Do you wonder how to start a web site—whether you should hire an expensive designer, or use one of the off-the-shelf template systems that promise an “overnight site”? It’s a decision that can paralyze people before they even begin their business. And many clients have come to me some ways down the road, realizing they made the wrong choice and their business is suffering for it. When you’re just starting out, how do you know what kind of web platform to choose?
Is your vision modest, or ambitious?
One business owner I work with, Jim, runs a huge web site selling workshops, e-books, audio downloads, hard copy books and DVD packages. This site is the source of most of Jim’s income. But three years in, Jim found his template too restrictive, even though he spent a lot of money to customize its look at the beginning. Updating the store was very tricky (one expert Jim hired accidentally brought the whole site down for a week), and expensive. Jim felt frustrated that he couldn’t easily create custom landing and sales pages for co-branded products and events he was developing with colleagues. He couldn’t “escape” his template. What could Jim do to make his site work better for him?
Another client, Deborah, is a bodyworker with a large long-time clientele. Deborah, unlike Jim, simply wanted a place to display her office info, briefly explain her techniques and philosophy, and announce special workshops from time to time. She has no merchandise to sell, nor is she interested in developing any. Ever! Deborah sought a very simple web presence with zero maintenance. Does she need to pay a designer for a totally custom site?
Do you have the budget for major changes?
Jim’s livelihood depends upon developing products based on his expertise, and selling them online. After I started working with Jim, we decided to migrate his entire site to a custom Dreamweaver-based design which, along with 1shoppingcart, allows for a unique look, and relatively easy updating and alteration.
The ubiquity of the platform means that anyone who knows html and CSS can easily modify his site. As his needs evolve, he’s not stuck forever with one design, or one designer. In the long run, this new setup saves Jim money and gives him the flexibility his business needs in order to grow. However, the time and expense of porting the whole site over could have been avoided, had Jim known the restrictions of his original choice.
Deborah, on the other hand, knows herself, her clients and her business—and she knows she’s not going to going to need more than a “brochure” web site. We set Deborah up with a simple Wordpress template whose blogging platform offers a quick and easy way for her to announce special events and workshops without knowing anything about web technology. She isn’t likely to outgrow this site for many years… but if she ever does, the Wordpress platform offers enough flexibility for her very small site that a complete “redesign” will be neither time-consuming, nor expensive. This is a good decision for her.
Are you particular about color, layout, look, branding?
Another client, Terry, wanted a masculine, professional look for his business consulting site. Terry is a do-it-yourselfer who’s often in a hurry. To create his first site, he purchased a template package which included a number of design and color selections, one of which matched the look he wanted. However, after spending six hours one afternoon trying to figure out how to position an image in precise alignment with the text on a page, Terry called me in frustration. It took me another hour to determine that the package Terry purchased didn’t allow the fine level of control that Terry was after.
Terry had made an impulsive decision, which, luckily, didn’t cost much money. However, it cost him a good deal of time before determining that he needed a more customizable platform. For many of us small business owners, time is the most precious commodity of all.
Which brings me to the last question.
Do you have the desire or expertise to modify and update your own site?
If not, is the expertise required to help you change your site widely available, or is your platform so unique or “techie” that you’ll have to either find a super-specialist, or pay someone for their learning curve? This happened to a client, Thomas, who bought an expensive blogging system which did everything he needed, and offered lots of flexibility. But, you had to be a programmer to run it!
Thomas is not a programmer, and he discovered too late that unfortunately, experts on his platform are few and far between. Thomas couldn’t make simple changes himself, so he procrastinated on his updates and got way behind what his active mind was able to dream up. His income was suffering from the limitations of his web platform.
After Thomas and I began working together, we migrated Thomas’ site to a Wordpress platform, with a custom design. Thomas now happily does all his own modifications and updates, and is quick to take advantage of the latest plugins to add cutting-edge functionality to his site.
The best of both worlds
For many years, a custom Dreamweaver site was the gold standard of small business web design. However with the explosion of database-driven content management software, this is no longer the case.
Open-source blogging and content management software such as Wordpress and Joomla have matured to the point where they offer the best of both worlds: flexible design platforms, plus the ease of ready-made templates (which exist by the thousands).
You don’t need to be a blogger to take advantage of these systems. These days, more designers are working largely, if not exclusively, in CMS systems like Wordpress to create ordinary business and ecommerce sites as well as blogs. And if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, these systems let you handle a lot of your own updates without needing to know any code at all.
So what should you do?
If you need a small, quick, inexpensive site which you don’t expect to grow—and you aren’t fussy, or really like a ready-made template design—go with an inexpensive template system. There are very simple Wordpress templates for small business sites, as well as many available from reliable providers like Yahoo Stores and GoDaddy.
If you’ve got, or plan to have, a large, unique, and constantly changing site which makes money from merchandise, and you have no interest in doing any updates or maintenance yourself, a fully customized site, whether using a CMS/blogging system or not, will give you the flexibility you need in order to grow. Hire a designer and get to it!
Finally, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer with big ambitions but starting on a shoestring, a Wordpress site is the perfect choice.
