The bottom line:
1. You need a professional website for your small business
2. Don’t waste your time making it yourself “from scratch” (unless you already know how)
Why not make it yourself?
1. you will spend an inordinate amount of time learning how to do it
2. the time you spend will take you away from other more productive marketing activities
3. your results will likely look homemade
But people have told you that Microsoft Frontpage, Dreamweaver and other web design programs are really easy to learn, right?
Well, that hasn’t been my experience. I’m a reasonably competent computer user but after two years of learning (including taking two continuing education courses, reading several how-to manuals, and hiring a tutor), I’m just now getting comfortable with Frontpage.
I think it’s fair to say that Frontpage and other web design programs are easier than programming a website using pure HTML, but there’s still a steep learning curve.
There are two options I recommend:
1. Hire a professional webdesigner to build your website, and get them to teach you how to make small changes yourself (this way you won’t have to pay for every small change, and you’ll have control over updates). Choose a web designer who has good communication skills and a service attitude who is willing to tutor you for a fee.
2. Use an easy online website designer such as AtomicShops. AtomicShops includes everything that you could possibly want for $19.95 a month: shopping cart, autoresponders, discussion forum, various forms, etc. Using AtomicShops you can get a professional-looking home business website up and running in less than two hours (they say 30 minutes but my experience has been more like two hours).
If you choose the AtomicShops route, there are two options to choose from:
1) Get AtomicShops to design your home business website for you ($249).
What I like about this option is that you can have a website custom-designed just the way you want it for a very low price. Once it is built (it usually takes about two weeks) you can make day-to-day changes and updates yourself using the easy “word processing style” updater.
When you choose this option you are basically paying in advance for a full year of website (19.95 x 12 = $239) and getting the actual design for free.
2) Design your own site using the AtomicShops templates (this is the $19.95 a month option). Although there’s a bit more of a learning curve than getting them to make it for you, if you enjoy design you’ll probably find it fun and easy.
Below is a screenshot of what the AtomicShops easy website making system looks like. You can see that it is pretty user-friendly and intuitive.
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