Tag Archives: web developers

Should I learn to build my website or outsource it?

This is a common question with cash strapped small businesses. They understand that in this day and age, every business needs to have a website. They don’t have the skills in-house to build a website. They hear these Ads suggesting they build their own and save money. Sounds convincing. Why spend money when you can do it yourself. Money is scarce isn’t it.

Before we go further, we would like to explain that just like every business is different, every website is different and costs vary accordingly. A blog will not cost as much as a photography portfolio website. An informational website will generally not cost as much as an ecommerce website. What we are trying to achieve with this article is NOT to provide you with a price chart for your website, but rather to give you an idea of everything that goes into building a website.

There is a lot that goes into building a website. First and foremost is time – whether its your own time or the time of a developer, time is an important variable in this equation. How much time do you have or how soon do you need your website? Next is your interest in gaining coding knowledge, followed by design skills and money. How much are you willing to spend on learning web development vs how much are you prepared to pay others to build it for you. The variables differ from business to business. You may lack one, two, or even three of these resources. What then? Don’t feel stuck as there is a way around everything. One resource can compensate for another. So, if you lack design skills but have time, do not fret, just start looking for a good course on web design.

Contrary to popular belief, money is actually the most flexible resource. You have time or you do not, you can code or not, you can design or not and not be willing to learn how to do it. Money on the other hand can buy you what you don’t have. If you feel something is valuable to you, you will have no qualms about paying for it. If your website has value for you, you will find a way to pay for it.

Building your own website

Let’s say you have time and want to build the website yourself. Here are some of the steps involved:

Do it yourself - web design
Do it yourself – web desig
  1. Setup

  2. Website builder

  3. Design

  4. Content creation

  5. Maintenance

Each of these will largely depend on the variables of time, technical knowledge and design skills. You can opt for professional help for parts of it if necessary.

There are two options. You do all the website building yourself, from scratch. Or, use a Drag & Drop Website builder tool like Wix or Weebly. As a drag and drop builder, Wix & Weebly require minimal technical knowledge. The only drawback is that some of the available tools may be very limited. These builders do not let you do everything you want. What’s in their existing menu is what you can use and not much else. But that may be good enough for you.

If you are a DIY type, you can create the content and graphics yourself. Since you are saving money by building the site yourself, there is a good chance that you have some spare pennies for content. You may even splurge a little on promoting the website.

Outsourcing web development to professionals

A professional developer will likely build your website using WordPress if it is a catalog or informational type of website or may switch to a different platform if complex ecommerce is involved. WordPress powers over 26% of all websites. Think of all the websites you visit. Chances are that they are WordPress sites.

Your web developer will ask you to buy a domain name (your web address) and hosting (where your website will reside). There are different types of hosting but you can start small and ramp up as the number of visitors to your site (traffic) grows. Here are sample hosting expenses:

  • Shared hosting costs $5 to $30 / month
  • VPS hosting costs $50 to $100 / month
  • Dedicated hosting $150 and up / month

If you are very particular about design, then you may go for custom design. That could cost between $750 to $2,000 and up. If you want to be on the economical side, you may buy a ready made theme that will cost around $100 and still look decent. It may look a little cookie cutter but can save you a lot of money and your developer will then adjust it to your needs.

Once the design part is done, your web developer will code the functions that you need and also integrate the design into the backend. This could run from about $500 to several thousand dollars depending on the complexity of your needs.

Don’t forget content. Once you have the web site designed and developed, you need some content. Are you going to create it yourself or hire professionals. A good copy writer may cost $500 to $1,000 and you may spend an additional $500 to $600 on a graphic designer.

The last thing is traffic, that is, visitors to your website. A website does you no good if it has no traffic. But that is a separate subject in it’s own right and we can discuss it in a separate article.

Whether you decide to build your website yourself or outsource it to professionals, you must have a website. I hope this article helped.

Good luck!

How much should a website cost you
InterloperInc.com – A web development Company

Online Store Maintenance Specialists

You got a snazzy online store, you have started promoting it and business is coming in. Times are good. Congratulations!

By the way, who is maintaining your website? Anyone?

After hosting an online store, it is important to maintain it. Updating different segments on the store is an effective way of making your site look new to shoppers. Sites that are poorly maintained look outdated and untidy to customers, and therefore reduce their selling potential. Online store maintenance has to be part of your ecommerce strategy yet many merchants ignore it – quote often to the detriment of their business.

Benefits of Online Store Maintenance:

Online Store Maintenance
Online Store Maintenance

Site Security:

Regular updates of themes and plugins fight security attacks from hackers, scammers, viruses and many other nefarious entities. When you do routine maintenance of your store, you will be aware of possible threats and dangers, and take preventative measures beforehand.

A single breach can cause theft of confidential customer data, that in turn creates legal issues and also customers lose confidence in the business.

SEO maintenance:

Store maintenance should also include periodic SEO revitalization. Maintaining SEO through regular updates is necessary to maintain your ranking in search engines. Through regular maintenance, research new keywords and add them to your search term lists to improve internet accessibility. And don’t forget to adjust your SEO for voice based searches.

Online Store Maintenance
Online Store Maintenance

Regular maintenance should also include your social media sites, their integration with the website and making sure current content is posted regularly on the social properties of the company.

Increased Site Functionalities and User Friendliness:

Online shoppers are taking a risk when they go shopping and if for any reason they don’t feel secure, or they don’t see the information that they need or the shopping cart is too complicated, they abandon the site and go elsewhere. Abandoned shopping carts is a big issue for online merchants and one way of minimizing abandoned carts is to constantly monitor your online store and ensure that everything is working.

Some small business owners wonder why they need to maintain their store when it was working just fine 6 months ago. The reason is that the underlying software changes, the plugins change, the operating system changes and there are new security threats. If you don’t update regularly, soon you will have some sections of the webstore that no longer function. You may not know and be losing sales.

Upload Products to Marketplaces like Walmart, Amazon, Ebay, Google Shopping etc:

The more people see your products, the better your chances of making a sale. That is why savvy merchants list their products on marketplaces like Walmart, Amazon, Ebay, Google Shopping etc. However; unless you just have a handful of products, it becomes very difficult to manage and synchronize inventory across all these marketplaces. If you don’t, you may end up cancelling orders and that lowers your ratings. A good ecommerce specialist will help you use services like UploadMyProducts.com to upload inventory in bulk and synchronize across multiple marketplaces.

Room To Add New Opportunities:

You should have an ongoing relationship with a webmaster so you can add new functions and features as new opportunities arise. When you have an ongoing relationship, the web master has a vested interest in the company’s success and will be more than eager to explore new opportunities.

Who can help you with online Store Maintenance?

We can.  At interloperInc.com, we  specialize in small business online stores and can help you with routine maintenance, enhancements, SEO and CRM. Let’s talk.

Online Store Maintenance Specialists
Online Store Maintenance