Many businesses ask themselves this and the short answer we give is Maybe. Why do we say that? Sometimes based on what your business does you may not need to pay for a service you get using a free service. A short summary of categories below summarize what we would recommend.
- Independent Professional Consultant – Public LinkedIn Account (FREE) that has all your pertinent Contact Details
- Small Business Providing Local Goods or Services – you might be able to use only a Facebook page (FREE) to promote your business. Now depending on how you are doing, we may recommend a website to enhance search engine optimization (SEO) so more people can find you.
- Small Business Providing Goods or Services in a large area (example County) – we would recommend a website as this let’s you put more details on the site to help people looking in a specified area find your business
- Mid and Large Sized Business – we would always recommend a website so that you don’t let other content miscommunicate your identity. Essentially a website helps you present to the world who you are. If you don’t have one, people may not get an accurate impression about your organization.
What’s the rough cost of a Website?
If you are simply looking to allow search engines to present your Contact information, you can get a website from Godaddy for as little as $5.99/month. We offer simple websites for $180 a year, slightly higher but we ensure you get a Google Profile setup properly so that your website will have better SEO. For a more complex website, we usually quote, but a rough idea is about $250/per page for development with hosting costs a separate charge depending on what your site will be offering. For eCommerce site, we recommend using Shopify.com ($30-$300/month) and we provide support for setting up. This eCommerce provider really is a great solution for new eCommerce sites and can easily be deployed in an existing site or as the entire website.