Getting your business online might seem like a mission – a lot of unfamiliar jargon, thousands of different options and a ton of different providers all roostering about why you should choose them – it can be enough to make you quietly close your laptop, walk away and put off this website thing until the next time it nags you.
If that sounds like you then we encourage you to not put it off any longer – not only do we make it super easy to get a new website built – the longer you delay getting a website for your business the greater the chance your preferred domain name will be gone and you will have missed a good opportunity to build up some search history with Google and enjoy better rankings in the search results.
So let’s get going!
Start Right to Save Money
Building an affordable business website shouldn’t be that complicated, and it isn’t. It’s actually super cheap and super simple to make a good start. Yes, there are dozens of things you can do with a website and online marketing but the great thing is you don’t have to worry about that right now. There are some things, however, you should make sure of when getting started – here are our top three:
- Go open source – One trap that catches a lot of rookies is choosing a provider that builds your website using their own proprietary software (companies like zeald, vistaprint, shopify and squarespace do this). It’s fine until you go to leave and realise you can’t take your site with you, and you’re essentially locked in to an overpriced service plan. We’ve moved a few businesses off these proprietary platforms and it can be a very manual process! It can also limit you in terms of upgrading or changing your site. Choosing open source gives you the freedom to switch providers without a lot of drama. Most of our sites are built in WordPress and it gives our clients peace of mind knowing they can easily switch if they choose to (it also makes us work harder to encourage them to stay!).
- Beware of long-term contracts – Often euphemistically referred to as “plans” many providers will urge you to sign up for an extended period of time (domain registrars are well known for this tactic). Obviously this is good for them – guaranteed revenue and products or services sold at today’s prices is valuable cash flow – but it’s not so great for the customer, especially when cheaper, better deals come along (as is often the case with advancing technology).
- Start small – Like buying a car, it makes sense to buy according to your needs. Of course that’s the theory – the reality is no one ever buys the car they need, otherwise we’d all be driving aging toyota corollas. The danger for some business owners is that an agency fills their head with a long list of exciting things they can do in the online world, sells them the full mansion, charges them accordingly and whammy – the business owner is sitting in their office the following week with a bad case of buyers remorse and a very complicated website they can’t drive themselves. Start small, get the hang of it then scale up when needed.
Now that you have a better idea of what you should be looking for, how do you actually get started on building that affordable business website?
Time to Start on that Website
Like most projects the hardest part is taking that first step – signing up to a gym or buying the timber for that new fence – it’s all about committing yourself so you’ll be motivated to see it through. As long as is it’s just an idea it’s too easy to ignore it. Sometimes we do that just because we imagine it’s going to be a lot of work.
Here’s the good news – getting a new website is probably a lot easier than you think. With PogoStick Web Services, we’ve simplified it into three easy steps:
- Register a domain name
- Email us the page text
- Pay the deposit
You can include any photos you have, a logo as well as your style preferences and feature requests – in most cases within 10 working days you’ll have your website built and ready to review, then launch. You’ll also have the option to add or edit text later so it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around.
Why not learn more about all the features included with our cheap $299 business website package?
Website built – Now what?
Well done, you got your website built! Great start and now you can begin work on building it up as a very valuable business asset; developing the content, promoting it through advertising, and making it useful for your business, your customers and prospects as well.
As part of that process it’s worth learning how to use the website management software you get with every PogoStick website so you can make your own changes (we’re also available to assist if needed). Browse our help page for some helpful guides and tutorials on using WordPress and start maintaining your own website for free!
Of course, just because we make building an affordable website super easy and fast it doesn’t mean you can’t get all the bells and whistles that pricier agencies offer. We offer all sorts of add-ons from security certificates to Google Ads marketing and analytics. You can browse the full list of website extras here or just get in touch to check what after-sales assistance we can offer.