Kelley Fujino
Lubbock Electric Co.
Lubbock, Texas
Marketing & Industry Awareness Committee Member
What kind of marketing plans are you making for your company? Here’s what some others are planning: 55% of small businesses without a company website plan to launch one in 2019.1 16% of businesses with a website will redesign their sites to keep pace with customer expectations and the increasing use of smartphones in the buyer’s journey.2 How about your company? Is it time to build a new website?
Today, web design is more accessible than ever. While it’s true that having a custom website built for your company from scratch could mean an investment of $10,000 (dollar references are U.S.) to upwards of $50,000, this is no longer your only path to an attractive and well-performing website. In fact, 28% of small businesses with a website spent under $500 to get online, and 48% spent between $500 and $10,000.
To help EASA service centers prepare for a new web project or better understand their existing websites, I want to explain the five necessary ingredients of a website: domain name, web host, DNS host, content management system, and website design. I will also share important considerations for each and how a small business without technical expertise can maintain its own website. Finally, I hope this discussion will help you understand when and how to work with web development partners.
What’s in a domain name?
Let’s start with the basics. You can register a domain name, like rewind pros.com, with a domain registrar. Top registrars include Domain.com, GoDaddy.com, and NameCheap.com. Domain names typically cost around $10-$20 per year for a domain ending in .com, .org, or .net.
In selecting your domain name, make it branded, keep it short (fewer than 18 characters), avoid numbers and hyphens, and (if possible) use a highly desirable keyword to support your search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. If your perfect .com domain name is not available, stay away from registering a cheap extension in its place, like .info or .biz. Search engines do not regard these domains as authoritative. It would be better to find a closely matching alternative.
A final suggestion would be to register your domain for 5-10 years at a time. One of the many domain authority factors Google uses is domain expiration period, which means that your website is more likely to rank higher with a longer term set.
A word of warning
It is absolutely imperative that your company has control of its domain name. It doesn’t matter how trustworthy your IT provider is. The “registrant” contact email address MUST belong to you or someone in your organization. The person with control over this email address has ultimate control over the account. This includes renewing the registration, letting it expire, and selling the domain name. Temporary login credentials could be shared with a trusted IT or web partner, but control over the account must stay in your organization. Also, the contact email address should NOT be a company email address. If your domain has stopped working, then it is likely email to your domain will not be working either.
Getting the host with the most
Your next step is to select a web hosting provider. Web hosting is where your website files will be located on the public Internet.
Prices vary quite a bit for hosting. The most popular and economical option is shared hosting, in which multiple websites share data, CPU time, memory, and disk space on a single server. Most small business websites will perform very well with shared hosting. Shared hosting ranges from $2 to $25 a month.
Choose your hosting provider based on uptime, page load time, customer support availability, and of course, cost. Use Hostingfacts.com as a reference. There, you can find reviews and rankings of 32 popular hosting providers using these criteria.
Directions please!
How do customers get to the website’s hosted location? People connect to websites by their domain names, but computers connect to websites by their IP addresses (e.g., 123.45.678.90). This is where the DNS comes in. The domain name system (DNS) is the internet’s equivalent of a phonebook. “Name servers” store DNS records which are the actual file that says “this domain” maps to “this IP address.”
This definitely sounds complicated, but the good news is that you can get the domain name, DNS hosting, web hosting, PLUS SSL site security all from a single provider! In the future, however, you may consider using a dedicated DNS hosting provider. These tend to have faster and more reliable infrastructure designed exclusively for hosting query traffic.
Website builders vs. content management systems
With the domain name and host, you have a location for your website and directions to it. Now, you need content. Fortunately, advanced coding knowledge is no longer needed to produce quality websites thanks to do-it-yourself (DIY) website builders and content management systems (CMS). Which is best for your company?
Website builders are intuitive drag-and-drop editors that make it easy to create websites on the builder’s hosting platforms. They use proprietary tools that only work on their platforms. Their greatest strength is their ease of use. Anyone can build a website without having to worry about what goes on behind the scenes. They are all-in-one solutions in that you can get hosting, maintenance, backups, and a simple editor for a flat monthly rate of $8 to $40 a month. Popular website builders include Squarespace, Shopify, and Wix. Domain registrars and hosting providers, like GoDaddy, also offer website builders.
Website builders are limited in their usefulness to growth-oriented small businesses. For one, many of these website builders use Flash, which mobile devices do not support. Therefore, Google does not want to present users with Flash-enabled websites. This will harm your website’s search rankings. Further, you cannot migrate your website to another hosting provider, customize your template, or replace your template. Your control over your website is quite limited. (Plus, effective December 2020, Flash will no longer be supported by Adobe.)
A Content Management System (CMS) is software that runs on a web server that lets you create, store, search, and manage content. Many are user-friendly and do not require advanced web design skills. However, they allow you or a trusted web developer to access and modify the code when needed. You have control over virtually every element, and you’re not limited to a specific host.
The top three CMSs are open-source programs that are free to use: WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal. Most web hosts offer one-click installation for them too. WordPress is used by 34% of all websites, and it is the go-to CMS for most web developers. It is supported with the largest number of template designs and website plugins. For a small business, WordPress offers a near-perfect balance of beginner-friendliness, customizability, complete ownership, and scalability.
In design we trust
A website’s design is a set of files that dictate the visual presentation of the site’s content and govern its functions. These files can be custom-built for your company by a skilled web developer, or you can use a template, which is a ready-made design that you can buy off the shelf.
Commissioning a custom website will produce superior results for your company. You can differentiate your brand through design, SEO is better in custom-built sites, functionality and performance are almost unlimited, and security is better. Working with a web design agency, you can expect your investment in a custom design to be anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000.
If that level of investment is not an option for your company right now, don’t let this prevent you from launching a new website! There are thousands of sophisticated and mobile-friendly templates to choose from. They are quick to launch and can range in price from $29 to $299. These templates can be customized to your liking with the help of a web developer. Customizations may cost $300 to $2,000.
Don’t go it alone! Find a balance between DIY and external help
Anyone in your company should be able to learn and use your CMS to update your site. You shouldn’t have to hire a programmer to make simple changes or add new content. That said, I strongly recommend finding a trustworthy web developer to help you get started and fix any programming errors that you encounter. Any technology will break down at some point, and all website applications have software updates, browser compatibility updates, and more. Find a developer who is willing to work with you on your terms, whether you prefer a monthly agreement or to pay for services by the hour. A good partner may also train your staff in how to use your CMS to regularly update your website.
Cost and lack of technical knowledge are not the barriers they are commonly perceived to be. A new website is within reach for your business. Make sure that you have a modern, well-performing website in 2019.
- 1 How Small Businesses Use Websites in 2019. Kelsey McKeon, Visual Objects. Survey of 529 small businesses in the U.S. February 28, 2019.
- 2 Small Business Websites in 2018. Michelle Delgado, Clutch. Survey of 351 small businesses in the U.S. January 31, 2018.
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