A. Importance of Having Your Own Website
For example, I know someone who is a business owner that makes custom fishing rods. He does not have a website and his business is struggling. This person is highly skilled in his work but lacks computer knowledge and thinks that a website would not benefit his business much.
However, that is a large misconception.
Not only would a website increase this man’s client base, it would drastically reduce the money he is spending on advertising, as a simple thing as internet research has shown to be the most cost-effective. If this person had a website, he could reach out to a wider variety of people and due to the search engine optimization, potential clients looking for custom fishing rods would likely stumble across his website. As Tom Copeland states in his article, “Cost Effective Advertising Tips For Small Businesses,” “Developing a website for your small business is one of the least costly means of advertising available.”
This is true because there are many great hosting services available that can be found at a reasonable price and there are even some free hosting services if you are willing to accept slower site speed and other limitations.
B. Benefits of WordPress and Elementor Page Builder
When it comes to design, traditional WordPress does a reasonable job at giving people a good degree of control over design without having to dig into code.
With that said, it wasn’t really until the advent of page builder plugins that WordPress really came into its own in terms of design flexibility. Now there are numerous WordPress page builder plugins, which enable you to drag and drop designs on the page. This allows anyone, regardless of technical ability, to make a decent attempt at creating a unique and functional design for their site. The best known of these are probably Visual Composer and Site Origin Page Builder.
However, I would argue that Elementor is probably the best choice for small businesses.
Like WordPress, it’s very user-friendly. But more importantly, the base version will give you a decent amount of design freedom and functionality, with lots more features if you decide to upgrade.
Accessibility and ease of use are extremely important for small businesses. It’s important to be able to update the site yourself, without having to rely constantly on a web developer. In today’s world, most of the fastest moving and modern platforms can require a fair degree of technical knowledge to implement and maintain. This can be especially true of some modern WordPress themes, which rely on numerous plugins and custom fields to achieve their look and feel.
B.1 Easy-to-use Interface
With most website builders, customizing a site can be a big hassle.
Editing websites can turn into a nightmare with so many confusing options, and often times this is a result of too many features as we mentioned before. With WordPress, the back end of a site is very clean, clear and simple.
Editing webpages and blog posts can be done with ease using a very simple word processor type toolbar. Formatting text, integrating media, creating links, and making article revisions (to name just a few) are all very simple.
On top of the simple content creation, organizing media, documents, and other file types has never been easier. With a very simple drag-and-drop feature, you can upload media into a very organized library and then use simple search features to find any type of media file. Last but not least, website organization features simple with a very effective and simple-to-use page nesting feature.
This makes organizing pages and posts a breeze, and it avoids an absolute mess with tons of top-level pages. Elementor’s easy-to-use interface, fast editing and customizable options would allow a small business owner to maintain their own website, lessen initial build time to get a website up and run, spend less maintaining the site, and spend more time conducting business.
This all-in-one concept is a long-term money and time saver. A thing to keep in mind is that the editing features is only part of the whole, Elementor is equipped with features that are up to date with the latest site design standards.
B.2 Customization Options
The new Live Preview feature, allows you to test a theme before it is activated; previews can be saved for the administrator to come back to at a later time. Any changes you make to the theme will not be saved and activated until you select Save & Activate.
In terms of customization options offered by a CMS, WordPress leads the pack. With thousands of themes and tens of thousands of plugins available, it’s unlikely you’ll find something you can’t do with WordPress through these software options. Plugins add functionality to your site, whether it be a contact form, shopping cart, or an entirely new platform like a forum or social network.
Themes are what provide the design of a website and can be easily installed through the WordPress interface with a couple clicks. Some themes are free, while others require you to make a purchase. With a free theme, your site can take on a whole new appearance with minimal time and effort required.
C. Factors to Consider When Choosing a Website Platform
When considering cost-effectiveness, it’s not only important to think about the initial costs of building your site, but also the ongoing costs. Building a custom site at first may seem more expensive, but you can get hit with ongoing platform fees, developer fees for updates and plug-ins.
On the other hand, paying a developer for a few hours a month to maintain your platform is less commitment and cost than a self-building platform, which can require time spent between 15 minutes to several hours a week to maintain, especially if you’re unfamiliar with web development.
In most situations, budget will be a major factor that will determine which platform you choose, whether it’s building a custom site or using an existing platform. A good rule to stick by is having a budget in mind but also being willing to spend a little more than you originally anticipated if it’s worth it.
Generally, with website platforms, you get what you pay for. You also have to factor in your own time, as sometimes spending a bit more can save you a lot of time due to platforms with higher monthly costs having better user support.
C.1 Cost-effectiveness
Cost-effectiveness is an important consideration when building a website.
The price of the website, the return on investment, and the required resources compared to the benefits should all be taken into account.
Cost effective website design and development is usually associated with higher initial costs and lower maintenance costs. This is a preferred solution for small businesses, as well as sole traders or individuals selling small products. In these cases, a small, static website hosted on a small server may be cost-effective. On the other hand, large companies and small businesses planning for future growth usually require a more complex and dynamic website with server-side technologies and a database.
High cost can also be cost effective if there is a high-value return on investment.
For instance, a company may spend a large amount of money on a website to align with their brand image. In this case, it is still cost effective if the loss of investment will be low in the event of company closure.
Finally, the resources required for the project are a factor in cost and cost effectiveness. This includes web design and development time, money or man hours, and any additional hosting services beyond what is needed for the website. It is clear that using fewer resources for more results is more cost effective.
C.2 Scalability and Flexibility
If you want your business to grow, it’s important to think about how your website might be scaled up in the future.
This means that you might not need a very complex site now, but you may want one in the future. It’s also possible that you’ll want more than one site.
Using the same example, if your business grows large enough you may want a whole separate site just for your own TV show, and one to sell your music. In this case, you would want to have a hosting solution that allows for multiple websites on the same server. Adding a new site to a good CMS should be about as complex as installing the CMS itself, but on a different domain. This makes it very easy and cost-effective to expand your web presence.
Plan out some hypothetical future scenarios and ask the developers how easy it would be to achieve these on their platform.
Finally, a good website has to be able to keep up with new internet technologies and software. Your platform should be flexible enough to allow regular upgrades and changes to keep your site in line with the state of the art. This is vital if your business is related to IT or any form of technology.
C.3 SEO Friendliness
SEO is an ongoing effort and requires the analysis of much data pertaining to a site.
An ideal website platform will have features for easy implementation of SEO analytics. This includes the ability to easily add PPC tracking code and other code snippets for analytics software. A sitemap generator is also a greatly beneficial feature. Sitemaps are becoming increasingly more important for search engines and are a great way to ensure all site pages are indexed.
Another useful feature is the ability to create 301 redirects. This is essential if you are migrating a current website to a new platform. 301 redirects will tell search engines to transfer all indexed data from a prior page to a new page.
SEO friendliness is difficult to measure with website platforms because the data is hardly comparable. Search ranking can depend on many different factors outside of the website itself. It’s generally best to find case studies and other evidence of success in using a platform for SEO.
An ideal platform will have the ability to quickly generate SEO meta tags for pages. SEO tags are essential in the initial stages of building a website. They give search engines an understanding of the content on a page. Quality meta tags can improve the likelihood of a page appearing in search results regarding the tag specifics. High-ranking tags can generate a lot of organic traffic. A platform should facilitate easy editing of meta tags as well. Often times tags can be lost or need to be changed, so having a repository of all site meta tags in one location that can be easily updated is optimal.
Contrary to what many would believe, not all website platforms are created equal in terms of search engine friendliness.
These are especially important for businesses looking to begin their online growth through SEO. This is because as a small business, it will be more cost-effective and beneficial in the long term to invest in SEO as opposed to PPC.
Search engine optimization generally takes a few months to start generating significant traffic and leads, so the return is built over time. That is not to say PPC is a bad investment for small businesses, it’s just difficult to maintain long term.
C.4 Security and Updates
It is important to consider how frequently your website will need to be updated, as this can affect the compatibility of the platform and the plugins that you use. Some businesses will only need to update their site on rare occasions or for seasonal changes. Others will need regular content updates through a blog or news section. Then there are websites that have constant development changes or product additions. This is where platform compatibility becomes a concern.
If you feel that your website may be at risk from hacking attempts or server exploits due to the nature of its content and the traffic that it receives, you may want to consider dedicated website security services such as Sitelock. This scans your website daily for any signs of malicious activity, and if any is found, Sitelock will automatically remove it. Pricing for this type of security ranges from $25 to $250 per month.
Google is now making it a requirement for any website that processes form and/or login details to have an SSL certificate. This will be highlighted in the URL bar when you visit a site, with a padlock icon or the word “secure” displayed. The actual cost of an SSL certificate can be either free for a year with certain hosts such as SiteGround or up to $200 per year depending on the level of certification that you need.
The next level of security is an SSL certificate. The main purpose of an SSL is to encrypt information so that it can only be read and understood by the intended parties. This is important as the information you send over the internet is passed from computer to computer to get to the destination server. Any computer in between you and the server can see your credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, and other sensitive information if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate.
Secure websites will almost always run from a dedicated IP address. This means that the IP address can only be used by the website, and the website is the only service that runs from that IP. This costs around $60-$100 a year depending on the provider.
Maintaining security for your website and ensuring that it remains safe from potential threats should be a key concern for your business. The consequences of having a site that is compromised in this way could be catastrophic and irreparably damage your company’s reputation. The cost of security is relative to the size of your website and the level of protection that you need.
D. Steps to Choose the Right Website Platform
Evaluate user-friendliness and design options: Now that you have researched various website building platforms, you will want to evaluate their user-friendliness and their design options.
This step should not be overlooked as user-friendliness is crucial for the long-term use of the website builder. Now that you have a good understanding of how the website building platforms work, you can begin taking a look at the design options for your website.
This is an important step as some website builders offer a very limited selection of design options, while others offer a large selection of design options and have the capability to create a more complex website. It is important to select a design that will cater to your business needs.
For example, if you are a graphic design company and you want to create a website to showcase your portfolio, you would want to select a website builder platform that offers a large selection of design options as it will give you maximum design flexibility.
Research and compare platforms: Now that you have a clear idea of your business needs, you can begin to compare and contrast the business needs of the website building platforms. Take your time with this step. If you have never built a website before, this may be a new experience, and you can become easily confused. Take your time and remain calm. This is a step that becomes easier over time and as more website building options become available.
Identify your business needs: Before you begin your research, you should have a clear understanding of your business needs.
If you jot down a list of what you want to accomplish with your website (sell 5 products, attract 200 visitors a month, etc.), this will serve as a great benchmark for evaluating the website building platforms. This will save you a lot of time in the long run because if a platform doesn’t meet your needs, you’ll need to move on to a new one. This will be a balancing act, and you should try to find a website builder that achieves near 80% of what you want to accomplish.
D.1 Identify Your Business Needs
A good place to start can be identifying what you like and don’t like about your current website or your competitor’s site. Their sites might be solving some needs that you haven’t thought of before. Look at the website content, features, and design points that you feel are most important and that will contribute to the success of your business. This could be anything from a shopping cart and credit card processing to an online quote request form.
If you have a business that relies on customer leads, you may be interested in a website that motivates customers to contact you and lists reasons why your business is superior to your competitors. Start a list of these features, as you will use them to match features that are available on different web platforms later on.
In order to make the best decisions for your website and your business, your first step is to identify what your needs are.
Your website is an extension of your business, and if you don’t know what your business needs are, you can build something that isn’t right for you. And in turn, that can easily waste time and money. Whether you’re creating a website for the first time or revamping an existing site, this is the most critical step. Write down a list of what is important to your business. This can be as simple as a few bullet points, but the more specific you can get, the more helpful this will be for you.
D.2 Research and Compare Platforms
The comparison stage is generally the most tedious, but crucial to finding the right website platform for your small business.
Sufficient time needs to be allocated to comparing platforms and analyzing the future business requirements. Once you have a clear idea of what your small business will require, you can begin to research and compare the different website platforms. Here are a few factors to consider in your comparison: features, flexibility and customization, SEO capabilities, ecommerce capabilities, costs.
With the abundant website platforms available to you these days, it would be unrealistic to trial every platform until you find the right one. The most efficient way to compare the various website platforms is to identify any deal-breakers, or unique features that your small business will require.
Make a spreadsheet comparing the various platforms and tick off which platform has which features. If a particular platform does not have specific information available on their website, inquire with their sales support. This can save you hours of research. This is an example of how a group of small business owners compared WordPress, Joomla, Drupal and Concrete5 for their requirements.
At the end they found that WordPress was the most suitable CMS with over 50% of all websites being predominantly a blog.
D.3 Evaluate User-Friendliness and Design Options
What’s most important is that the website effectively conveys the brand and message, is functional, looks good, and it’s something that you can manage yourself if there are any changes in the future. A grand-looking website with complex features does not mean it’s effective.
Another important thing to keep in mind is how good do you need your website to look. Some platforms offer a large range of templates, while others offer a small range. Templates are definitely an easier way for the small business owner to get a professional-looking design without spending lots of money on a custom design. A failure of many small business owners is that they need to have the best-looking website. Keep in mind, web design is subjective and this might not be a good use of money.
In order to avoid conflicts between you and the platform down the road, make sure the platform is as user-friendly as you need it to be. This can be evaluated during your free trial phase with each platform, but it’s definitely good to get an impression of it from other users. At the end of the day, you don’t want to spend too much time building your website and cleaning up errors or learning how to use a complex editor.
Simplicity and user-friendliness are good things.
