Practically any kid in high school can take shape an easy, decent website these days. But, your company deserves more than "decent." You want to show that you are professional, and nothing can take away from which more than an out-dated website with poor design and usability.
What's often not understood is that the biggest expense in web development is the creative work, for example graphic design and duplicate writing, and the administrative costs associated with handling the project. Believe it or not, the person coding your website probably receives only about 1/3 of the fees you have to pay for any website if you use a marketing firm or design shop.
So, what's a business proprietor to do? Let us take a look at some options.
Offshore Outsourcing
May websites, such as planetsourcecode.com, guru.com, and odesk.com will offer services that you are able to hire contractors to construct your website for you personally. Most of the contractors you will find on these websites are working from Middle East and Eastern European countries, and you can hire a company advertising the set of skills you need in all prices. While this appears to be an attractive option, it does come with several drawbacks.
I have tried personally these types of services previously. However, It's my job to limited it to small projects that required very little oversight, in order to have an expert inside a particular field solve a very specific problem. I have not had very good luck when we've assigned a full project to one of these contractors, particularly if the project required a lot of administrative oversight.
Some benefits of using offshore outsourcing for the site are:
With a lot of searching along with a little luck, you can find skilled workers who're willing to work very inexpensively. Many contractors are students who are in computer science classes, and typically have a very good focus on detail and industry standards. Most services come with an escrow system so you don't have to release funds to the contractor until you accept the work they do.
But, as mentioned, outsourcing your website to offshore contractors has some disadvantages, too:
While most of the contractors you train with will speak English well, you may still find some communication barriers. I believe it has more details on the differences in terminology used, rather than a true language issue. It's not uncommon for any contractor to obtain halfway using your project after which disappear. While you'll find anyone to work with a low price, you normally get that which you pay for. Often, you would have come out ahead paying a significantly higher hourly rate and achieving someone who is much more accountable build your site.
While I wouldn't count out offshore development help, I really feel that the disadvantages are magnified for that typical small business operator. When you count the price of your time, the headaches and hours spent attempting to run a few overseas contractors can greatly outweigh any advantages and cost savings you'd see.
Employ a Kid
Nowadays it's very common to find a teenager with the skills to build an easy website. In fact, there are many with advanced skills that rival some professionals. If you have a good relationship with a teenager or college age student, and need a very basic site, this may be a good option.
The advice I would give is to only use a student you know and trust. While their skills may be adequate, there is still that maturity and professionalism which may be absent. Teenagers may not realize the importance of issues such as security, protection against cross-site scripting attacks, protecting web forms from spammers, etc. However, for any basic, static site, you will probably not look for a better bargain.
Some advantage of getting a student are:
The will probably work very inexpensively, or even at no cost, if they're trying to increase your resume or portfolio. They will often have very good abilities at the basic level.
Some disadvantage include:
Lack of maturity and responsibility Lack of knowledge of advanced aspects Lack worth focusing on positioned on security and other issues, which can result in problems in the future. Lack of support when you need something changed or fixed later The appearance of the website is proportional to the design capabilities and inventive skills of the student, which might not supply you with the most professional looking site.
As stated, I'd only suggest this option if you're needing a very simple site with static content with no advanced features. I would also suggest that the person hired is famous and trusted. Otherwise, I'd look at one of the other available choices available.
Use WordPress or Drupal
The use of pre-packaged content management systems (CMS), such as WordPress or Drupal keeps growing in popularity. This is due to the truth that they allow a person with fairly basic knowledge of web design to get a very professional looking site upright and easily. They also have many plugins that allow you to include almost any common function you would like into your site.
The quickest growing CMS is WordPress. This really is likely due to the easy growth and development of plugins when compared with others. The amount of plugins and themes readily available for WordPress appears to be endless, and it's very easy to build a nice looking and fully functional website without requiring custom programming.
Drupal, while not growing as quickly in use as WordPress, continues to be becoming more and more popular, especially with highly customized site. It sells itself weight loss of a true framework than the usual CMS system, because it lends itself to the introduction of some highly advanced plugins. Personally, I see WordPress making up ground in this region with the latest release. In my opinion WordPress to be simpler to theme, too.
For that typical small company, utilizing a CMS for the website is probably the most cost-effective option. Many hosting companies have a "one-click install" for WordPress and Drupal, as well as another popular CMS applications.
However, the claim that "anyone can build a website" and among the systems is really an over-statement. There still remains a required degree of technology skills as well as an knowledge of basic website development. The user must be able to do some research and finding documentation around the use of the various plugins to be able to take full advantage of these systems. Many development companies will assist with this and can include some fundamental training with their services.
So, to summarize the pro's and con's of this option, the benefits of using a pre-packaged, Open Source cms are:
Produces a really professional looking website Easy to install No cost to set up and configure with many hosting companies Many plugins and/or modules available, both free and commercial, which can extend the functionality beyond the core system. Many themes available, both free and commercial, which allow you to change the look of the site very easily without altering the information. Most produce compliant HTML/CSS code, making the site's appearance uniform across different browsers and os's.
Disadvantages include:
Steep learning curve for developers seeking to extend functionality past what's available with existing plugins. Custom themes may be harder for developers/designers to build than if working with other template engines or raw HTML/CSS. Many advertise that they improve search engine ranking positions out of the box, but much of the search engine optimization is based on the content from the site. Therefore, these claims are simply unfounded, in my opinion.
One other common CMS which we're beginning to take a look at is Typo3. It shows to be really easy to develop on, but a complete overview of it hasn't been completed. Therefore, I'm going to wait before I recommend it. However, I would recommend WordPress and, to a lesser extent, Drupal for that typical small company website. There is nothing quicker and less expensive to have a professional looking site up and running.
Hire a person Developer
Obviously, as a developer, my favorite option is that you should hire certainly one of us to construct your website for you. Granted, I may decide to develop it on a single of the CMS applications noted above, but we also should use a custom-built CMS to provide a better consumer experience for you when you are keeping the website updated.
Custom programming is usually used to develop such functions as shopping carts, membership management systems, image galleries, etc. Many of these functions are available as plugins to 1 from the pre-packages CMS applications, therefore the need for them is not a driving force in the decision to hire an expert developer. However, if you do not want to spend the time to learn among the CMS applications, and investigate the documentation its the plugins, a custom application can frequently save you time and money down the road.
Some key advantages to getting a developer for any fully custom-built site are:
It's easier to integrate custom graphics and complex designs into your site It's easier and less expensive to build custom application functions that are not provided with the plugins and modules offered inside a CMS The interface can be built to be so intuitive that very little to no training is necessary for you to manage your website It is usually less expensive to construct custom functionality from scratch than to build a custom plugin for a CMS to provide that functionality Well built custom CMS applications in many cases are much less resource-intensive, and scale better than pre-packaged systems.
Obviously, going this route has its own drawbacks, including:
It's very important to employ a developer that you could communicate well with and that you trust, otherwise it's really a financial nightmare Custom applications tend to be "buggy" at first and you've got to match some time to check and connect some quirks prior to you making the site live. (A great developer will fix any bugs at no cost -- see the first item within the list) The time associated with development, as well as testing and debugging, won't allow a site to become put online as soon as it may be with a CMS. Though this option is much more affordable than most people believe, there is a more expensive involved than there's when developing on the pre-packaged CMS The look of the site will depend greatly around the excellence of the graphic design, which may boost the cost of your website even more
My recommendation is the fact that, even if you accept is as true better to use WordPress or Drupal for the site, have a very good developer take a look at what you are thinking of doing and provide you with a good quote for a custom CMS. You might find the cost difference isn't much and also the advantages will probably be worth it. This will likely be true if your site is built around a professional graphic design that doesn't lend itself to being implemented in a pre-packaged CMS.
