A Small Business Website - Getting More Bang For Your Buck

Owning a small business can be a tricky balancing act. You have to choose wisely where and when to spend your money. Sometimes it's hard to know if you are making investments that will help you to grow or just throwing your money down a black hole. In today's technological world, a website for your small business seems like an obvious investment in your future.

So how do you get a website, and more importantly, how do you get a good website? There are many different types of website available - from the completely custom (and impossible to edit yourself) to the cookie cutter (with zero flexibility) and everything in between.

The most important step is the first one - determining what you need your website to do for you. As a small business owner, you probably want your site to be a marketing tool for you - be an online face for your company, help you spread the word about what you do, and interact with your customers in a variety of ways. And of course, you need your new website to fit in your budget!

Next, you have to look at the various types of websites and see which one will help you to accomplish your goals. Let's examine each end of the website spectrum for your choices (but remember that there are plenty of shades in between). A custom website will give you a unique online appearance and help you build your brand. A cookie cutter site will look just like a bunch of other sites and runs the risk of turning off potential customers. Both types will give you an online presence - and any website is better than no website - but there some websites are constructed to be friendlier to search engines and will help your company to be found a bit easier. Interacting with your customers can be done in a variety of ways - contact forms, polls, forums, blogs, comments, etc. Custom websites will give you these features but probably at a steep price. Cookie cutter websites will probably offer a contact form but little else.

As you can see, the options on the extreme ends aren't very desirable. A custom website will do everything you want but probably cost and arm and a leg (and maybe your first born if you ever want it updated or changed). And a cookie cutter website is just not flexible enough.

So what's in between? Websites for small businesses that offer a flat fee to set up with as many or as few features as you want - you can interact with you customers in a variety of ways including blogs, forums, several different types of contact forms (depending on your needs), FAQs, comments, polls, etc. As well as effective promotion of your small business - easy navigation of your site, pages with photos, photo galleries, news sections, press releases, etc.

And don't forget about what happens after your website is created - what kind of support is there for you? Can you just call someone and ask a question? How fast is the response time? What if you need a change made? Can you make it yourself? Do you have to pay someone to change the content for you?

Look for a website that you can manage yourself, that gives you thorough training, and actually has phone support after the site is delivered. These are the features that will make your website a success and keep you happy as you move forward in your field.