Most business owners today know that having a web site is an essential component of marketing. In
past, choices were to hire a professional web designer, hire a local teenager to create a site for mall money, or learn to do it yourself. Often last two options, which were least expensive, were how small businesses had to go. The results are often not what businesses need to grow, reach, and impress new potential customers.In last few years, options for small businesses to get a site developed have changed dramatically. There are now sophisticated “site builder” tools available to small business owners, bundled with many web hosting packages. By using templates, and a content management system to manage updates to site, it became easier to set up and maintain a web site, and many development companies have canned this functionality, for a fee. Hosting providers are increasingly offering tools to automate web site building process, and with good reason. This new option has many benefits, as long as business owner recognizes that there are trade offs and limitations to getting a web site this way.
One of biggest attractions for site building tools is cost. It won’t necessarily cost less to get your site this way, but it does provide a way to spread cost over time. It still costs money - for example, you can pay $50 per month for next two years, or $1,200. But this cost very often includes hosting, and a domain name, along with a lot of features which would cost more individually, so it really can save money. For a small business wanting ecommerce, it can be even more attractive because to have a custom built, full featured e-commerce site can easily cost thousands of dollars.
For “do it yourselfer,” site building tools are a boon because they make web site building seem so easy – just click here, enter that, and voila – you have a web site. At least, that is perception! Of course, professional web designers know there are a few more things to know, but we do find some irony in fact that web developers, in their quest to improve and better web, have made themselves optional. Most site building tools today are very robust, making it simple to add forms, searching, maps, guest books, calendars, and a whole variety of elements to a web site. Even better, hosting company sometimes offers an entire suite of services – site builder, email marketing, search engine optimization and statistics, all in one package along with hosting.
So, why would anyone hire a professional? First, site building tools, though increasingly robust, often lack in design and layout flexibility. For example, they might depend on a standard layout that has a banner across top, menu down side. If you want to have your navigation across top and perhaps a sub banner under it, you might not have that option. Many businesses have already outgrown their first or second site, and want something customized to their business. Since all site builders differ, it is possible that you could want features and functionality within your site which is not available within system. Still, some site builders support development languages like PHP, making it possible to customize site with help of a programmer. Some site builders include ecommerce, but they do not all do it same way. A few utilize PayPal™ – but not credit cards. Some use a particular credit card processing service and won’t accommodate anything else. The bottom line is that it is important to look at sites that were built using tool you’re considering and research all of features that are included; to be sure that everything you want to do is possible.
