Website design for business
I found out about Tim just when I needed a website and before I knew it he had one up & running with my idea of colour schemes and content layout that was just right. Tim showed me how to manage the site and organised the SEO. Without SEO a website may just as well not exist so now people can find me through search terms in Google. Tim has also been a valuable source of marketing advice and I appreciate all the time he has spent on helping me with my business. Thanks Tim!
Cathy Gladwin
http://www.gladwinstraining.co.uk
You've realised that a website is a business neccessity these days. You've started your search for a website designer. You've been quoted anything from £100 to £10000 (yes some companies will pay that and more) to have a website build for your business. You are thoroughly confused by all the jargon that technically inclined designers use. So what do you do?
You either don't get it done because it's cost prohibitive, or you settle for a small 1 to 5 page website because that is more affordable.
The problem with the first option is that it is business suicide to not have a presence on the Internet, because that's what people expect.
The problem with the second option is that small websites have many disadvantages, here are a few:
- They are difficult to rank well in search engines for competitive search terms
- They rarely change, which frustrates visitors and isn't good for search engine rankings
- If you want it updating, you have to go back to the designer (if he/she hasn't disappeared) and pay them to make the changes
- It will cost you more to expand the website, if you want it to expand with your business
Is there a simple, inexpensive solution to all these problems?
Yes, it's called WordPress.
Wordpress was originally created as a blogging platform, but over the years it has evolved into one of the most powerful yet easy to use website systems available, and best of all the core WordPress software is FREE.
It takes just ten minutes to set up a basic WordPress installation, and just a few hours to configure for your requirements.
It is one of the most expandable systems out there, meaning your website can grow with your business and it is supported by thousands, yes thousands, of software developers around the World.
What makes WordPress so good for small businesses though, is that it can be configured to perform many different functions, and there are literally thousands of addons (known as plugins) that can make your website different to other peoples websites.
Some of these plugins include forms, sitemaps, slideshows, image and video handling, shopping carts, and even better 95% of these plugins are FREE, requiring a small amount of time to upload and configure.
Because of this flexibility, some large organisations use WordPress. These include:
No 10 Downing Street
NASA
Universities
Councils
The New York Times
Shape Your Place
You don't even have to pay a designer to design a professional looking website for your business as there are thousands of free WordPress themes on the Internet that can easily be used on your website, and if you get bored of using one of these, it takes minutes to change to another one.
It is easy to be affraid of Internet technology, but, if you can use a Word processor, you can use WordPress (once it's set up and configured for you).
Oh, and Google loves it!!!
At TS Web Consulting we use WordPress for almost all the small business website designs we create (even this website is powered by WordPress), which is how we can help you keep your costs down, especially if you are just starting a new business.
So before you go ahead and commission a website designer to create your new website, call Tim on 01945 780821 or 07979 864718 to learn more about WordPress and what it can do for your business.