Creating a Plan To
Build A Website
Since you have no clue about
what a website can do, how much it will cost or what to expect it
is hard to plan much. If you can accept that, then go ahead, jump
right in and start your online business.
No, I am not joking.
As long as you remember you do not know what you are doing,
you should be safe.
Just don't over step what you
know and don't believe that someone can make your website some
million dollar cash cow for $200 with their secret search engine
optimization. For every dreamer there are 10 scammers waiting
with to rake you over the coals.
You can plan all day long, but
the truth is that websites can cost from a few dollars to a few
million dollars.
A successful website could
require its own server and like everything else, that can cost
from a few hundred dollars to nearly one hundred thousand dollars
for a single high end machine. You could even spend well over a
million dollars for a grid of servers to manage large databases.
This is a market of
technology and make no mistake, technology is not cheap.
As an example, look at google.
What appears to be a very
basic website. Very little content or developed pages in
comparison to sites with millions of hand written pages, article
and features.
However, despite the content
being automated it is run by thousands of employees. They use
over 100,000 servers to manage their website. That simple website
that for most people looks like one plain page with a search box.
The company is currently
valued at 300 BILLION dollars, yest that is Billion. On of the
highest valued companies in the world. Their technology cost
millions of dollars to build and the number would make the
average persons head spin.
Yet there are people looking
to build a google type website with budgets of $100 to $1000.00.
And they believe that they can. So first, you need to take a
reality check and get a grasp on what you can do for $20/month.
Understanding Your
Budget
If you use pageBuzz, you can
do quite a lot. Not to toot our own horn, but it is an awesome
system.
You get all the tools you need
to run a shopping website or other type of site for one low price.
The only drawback is that you can not run your own programs or
edit pages using programs such as FrontPage. But that is not a
bad thing if you are new, because you probably don't know how to
program code anyway.
If you use other people's
software, you are stuck with what they wrote or faced with paying
the developer huge amounts of money to customize the application
for you.
It is unlikely that you are
prepared to pay thousands of dollars to modify programs, so your
stuck with what is available cheap. On the upside, there is a
load of free or inexpensive programming available.
If you need something as
simple as a shopping cart,
pageBuzz is the best option. Having been tested by thousands of
users and maintained in one location by a team of programmers.
You can manage thousands of products and sales. However if you
plan on having hundreds of thousands of sales, you will need to
look at alternate solutions.
Of course you could never run
a walmart.com for $20/month on standard pageBuzz software. But
you need to get started someplace and get started without paying
one million dollars for a website.
Even an inexpensive website
can produce many a millions of dollars a year in sales. In most
cases there is no need to buy outlandish programs or hire
programmers to build your website. And if you do, you will be
dependent on those people to build modify or manage your website
for the rest of your life.
Work Slow and
Steady
We always suggest starting
slow, spending your money on advertising and building traffic. If
the site does well, they you can always build on it or create a
new site with the money you earn. That is just common business
sense.
The website is not
going to take off as soon as you post a page. So there is no
need to plan big from day one.
Use a system like pageBuzz,
build a cool website and get your feet wet. The value you get
from a year of learning will save you loads of wasted money as
you grow.
If you need to start big, you
need to consult with people that know what they are doing.
That means people that have
made money doing what you want to do, not someone that thinks
they are a professional webmaster. If they claim to be a
professional and have not made money in the industry, they
don't know how, or else they would do it.
We encounter these
professionals daily, most do not even have their own website. We
have seen some that are hosted on FREE systems with banner ads.
If they can not pay $5/month for a website how can you really
take them seriously?
Lots of people have advice,
many charging for it. But how many have successful online
businesses that have made millions of dollars online. Look to
those people for advice and resist the people selling you a dream
on craigslist.
Your website can be a huge
business or it can be a huge money pit. With out good information
and planning, you will build a money pit. So take it slow and
steady.
Here are some basic
tips to follow when planning a website:
Having a Budget in
Mind
If you budget is $100 or $100,000,
you need to start with that first. What kind of website can you
build for your budget, who can you afford to hire?
With only a couple of thousand
dollars you can't really get much at all if you are paying
someone $100 an hour to do the work. 20 hours will not build much
no matter who you have do it.
So if you have a low budget,
consider doing some of the work yourself and using programs that
are already available rather than trying to create everything
from the ground up.
If you spend $20
on a website at pageBuzz.com for a basic store you can
compare that to a website that would cost $20,000 to build
from scratch.
That is because the
programming is already in place and does not have to be developed
from the ground up.
You also have to consider that
the CMS that lets you manage the site would cost over a million
dollars to create, and you use it for just the low monthly
hosting fee.
So trying to develop a website
from scratch does not make a lot of sense when companies like
pageBuzz have already done all of the work for you.
Now, if you want to run your
own website like pageBuzz, Facebook or ebay.com, then you will be
looking at a real serious development budget as well as a whole
lot of time and resources.
For the sake of this article I
wont go into how to plan a multi million dollar website since
those people are not looking to us for advice.
Have a Time Frame
in Mind
How long do you have to build
the website and can it be done in the time you need it?
We have people call us all the
time and they want a website in 3 days, we can do that no problem,
but can you manually load 2000 products for sale in 3 days? NO!
You have to have a reasonable
grasp on how much time will be needed to execute the plan.
If you need programming
written, that an sometimes take months depending on how detailed
it is. Of course this is directly related to your budget, because
a $2000 website budget wont pay a good programmer for 30 days of
work.
Obviously the longer it takes
the more money it will cost but even a simple site mite take a
while if you depend on outside vendors. Companies can't usually
drop everything and start on your project. While it may only be
10 hours of coding, they have other projects to do before they
can do yours.
This means, if you have a
programmer that you have to wait 30 days for, the webmaster can't
start the design until they have the parameters of the program to
design for. So each piece can stop the entire project.
Even a $2000 budget can turn
into a 6 month project with out any bumps in the road.
Have a Goal in Mind
Have a goal as to what the
website needs to do for you and your business. Does the website
need to handle 200 sales a day or 200 sales a minute.
It will be important to plan
system resources for the amount of work that you need the website
to do and what you want it to do.
Will you be launching on such
and such a date? What has to be in place.
Make sure you have a detailed
outline of times, dates and expectations for the website.
Our customers
call us with, "I want a home pages, a shop online page,
an about us page and a contact page".
That my friend,
is not a plan.
You need more details so you
can plan all the aspects of the website. When, where, how and why.
What will the finished product
be and how will it interface with your business?
If you sell inventory, how
will the website track store inventory or how will the store
track website inventory?
Consider all the aspects of
your sales process now and not after you have the website up and
running.
There is nothing worse than
spending the full budget, launching the website and realizing you
forgot something important. It happens all the time, don't let it
happen to you.
Compare Resources
and Prices
Every one and everything is
going to offer something unique at different prices and service
levels.
If you are Walmart, pageBuzz $20
websites can't handle your volume. If you are a car dealer,
pageBuzz has a great solution for you.
So it is important to ask,
shop and compare.
See what one company will
charge over another.
Will you need support? If you
hire contractors to build a website, where is the support when
you need it?
If you use pageBuzz, you have
support 7 days a week.
Contractors charge $50 an hour,
pageBuzz charges $20 a month. So you need to look at all the
options and see what is going to be the most cost effective for
your business.
Like I said, you can spend $20
or $20 million, it is up to you, but, you always have to plan,
shop and compare to get the most out of your money.
Summary
If you have a plan, then
website construction will be easy. If you just wing it, that is
OK, but it tends to drag things along and slow the entire process.
Have goals, time frames and
completion dates planned out so you can organize all the parts
you need and make sure it is completed on schedule.
Allow extra time for hiccups
and vendors that bit off more than the can chew.
No plan will go as planned,
but it you have one that is flexible and workable at least you
wont get lost in the middle of the road.
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