WordPress and Small Business
In our opinion, for any small business person on a budget looking for a website there is no better choice then WordPress. You can get a great looking website up fast without shelling out the big bucks for a high priced guru, or designer and at the end of the day you’ll be in control. You’ll be able to easily mold your website around the needs of your business, prospects and clients without getting tangled up in html.
It used to be if you were running a small business, or thinking about starting a business that if you wanted a website you’d have to shell out the big bucks for a custom designed and developed site or build it yourself using Front Page, or Dreamweaver and if you were really on a budget get a friend or relative to help you.
You’d end up with a website that might (at some level) work for you, but at the end of the day you will likely end up with what will become over time (as your market changes) can only be described as an electronic version of a boat anchor. It will weight you down and end up taking more time, effort and money to update, maintain and optimize.
Personally I’ve been down this path. I’ve created straight HTML websites and unless you really like hacking code, or spending time trying to find a script to do what you want to do then you probably have no complaint. But the bottom line (for me at least) is that I have a thousand and one other things to do to make my business successful and wrenching on my website is only one of those things.
Why WordPress
Over 320 million people view more than 3 billion pages on WordPress.com each month.
And for the small business person it’s really all about time and though having an effective, functional website that is attractive and presents your message to your audience the way you want is a critical component in today’s e-business world, it can’t be something that consumes you. Your website should enable your business not inhibit your business. This is the beauty of WordPress for small business.
WordPress Lets Your Focus on Content, Not Code
The problem with straight html websites is that they’re primarily based on code. On the WordPress.Org website the slogan is “Just Write“. I like to say content, not code. It is content that communicates your message. It is content that will get your prospects to respond and it is content that generates sales! The more time you spend on content, the more money you’re likely to make.
WordPress is what is known as a CMS, or a “Content Management System” and all you need are basic word processing skills to create any kind of content you want; text video, audio, pictures, picture gallery’s and with the free WordPress add ons you can create content that is completely optimized for search.
[read more about WordPress Content Management]
WordPress is Extensible
Everything changes; markets change, people change and most importantly in our context, technology changes. This means that you will have adapt to these changes. One of these changes is already upon us in the form of smart phones. Is your website smart phone compatible?
WordPress is open source. This means there are thousands of programmers who develop for WordPress what are called plug-ins which extend the basic functional capability of WordPress. Many of these are free. There’s a plug in for just about anything. A plug in to make you and SEO ninja and a plug in to make your website completely mobile phone compatible.
WordPress means your website can change when the market changes and you can do it without having to hire an expensive programmer and even if there isn’t a free plug in to do what you need, most premium plug-ins are less then $100 and you can install configure and use them in minutes.
Cost
The question is “how much is this all going to cost me?” For any small business person operating on a budget this is a legitimate and necessary question to ask and consider. And not only how much is it going to cost to create but more importantly how much is it going to cost to own? Or the cost of ownership.
Cost to Create
The great thing about WordPress is that most designs are done around a theme and there are hundreds if not thousands of different WordPress themes. Many are free (though we don’t use them) and many premium themes.
The reason they’re called themes is that they’ve been designed and developed around a specific business, topic, or theme. There’s themes for photographers, education, small business, video, film, cars and more. The best part is that they can take on a distinctive look unique to your business without incurring the expense of having an entire suite of expensive graphics developed. Typically you can get a unique WordPress website for anywhere between $350 to $700 and sometimes less
Cost to Own
The other part about cost is your cost of ownership. With the availability of an extensive library of plug-ins at your disposal and the fact that you can create and manage content without 3rd party expertise or expensive software, most of your costs will be for hosting and the inclusion of any premium plug-ins you might want to use to extend your functionality even more.
Summary
I could easily go on and on about the virtues of WordPress but it really comes down to two things; time and money. We typically can get a fully designed website up and running for your business in 5 days or less. We install all the essential plug-ins, provide you with 1 on 1 training and a comprehensive library of training videos for after the fact. Checkout some of the available themes and package deals, or get in touch and we’ll work with you every step of the way.
Money is made when you have time to work in your business and not on your business. This is the beauty of WordPress and the reason we recommend you choose it for your business as well.
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