Misc.
How Much Should a Website Cost a Small Business?
Apr 6th
I am asked that question a lot, and each time my answer is, “it depends.”
On one end of the spectrum is Jack Gerblick. When Jack recently purchased his second rental property on the Georgia coastline at St. Simons Island, the serial entrepreneur was tired of paying web development companies. So, he cast about for the best way to get a web presence for marketing his properties. After looking at alternatives, he finally settled on a service offered by Homestead, an Intuit company.
For a hosting charge of only $4.99 per month, Homestead provides the tools to build your own site for free. Now, that’s about as inexpensive as it gets. Of course, you have to do all the work yourself, but Homestead is an entry level product made for people who can’t even spell “HTML.”
Despite having to rebuild his site after his PC froze, Gerblick estimates he invested nine hours into developing his own site with Homestead. At $100 per hour, the true cost of the site was about $900. That’s more than $4.99, but still pretty reasonable. You can judge his efforts for yourself at yellowjasmine.com.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are the big interactive agencies, such as Razorfish, Organic and Digitas. The price they charge just to turn the crank can be quite high, and beyond the budgets of most small businesses.
But if you need functionality more complex than Gerblick’s, you need design and development. And if you’re not into doing it yourself, there are plenty of smaller web shops and boutique agencies that can help.
Zer0 to 5ive is a boutique marketing firm with offices in New York City. They build websites and marketing programs for B2B firms. President Michelle Pujadas says that the key for a small business is to match its objectives with the needs of the target customer. “We find that most of the sites that we build are for lead generation—getting prospects to take the next action by either contacting the company directly or submitting their contact information,” she says. “We find that visitors respond best to downloadable webcasts that they can watch within their own timeframe, white papers and Point of View papers. The content must be relevant to the audience, and well packaged and promoted,” she added. Pujadas also stresses the importance of good SEO practice. The sites Zer0 to 5ive builds for small businesses range from $15K to $50K.
I’ve seen good static business websites for as little as $5K using outside firms. But to find a good shop at that price, you will have to interview a lot of candidates. To offer the low bid, these firms focus on production only, and require you to provide all the content, such as photography, illustrations, diagrams, video, and copy—meaning you’ll need more budget dollars to cover the costs of producing those assets. They will also have to skimp on the creative talent they bring to the design process. By way of comparison, we recently estimated a 25-page small business website for $18K. The site included all the content and had some bells and whistles, including a sales configurator (that helped the visitor decide which product was right for them), a Flash product demo and an eCommerce storefront.
I advise small business clients to determine whether their budget is better spent on their own website, or on boosting traffic to the site they have. If you are selling an undifferentiated product or service, such as CPA services, office leasing, or catering, your real battle is clawing for prospect attention and web traffic against the competition. Once an interested visitor arrives on your site, a basic but professional approach will suffice. Bells and whistles on the web site won’t be the factor that convinces them to select you—but your content will be.
On the other hand, if you are selling a more unique product or service, such as medical imaging or interior design services, you may have fewer visitors to your site, but more work to do to entice them to stay. To get the visitor to take action, you will need unique features tailored to their needs, educational content, or an impressive showcase of your work. For example, special shopping carts may be required for visitors to input measurements, or you may have to display and ship fabric swatches. A high-end, B2B product, like a medical device, will need tutorials, white papers, and other scientific content.
Between $4.99 per month and $50,000, what’s the right price for a small business website? It depends.
Latest Video Production from Metro Ink
Mar 5th
If you need an inexpensive but awesome video for your business call metro ink, your source for marketing!
I’m having my cake and eating it too…
Feb 5th
I feel as though we Americans are literally ‘having our cake and eating too.’ We, including myself right now, are so lazy, afraid or blinded. We sit and ‘eat our cake’ while we watch the future of our country be determined by people who don’t care about ‘the people.’
How many emails have you received that point out the fact that American politicians are abusing their power, and we are letting them. We let them do as they please while they tax us more and more.
This says that the American media is afraid to print an article like what you’re about to read. THE AMERICAN MEDIA IS CONTROLLED BY POLITICIANS WHICH RENDERS US HELPLESS AND MISINFORMED. Please keep reading…
Subj: She said what??
“In my own life in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, “…
Michelle Obama
No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn’t perform any official duties. But this hasn’t deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
Just think, Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary from her husband’s salary.
Total Personal Staff members for other first ladies paid by taxpayers:
Mamie Eisenhower: One– paid for personally out of President’s salary.
Jackie Kennedy: One
Roseline Carter: One
Barbara Bush: One
Hilary Clinton: Three
Laura Bush: One
Michele Obama: Twenty-two (22)
How things have changed! If you’re one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers,prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Ms Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by YOU, John Q. Public:
Michele Obama’s personal staff:
One.. $172,200 – Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
Two.. $140,000 – Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
Three.. $113,000 – Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary for Mrs. Obama)
Four.. $102,000 – Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President
and Director of Communications for the First Lady)
Five.. $100,000 – Winter, Melissa (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
Six.. $90,000 Medina , David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
Seven.. $84,000 – Lilyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)
Eight.. $75,000 – Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)
Nine.. $70,000 – Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Project for the First Lady)
Ten.. $65,000 – Burnough, Erinn (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
Eleven.. $64,000 – Reinstein, Joseph B.(Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
Twelve.. $62,000 – Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
Thirteen.. $60,000 Fitz, Alan O.(Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director
for the First Lady)
Fourteen.. $57,500 – Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First Lady)
Fifteen… $52,500 – Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)
Sixteen.. $50,000 – Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
Seventeen.. $45,000 – Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)
Eighteen.. $43,000 – Tubman, Samanth a (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
Nineteen.. $40,000 – Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
Twenty.. $36,000 – Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social Secretary)
Twenty-One.. $35,000 – Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
Twenty-Two.. $35,000 – Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)
(total $1,591,200 in annual salaries)
There has NEVER been anyone in the White House at any time who has created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation of the First Lady’s social life.
One wonders why she needs so much help, at taxpayer expense.
Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and “First Hairstylist” Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom traveled aboard Air Force One to Europe .
.
Yes, I know, The Canadian Free Press had to publish this, perhaps because the American media is too scared that they might be considered racist by the Obama’s.
Sorry America !
http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/12652
I know this isn’t the worst article, you might not even care. But, this shows that we americans have lost our footing, we’ve lost our integrity and soon we will lose most of our freedoms.
I don’t have the answer as to what to do, but i do know that if more of you were better informed or at least had your eyes widened a bit, we might figure out what to do.
If you have anything to say, if you are mad, if you want to secure the future freedom of your grandchildren – stay awake with eyes wide open: comment on this blog, copy and paste this into an email and send it to your friends and colleagues, just do something to raise awareness.