Building a Small-Business Web Site on a Budget
Posted Wednesday March 28, 2007 in Reviews
I recently built my new company’s Web site. Now, I don’t recommend you build yours - it’s a lot of work, so hire a pro. In my case, I used to build and code Web sites, so it’s easy for me, but the hard part of building a Web site is making it accomplish your business goals, so concentrate on setting and articulating those, not learning Dreamweaver. There are some parts of putting together my Web site that have worked out particularly well for me, and that I’d highly recommend to other entrepreneurs.
Web Host
I host with Dreamhost, a low-cost, full-featured host. With Dreamhost, I get my own SMTP e-mail server — so it’s easy to send mail wherever I am. I also get free installation of things like Subversion, which is handy for back-ups and file storage; MediaWiki, for setting up Wikis and storing information; the ActiveCollab project management environment; shopping cart software; and handy things like PHP, perl, ruby on rails, and the python equivalent, django. If you don’t run on Microsoft servers, Dreamhost is a great place to look.
Now, it’s important to realize that all inexpensive hosts have downtime — 99.9% uptime still has you down a half a day a year, and that’s what you get for under $100/month. If you rely on your Web site being continuously up, look into a dedicated or, perhaps, virtual dedicated hosting plan, which usually run from $100-$400/month and have strong uptime guarantees. Fortunately, Dreamhost offers that too.
Check-Up Tools
With potential downtime costing you money, it’s important to check that your site’s working. I’ve used the free Uptime service to do this for about five years now, and it’s got the right features at the right price. It’ll e-mail you when your site goes down and when it comes back up, and that’s good for keeping track of your pocketbook.
Your Web site should also work in everyone’s browser. If you’re using Windows, you need to have a colleague or friend with a Mac who’ll check it — unless you’re excited to give up the money of Mac-using customers. For your Windows-using customers, check it yourself, using Multiple IEs — you can have every version of Internet Explorer since 3.01 on your computer. Fun times! Of course, if you hired the right Web designer then you don’t need to worry about this.
With all of the above, you’ve got a good start to a good Web site. Now, just mix in some technical skill and good taste, and you’re home free!
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