Affordablewebdesignthehiddencostsofacheapwebsite

Affordable Web Design? The Hidden Costs of a Cheap Web Site

Apparent saving or hidden cost; A guide for business owners

Before you build your web site evaluate cost versus benefit. The easiest benefit to measure comes from the increase in new customer enquiries.

Compare the amount a cheap web site will save you over 3 to 5 years (possibly a few hundred or thousand) versus what it can cost you in new business over the same period (possibly a few thousand or ten thousand).

Established web companies often focus on customers who are up to their 2nd or 3rd site because most web site owners have to experience owning a low quality web site to appreciate the value of a high quality one.

Unfortunately this means you may have to experience an expensive mistake and potentially waste years on a poorly performing site before you get an effective one.

But you don't have to experience this pain.

This guide is for business owners who are short on time, know their business and their customers well and are not technical experts. If you're considering buying a web site it shows you what to watch out for if the price looks too good to be true.

In the first part of this article we'll talk about some of the technical hidden costs of a cheap website.

Hosting

For your customers to see your site it must be "hosted" on a server that is permanently connected to the Internet. Here in New Zealand you can get cheap overseas web hosting, often for 25% of the price offered by a local hosting company. But despite what the sales person tells you, overseas hosting accounts are slower. Information travelling from Texas to Wellington takes longer than information travelling from Lower Hutt to Wellington, and it's often quite noticeable.

Overseas hosting can also affect your local search engine rankings, e.g. if your site is hosted overseas and someone searches google.co.nz for "accountant wellington" you can appear lower in the results than locally hosted sites.

Will saving a few dollars a month on cheap hosting offset the cost of losing enquiries or making a bad first impression due to slow loading? Not usually.

Technology focus - a red flag

The technology your web site is built with is important. It should load fast, perform reliably and make life easy for you and your customer. If it allows you to edit your web site and you shouldn't need a degree to operate it. That's about all you need to know.

Cheap web design companies often try to impress you with fancy technology to show you how clever they are. The more noise they make about technology the more suspicious you should. Are they are overlooking important details that will make your web site perform well?

Excessive Use of Flash

Be wary of web designers who use Adobe flash excessively. Flash is great for adding videos and other occasional content (such as some animations) to your site, but never let your designer use it for your web site's navigation bar or for background images.

Why? Because Flash causes your site to load more slowly and it negatively affects your search engine rankings. Search engines don't like sites that use lots of flash.

Some web designers use flash not because it adds value to your site but because it's convenient for them. Make sure you only use Flash when it adds value to your web site.

Plain English explanations

Did you understand everything your web designer said? If not find someone you do understand.

The discussion you have with your web design company should focus on your customers and your business, not the technology.

If you can't have a meaningful conversation with your web designer your web site has no chance of connecting with your best customers.

In the next article on affordable web design we'll consider who your best customers are and what they want from a web site.

Phil Donaldson provides affordable web design solutions for small business owners.

For details and more tips for small businesses visit this site now: Web Site Marketing Tips

www.ksofttechnologies.com

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