KetchamBenally319
De BISAWiki
May be the website for the small company outdated and amateurish?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 do not have to. In the following paragraphs, we'll go through the choices you need to obtain the website you would like, and keep more of your hard-earned money to take a position into the core functions of your business.
The barrier to entry as a "web developer" or "web designer" is at an all-time low. Practically any kid in senior high school can take shape a simple, decent website nowadays. But, your company deserves a lot more than "decent." You want to reveal that you're professional, and nothing can take away from that more than an out-dated website with poor design and usability.
What is often not understood is that the biggest expense in web development may be the creative work, such as graphic design and copy writing, and the administrative expenses associated with handling the project. Believe it or not, the individual coding your site probably receives only about 1/3 of the fees you pay for a website when you use a marketing firm or design shop.
So, what is a business proprietor to do? Let us take a look at some options.
Offshore Outsourcing
May websites, for example planetsourcecode.com, guru.com, and odesk.com will offer services that you are able to hire contractors to build 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 most prices. Although this appears to be an attractive option, it will include several drawbacks.
I have tried personally these types of services in the past. However, I usually limited it to small projects that required very little oversight, in order to have an expert inside a particular field solve a really specific problem. I haven't had excellent luck when we've assigned a complete project to one of those contractors, especially if the project required a lot of administrative oversight.
Some benefits of using offshore outsourcing for your site are:
With a lot of searching and a little luck, you can find skilled workers who are willing to work very inexpensively. Many contractors are students who're in computer science classes, and typically have a very good focus on detail and industry standards. Most services have an escrow system so you do not have to release funds to the contractor until you accept the work they do.
But, as stated, outsourcing your website to offshore contractors has some disadvantages, too:
While the majority of the contractors you train with will speak English well, there are still some communication barriers. In my opinion this has more details on the variations in terminology used, as opposed to a true language issue. It's not uncommon for any contractor to get halfway using your project and then disappear. While you'll find anyone to work with a low price, you normally get that which you purchase. Often, you'd came out ahead paying a significantly higher hourly rate and having someone who is more accountable construct your site.
As i wouldn't count out offshore development help, I really feel that the disadvantages are magnified for that typical small business owner. When you count the price of your time and effort, the headaches and hours spent attempting to manage a few overseas contractors can greatly outweigh any advantages and price savings you'd see.
Hire a Kid
These days it is extremely present with find a teenager using 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 really basic site, this may be a wise decision.
The recommendation I'd give would be to only use students that you know and trust. While their skills might be adequate, there's still a level of maturity and professionalism which may be absent. Teenagers may not realize the significance of issues for example security, protection against cross-site scripting attacks, protecting web forms from spammers, etc. However, for any basic, static site, you will likely not find a better bargain.
Some benefit of hiring a student are:
The will probably work very inexpensively, or perhaps at no cost, if they're trying to build up a resume or portfolio. They usually have very good skills at the fundamental level.
Some disadvantage include:
Lack of maturity and responsibility Lack of knowledge of advanced aspects Lack of importance placed on security along with other issues, which could cause you problems in the future. Lack of support when you really need something changed or fixed later The appearance of the site is directly related towards the design capabilities and creative skills of the student, which might not provide you with the best looking site.
As stated, I would only suggest this option if you are needing a very simple site with static content and no advanced features. I'd also recommend that the person hired is known and trusted. Otherwise, I'd take a look at among the other available choices available.
Use WordPress or Drupal
Using pre-packaged content management systems (CMS), for example WordPress or Drupal keeps growing in popularity. This is due to the fact that they permit a person with fairly basic understanding of web development to obtain a very professional looking site up quickly and easily. They also have many plugins where you can include just about any common function you would like to your site.
The fastest growing CMS is WordPress. This is likely because of the ease of growth and development of plugins as compared to others. The amount of plugins and themes 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 fast being used as WordPress, continues to be becoming a lot more popular, especially with highly customized site. It sells itself as more of a true framework than the usual CMS system, because it leads to the development of some highly advanced plugins. Personally, WordPress catching up in this region using the latest release. In my opinion WordPress to be easier to theme, too.
For the typical small business, utilizing a CMS for the website is among the most cost-effective option. Many hosting companies possess a "one-click install" for WordPress and Drupal, in addition to another popular CMS applications.
However, the declare that "anyone can take shape a website" with one of the systems is actually an over-statement. There still remains a required degree of technology skills and an understanding of basic web development. The user should be capable of doing some investigation and finding documentation around the utilisation of the various plugins in order to take full advantage of these systems. Many development companies will assist with this particular and can include some fundamental training using their services.
So, in summary the pro's and con's of the option, the advantages of utilizing a pre-packaged, Open Source cms are:
Produces a really professional looking website Easy to set up No cost to install and configure with many website hosts Many plugins and/or modules available, both free and commercial, which can extend the functionality past the core system. Many themes available, both free and commercial, which let you change the look of the site effortlessly without altering the content. Most produce compliant HTML/CSS code, making the site's appearance uniform across different browsers and operating systems.
Disadvantages include:
Steep learning curve for developers looking to extend functionality past what's provided with existing plugins. Custom themes may be more difficult for developers/designers to build than if working with other template engines or raw HTML/CSS. Many advertise that they improve search engine rankings out of the box, but much of the search engine optimization is based on the information of the site. Therefore, these claims are simply unfounded, for me.
One other common CMS which we're beginning to take a look at is Typo3. It shows to be really simple to develop on, but a full overview of it was not completed. Therefore, I'll have to wait before I recommend it. However, I'd recommend WordPress and, to some lesser extent, Drupal for the typical small business website. Nothing is quicker and less expensive to possess a professional looking site up and running.
Hire a person Developer
Of course, as a developer, my favorite option is for you to hire certainly one of us to build your website for you. Granted, I may decide to develop it on one of the CMS applications noted above, but we also might wish to make use of a custom-built CMS use a better consumer experience for you when you're keeping the website updated.
Custom programming is often accustomed to develop such functions as shopping carts, membership management systems, image galleries, etc. A number of these functions can be found as plugins to one from the pre-packages CMS applications, so the requirement for them is certainly not a driving force within the decision to employ a professional developer. However, if you do not want to spend the time to learn among the CMS applications, and investigate the documentation for all of the plugins, a custom application can often save you time and money in the future.
Some key benefits of getting a developer for a fully custom-built site are:
It's simpler to integrate custom graphics and sophisticated designs into your site It's easier and less expensive to construct custom application functions that aren't provided with the plugins and modules offered in a CMS The user interface could be built to be so intuitive that hardly any to no training is necessary that you should manage your site It is often less expensive to construct custom functionality from scratch than it is to build a custom plugin for a CMS to provide that functionality Well built custom CMS applications are often much less resource-intensive, and scale much better than pre-packaged systems.
Obviously, going this route has its drawbacks, including:
It's necessary for employ a developer that you can communicate well with and that you trust, otherwise it can be a financial nightmare Custom applications tend to be "buggy" at first and you've got to allow for some time to test and fix some quirks before you make the website live. (A great developer will fix any bugs at no cost -- begin to see the first item within the list) The time involved with development, as well as testing and debugging, will not allow a website to become put online as quickly as it can be having a CMS. Though this option is more affordable than most people believe, there's a higher cost involved than there is when developing on the pre-packaged CMS The look of the site will depend greatly on the quality of the graphics, which might boost the cost of your website even more
My recommendation is the fact that, even if you believe it best to use WordPress or Drupal for your site, have a good developer look at what you're wanting to do and give you a solid quote for any custom CMS. You might find that the cost difference is not much and also the advantages may be worth it. This will likely be true in case your website is built around an advanced graphics that doesn't lend itself to being implemented inside a pre-packaged CMS.
