These are important decisions that need to be made in the planning of the project.    Without planning the whole aspect of starting a web-based business, spending too much on the build with no funds left for marketing will mean you’ll have a great site, but no-one will ever know about it.   Likewise, cutting corners on the build an design and ploughing most of the cash into advertising and other marketing might mean lots of people visiting your site, feel it lacks content or ease of use, and never return.

A good mixture of both will comprimise a good site and enough to launch the site and begin the awareness of it’s existance.

Whether your site is a blog, a shop or a self-perpetuating revenue-maker, funding that effectively is a priority to ensure the long-term success.   The costs of starting a web-based business is minimal if you compare it to a non-web-based business – you have no office or shop to rent, no staff (at first) and no utilities to pay eiether, but a good business and development plan is necessary for every web-based projects’ survival.  The most difficult part of starting a web-based business is the time and effort to build the business and continue growing the site.

Think of it like a snowball:

Imagine, you’re at the very peak of a snowy mountain.   You roll a snowball in your hands and place it on the floor.  It will take effort to begin rolling it down the hill as it weighs almost nothing and will take manual pushing to start building it up with more snow, always pushing it towards the slope.   After you’ve been pushing it a while and it has doubled in size, it becomes easier to then give it a tap and it begins to roll on it’s own for a short distance.  You may need a bit of energy to keep it going , guiding it down,  steering it slightly on track and constantly help it build and gain momentum.   Once that snowball is at an appropriate size, the weight accumulated then means that the snowball has it’s own weight to help momentum and begins rolling non-stop down the mountainside on it’s own accord.   As it rolls, it gets faster and faster – gaining more snow and growing in size as it plummets down the slope.  Before long, you couldn’t actually stopped it getting bigger if you tried.

The hardest part of getting your website going, is at the start…. the big push.   See a rough guideline below for simple purchases needing on any website:

Domain Name

Registering a domain name is necessary for any online business.  Once a business name is established, the domain name is registered at websites such as Dotster.com, Register.com and GoDaddy.com.   The cost of a domain name is dependent on the extension (the .com, .co.uk, .net etc).   For most business owners, a .com extension is beneficial because it is the most commonly known extension among people.   A one-year registration service for a .com domain name is around £7-9.   This service needs to be renewed every year.  Buying it for an extended period will save you money.

Hosting Service

Hosting services have a wide range of prices, and prices are determined by the platform the business uses. Programming a website in .NET is usually more expensive, whereas a PHP website can be hosted for as low as £5 to £10 a month.  Free hosting services are available, but free services require ads or popups, which is not professional for business purposes.  Be aware that you will get what you pay for.

Database

Database services are for websites that host dynamic content.  The most common databases for Internet websites are mySQL and SQL Server; the former is usually a free or minimally charged service from the host of the website, and the SQL Server costs slightly more and is used with .NET websites.   SQL Server costs can be as low as £10 per month.

Programming and Design

Unless you as a web-business owner have programming and design experience, it’s necessary to hire a professional programmer and designer to do it for you.  Most design agencies have both services in-house.  The programming and design can be accomplished using separate service providers.  The designer can provide a design that the programmer works with to create the web pages.  The cost of a programmer and a designer is dependent on experience and the complexity of the website.  Some professionals may charge as low as £20 per hour.   More advanced sites may need a highly skilled programmer and designer, which can cost £50 to £75 per hour.   Large, complex sites for this reason can take 100’s of man hours at the higher rates, so negotiate costs up-front.

PC Resources

Owning a web-based business means that you need a computer with high-speed online service.  These costs are also dependent on location and type of service.   High-speed Internet access is necessary for the business owner to communicate with clients, conduct research and upload new pages and images.  The cost for Internet connect can run from £30 to £100 per month.   If your site goes down, your business is down so invest in a decent service to ensure that you remain a happy business-owner.

]]> http://www.theonemanmission.com/featured/your-website-start-up-the-costs/feed/ 0 http://www.theonemanmission.com/starting-up/working-with-web-developers/ http://www.theonemanmission.com/starting-up/working-with-web-developers/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 08:52:05 +0000 Phil http://theonemanmission.com/?p=374 As a web designer myself, I know the importance of making a site look professional enough to make prospects want to call you or buy from you. You need to make sure your site can be found easily by search engines.  How do can you find and work with a web developer who will get your site built quickly, professionally and at a reasonable cost?.  With ‘Project x’ (my own personal web development project currently undergoing), I have called in the use of an off-shore development team of expert programmers who are busy as we speak coding my site up.  I have researched from various sources how to work with such a team and how to set boundaries and milestones to check their progress and ensure they stay up to date with deadlines.

1 – ‘Network’ with other web-business owners whose websites you like the look and feel of, and get the contact information for the companies that created those sites – normally a development or webmaster team.  Ask the site owners if they were satisfied with all aspects of the work and service, ask if they wold recommend them, and what they paid to have their site built.  Make comparisons between the size and functionality of their site compared to your idea and then work out how much yours could likely cost in a comparison.

2 – Look around the web and make a list of websites that you find attractive.  Make notes of layouts, colours and flash-based applications.  Be sure to copy the complete url for each site you like so you can easily refer back to it and send to the development team to show them what you mean.  Along with that list, make note of exactly what it is about the sites you like.  from what I found, developers can do anything you want, but it’s better to show something than to describe it yourself: after all, a picture tells a thousand words.  You might find one that has a color scheme you like, another that is easy to navigate.  

3 – Normally, the bottom of the page in question will have a link to the design/development team who created it.  If so, contact the companies whose work you like and ask them for a quote – mentioning you love the look of one of their sites.

4 – List all the keywords and phrases for your business.  This will be used for the meta information when the developer and designers work on your website and it’s a good idea to also have different titles for each page as well (this is used for the search engines and means better seo for your site).  If you buy search engine advertising, use the tools provided by the search engines to help you discover important keywords.

5 – Decide whether you’ll sell directly on the website, or just use the website to get leads.  This needs to be decided early no as changing half-way through a project will delay things considerably and more than likely add cost.

6 – Decide on and prepare all the editorial information and marketing copy your website will contain.   Basically, write all the content and text your site will have so when the design team are ready, you can simply forward it on instead of starting to do it at that moment.  At minimum, you’ll want a homepage (the main page for your site), a page or pages describing your products and services, an “about us” page and a “contact us” page. 

7 – Write or have a professional writer create the editorial content as soon as you decide what you want on the site.  The purpose of your website is to represent and market your business, and bear in mind web developers usually just design and program sites – they are not salespeople and (especially) if you’re using an off-shore development team like me, english may not be their first language.   Remember, the web developer can’t finish the job until you give them the copy that goes on the website, so save yourself time and do it in advance.

8 - Don’t cut corners by simply forwarding a brochure or flyer for your business to add text onto your site.  A websites aim is very different from a flyer.  A website’s job is to get attention AND get the prospect to take action. In other words, to sell.  The flyer will just be generating interest.

9 – Decide which photos, graphics and drawings you want on your site, and make it clear whether you’ll provide the graphics or whether the web developer will need to do it.  Nowadays, there are some great sites to buy royalty-free photo’s, images and videos at a small cost – but means you won’t infringe copyright.  Main player in this field is iStockphoto, which I have used countless times and is dead easy to use.  Graphics you may need to provide yourself would include photos of products, people and other graphics for use on your site.  Most stock photo sites have buttons users can click on, and all are almost always customisable as well.

10 – If your website is ’selling’ or at least taking payments for your products or services, be aware that you will need to get a ‘merchant account’ that can be used on the web to handle taking payments from users.  PayPal is probably the best one to use and handles any card that the customer may have.   You will be charged for using such a service, but I found Paypal has some of the lowest charges with the highest flexibility.   Paypal also have a great way of integrating their payment system directly into your site, so users won’t have to leave your site to make their purchase. 

11 - Ensure you sign a contract with the developer that highlights all the features and details you have discussed with the developer.  Leave nothing out.  This should include a breakdown of the price and milestones.  Milestones are key parts of the project that you can check you’r happy with and move on to the next (also known as ‘deliverables’.  I do this with my own web design clients, and expect nothing less when I’m the ‘customer’.  By setting milestones, you can check whether the overall project is on time for completion deadline.   Google ‘web development contract templates‘, and find one suitable to your requirements.

12 - Make sure you stipulate that you have full copyright ownership of your site.  This is important in the case you decide to change web developers or hosting companies at any time in the future, you will be able to do so without having to have your site recreated.  The copyright ownership must be written into the contract.  Otherwise, under copyright law, the developer may own the work they created for you.   ‘Source code’ is different, as if the development team are writing components or code from scratch they usually have the right keep that component in it’s basic form, but any content, trademarks, logos, text and features that are specific for your site – remain yours.

Make sure that you keep on top of the development team throughout the project and answer any queries they have promptly.  Remember, if they need to know something important, they may not be able to proceed any further without that bit of info.   Follow all the above steps and your website will turn out exactly as you want it, and more importantly, when you want it completed.

Contrary to what some people may believe about Google across the interweb, the general consensus is that you can still make really good income streams from some cleverly thought-out sites and optimising them for a lot of traffic = pots of gold.  It can be done easily with the correct strategic approach…

Lets skip the theory and get to what I know works from time proven methods on Google. I know the following system works 100% of the time with Google to attain rankings across a wide range of keywords. This is what I do with clients to build a successful site and has worked every time. The level of success will depend largely on the subject matter, it’s potential audience, and it’s level of competition on the net. The following will build a successful site in 1 years time via Google alone. It can be done faster if you are a real go getter, or everyones favorite a self starter.

A) Prep work and begin building content. Long before the domain name is settled on, start putting together notes to build at least a 100 page site. That’s just for openers. That’s 100 pages of real content, as opposed to link pages, resource pages, about/copyright/tos…etc eg: fluff pages.

B) Domain name:
Easily brandable. You want “google.com” and not “mykeyword.com”. Keyword domains are out – branding and name recognition are in – big time in. The value of keywords in a domain name have never been less to se’s. Learn the lesson of “goto.com” becomes “Overture.com” and why they did it. It’s one of the most powerful gut check calls I’ve ever seen on the internet. That took serious resolve and nerve to blow away several years of branding. (that is a whole ‘nother article, but learn the lesson as it applies to all of us).

C) Site Design:
The simpler the better. Rule of thumb: text content should out weight the html content. The pages should validate and be usable in everything from Lynx to leading edge browsers. eg: keep it close to html 3.2 if you can. Spiders are not to the point they really like eating html 4.0 and the mess that it can bring. Stay away from heavy: flash, dom, java, java script. Go external with scripting languages if you must have them – there is little reason to have them that I can see – they will rarely help a site and stand to hurt it greatly due to many factors most people don’t appreciate (search engines distaste for js is just one of them).
Arrange the site in a logical manner with directory names hitting the top keywords you wish to hit.
You can also go the other route and just throw everything in root (this is rather controversial, but it’s been producing good long term results across many engines).
Don’t clutter and don’t spam your site with frivolous links like “best viewed” or other counter like junk. Keep it clean and professional to the best of your ability.

Learn the lesson of Google itself – simple is retro cool – simple is what surfers want.

Speed isn’t everything, it’s almost the only thing. Your site should respond almost instantly to a request. If you get into even 3-4 seconds delay until “something happens” in the browser, you are in long term trouble. That 3-4 seconds response time may vary for site destined to live in other countries than your native one. The site should respond locally within 3-4 seconds (max) to any request. Longer than that, and you’ll lose 10% of your audience for every second. That 10% could be the difference between success and not.

The pages:

D) Page Size:
The smaller the better. Keep it under 15k if you can. The smaller the better. Keep it under 12k if you can. The smaller the better. Keep it under 10k if you can – I trust you are getting the idea here. Over 5k and under 10k. Ya – that bites – it’s tough to do, but it works. It works for search engines, and it works for surfers. Remember, 80% of your surfers will be at 56k or even less.

E) Content:
Build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words. If you aren’t sure what you need for content, start with the Overture keyword suggester and find the core set of keywords for your topic area. Those are your subject starters.

F) Density, position, yada…
Simple old fashioned seo from the ground up.
Use the keyword once in title, once in description tag, once in a heading, once in the url, once in bold, once in italic, once high on the page, and hit the density between 5 and 20% (don’t fret about it). Use good sentences and speel check it Spell checking is becoming important as se’s are moving to auto correction during searches. There is no longer a reason to look like you can’t spell (unless you really are phonetically challenged).

G) Outbound Links:
From every page, link to one or two high ranking sites under that particular keyword. Use your keyword in the link text (this is ultra important for the future).

H) Insite Cross links.
(cross links in this context are links WITHIN the same site)
Link to on topic quality content across your site. If a page is about food, then make sure it links it to the apples and veggies page. Specifically with Google, on topic cross linking is very important for sharing your pr value across your site. You do NOT want an “all star” page that out performs the rest of your site. You want 50 pages that produce 1 referral each a day and do NOT want 1 page that produces 50 referrals a day. If you do find one page that drastically out produces the rest of the site with Google, you need to off load some of that pr value to other pages by cross linking heavily. It’s the old share the wealth thing.

I) Put it Online.
Don’t go with virtual hosting – go with a stand alone ip.
Make sure the site is “crawlable” by a spider. All pages should be linked to more than one other page on your site, and not more than 2 levels deep from root. Link the topic vertically as much as possible back to root. A menu that is present on every page should link to your sites main “topic index” pages (the doorways and logical navigation system down into real content).
Don’t put it online before you have a quality site to put online. It’s worse to put a “nothing” site online, than no site at all. You want it flushed out from the start.

Go for a listing in the ODP. If you have the budget, then submit to Looksmart and Yahoo. If you don’t have the budget, then try for a freebie on Yahoo (don’t hold your breath).

J) Submit
Submit the root to: Google, Fast, Altavista, WiseNut, (write Teoma), DirectHit, and Hotbot. Now comes the hard part – forget about submissions for the next six months. That’s right – submit and forget.

K) Logging and Tracking:
Get a quality logger/tracker that can do justice to inbound referrals based on log files (don’t use a lame graphic counter – you need the real deal). If your host doesn’t support referrers, then back up and get a new host. You can’t run a modern site without full referrals available 24×7x365 in real time.

L) Spiderlings:
Watch for spiders from se’s. Make sure those that are crawling the full site, can do so easily. If not, double check your linking system (use standard hrefs) to make sure the spider found it’s way throughout the site. Don’t fret if it takes two spiderings to get your whole site done by Google or Fast. Other se’s are pot luck and doubtful that you will be added at all if not within 6 months.

M) Topic directories.
Almost every keyword sector has an authority hub on it’s topic. Go submit within the guidelines.

N) Links
Look around your keyword sector in Googles version of the ODP. (this is best done AFTER getting an odp listing – or two). Find sites that have links pages or freely exchange links. Simply request a swap. Put a page of on topic, in context links up your self as a collection spot.
Don’t freak if you can’t get people to swap links – move on. Try to swap links with one fresh site a day. A simple personal email is enough. Stay low key about it and don’t worry if site Z won’t link with you – they will – eventually they will.

O) Content.
One page of quality content per day. Timely, topical articles are always the best. Try to stay away from to much “bloggin” type personal stuff and look more for “article” topics that a general audience will like. Hone your writing skills and read up on the right style of “web speak” that tends to work with the fast and furious web crowd.

Lots of text breaks – short sentences – lots of dashes – something that reads quickly.

Most web users don’t actually read, they scan. This is why it is so important to keep low key pages today. People see a huge overblown page by random, and a portion of them will hit the back button before trying to decipher it. They’ve got better things to do that waste 15 seconds (a stretch) at understanding your whiz bang flash menu system. Because some big support site can run flashed out motorhead pages, that is no indication that you can. You don’t have the pull factor they do.

Use headers, and bold standout text liberally on your pages as logical separators. I call them scanner stoppers where the eye will logically come to rest on the page.

P) Gimmicks.
Stay far away from any “fades of the day” or anything that appears spammy, unethical, or tricky. Plant yourself firmly on the high ground in the middle of the road.

Q) Link backs
When YOU receive requests for links, check the site out before linking back with them. Check them through Google and their pr value. Look for directory listings. Don’t link back to junk just because they asked. Make sure it is a site similar to yours and on topic.

R) Rounding out the offerings:
Use options such as Email-a-friend, forums, and mailing lists to round out your sites offerings. Hit the top forums in your market and read, read, read until your eyes hurt you read so much.
Stay away from “affiliate fades” that insert content on to your site.

S) Beware of Flyer and Brochure Syndrome
If you have an ecom site or online version of bricks and mortar, be careful not to turn your site into a brochure. These don’t work at all. Think about what people want. They aren’t coming to your site to view “your content”, they are coming to your site looking for “their content“. Talk as little about your products and yourself as possible in articles (raise eyebrows…yes, I know).

T) Build one page of content per day.
Head back to the Overture suggestion tool to get ideas for fresh pages.

U) Study those logs.
After 30-60 days you will start to see a few referrals from places you’ve gotten listed. Look for the keywords people are using. See any bizarre combinations? Why are people using those to find your site? If there is something you have over looked, then build a page around that topic. Retro engineer your site to feed the search engine what it wants.
If your site is about “oranges”, but your referrals are all about “orange citrus fruit”, then you can get busy building articles around “citrus” and “fruit” instead of the generic “oranges”.
The search engines will tell you exactly what they want to be fed – listen closely, there is gold in referral logs, it’s just a matter of panning for it.

V) Timely Topics
Nothing breeds success like success. Stay abreast of developments in your keyword sector. If big site “Z” is coming out with product “A” at the end of the year, then build a page and have it ready in October so that search engines get it by December. eg: go look at all the Xbox and XP sites in Google right now – those are sites that were on the ball last summer.

W) Friends and Family
Networking is critical to the success of a site. This is where all that time you spend in forums will pay off. pssst: Here’s the catch-22 about forums: lurking is almost useless. The value of a forum is in the interaction with your fellow colleagues and cohorts. You learn long term by the interaction – not by just reading.
Networking will pay off in link backs, tips, email exchanges, and it will put you “in the loop” of your keyword sector.

X) Notes, Notes, Notes
If you build one page per day, you will find that brain storm like inspiration will hit you in the head at some magic point. Whether it is in the shower (dry off first), driving down the road (please pull over), or just parked at your desk, write it down! 10 minutes of work later, you will have forgotten all about that great idea you just had. Write it down, and get detailed about what you are thinking. When the inspirational juices are no longer flowing, come back to those content ideas. It sounds simple, but it’s a life saver when the ideas stop coming.

Y) Submission check at six months
Walk back through your submissions and see if you got listed in all the search engines you submitted to after six months. If not, then resubmit and forget again. Try those freebie directories again too.

Z) Build one page of quality content per day.
Starting to see a theme here? Google loves content, lots of quality content. Broad based over a wide range of keywords. At the end of a years time, you should have around 400 pages of content. That will get you good placement under a wide range of keywords, generate recip links, and overall position your site to stand on it’s own two feet.

Article pinched from: www.webmasterworld.com, author Brett_Tabke

Thousands of people set up their own businesses every year. Some do it because they want to work for themselves, others because they have a great idea and have spotted a gap in the market. And of course there are those (like me) that think they can make lots of money… and they can.

These are all valid reasons for starting a business. Commitment and motivation are vital and whatever it is that drives you to make it a success good.

Although enthusiasm is important, good planning is a must. Without a good business plan you could struggle to make a go of it.

There are many issues to think about:

- What will the business do?
- Where can it operate?
- Will I need to hire/buy a premises?
- Do I need people to make it happen, or will
- I be flying solo for some time?
- Can I fund the business myself, or do I need financial support?
- How long will it take to get the business into profit?
- Have I got what it takes to make it work?

There is no right or wrong type of person to run a business. If you are determined to make it succeed, and are prepared to work long hours, then you have the ingredients for success.

If you look at top business people, the one thing they have in common is determination.  They do not give up at the first hurdle and they keep going until they succeed.

Obstacles and setbacks

There will be many of these but how you overcome them will be critical to deciding whether or not you will ultimately succeed. If you are not the sort of person who responds well to setbacks, you ought to ask yourself whether you are the right person to be trying to get a business off the ground.

Finances

You need good advisers – usually an accountant and a lawyer – when you are handling complex issues such as finances, tax and business law.   All businesses require a certain amount of administration and you will have to spend time going through paperwork.  If you tend to bury your head in the sand and ignore detail, you need a good right-hand person who will concentrate on the detail.  Not all great business leaders were good at the small print, but all good business people have someone close to them who is. I suggest finding someone who can make sure that you are made fully aware of this.