You have come to the conclusion that your business might benefit from having an online presence and you are now faced with the task of figuring out how that might be done. This post actually started out, titled “You get what you pay for”, however I decided that I would make it a bit more beneficial by telling you what to look for, not what to look out for. I will try to cover the basics as well as elaborate a bit on the key points.

To start you will want to  create a short list of what exactly you are hoping this new online presence will accomplish. Is it to have an online presence for the simple reason that there is a chance your customer might be searching you out online and you do not want to disappoint them? In this day and age there is a very good chance that your customer might be searching for you online and should you not be present you can almost bet on the fact that your competitor is. Or perhaps you want to do a bit more with your website and actually integrate it into your complete marketing package. In this case you are actually using your online presence to attract new customers as well as retain the old. And finally there are those of you looking not only to attract and retain customers through the internet, but actually use it to create income by selling product online.

Now that you have decided what you will and will not need when it comes to creating an online precense it’s time to set your budget for the project. You may have absolutely no idea how much something like this would cost and chances are that by searching the internet for average pricing of a website will only confuse you more. This has a lot to do with the influx of cookie cutter template sites being offered for “$99 full online presence” as opposed professional, get in there and really make it work for your company web development. But as this is a topic I will cover later in the post for now lets just stick to the budget. My suggestion on this is just to come up with an ideal budget in much the same way you would if you were creating your print marketing budget for the year.

Ok, on to actually finding the right person to manufacture your solution. Here is where you are likely to feel overwhelmed by choices. You might find that one of your employees is “internet savvy” and quite willing to create your website for you. This is an option, but are you really going to provide that employee with an ample amount of time to do the job correctly? Can you afford to have that employee working on other projects that may take them away from there regular duties? On to the next option. I will skip over the category called “trying to do it yourself” because I think the answers to the questions that arise here might have already been answered when considering your employee. So now you are online or browsing your local business magazine hoping to find a local company that would list the qualifications necessary to get this project moving forward. More than likely your are going to run across one of the ads I mentioned earlier stating “full online presence for your business, just $299″. Yes they will provide you will an online presence in the sense that your company will have couple of pages describing your business, product, location and even some contact info but… Is your site doing all that it could be doing for you? Is it optimized for search engines, meaning will you be found when people start searching for XYZ widget that your company produces. Are there other features not included in this solution that would allow both your staff and sales people to work more efficiently? Is your site customized to the look and feel of your business, does it convey who you are? Look at your website from the standpoint that it is a viable marketing tool, something that you are paying for to do a job for you. Is it really doing all that it could for your business.

Your last option is to seek the help of a professional web designer and developer. When doing this keep in mind that there are various levels some which may work well for you and others that just don’t fit your business at this point. By this I mean that if you were looking to have a catered lunch provided to your staff of 15 you would probably not search out the same company that normally caters to a large corporate office of 1000+ employees. You might consider starting off by looking for a local freelancer, so lets go ahead and clear the dark cloud that might be associated with the term freelance. Often times you might see them as less than professional, someone who has it easy cranking out websites and design work from the comfort of their bed while dressed in pajamas. This is usually far from the truth, often times a freelancer is just as professional as the next guy and chances are he/she has probably worked in the industry right along side his corporate partners at one time or another. Also take into consideration that there is no guaranteed paycheck for this individual. They need to work just has hard if not harder to ensure that they are generating a decent income that fits their need. If you find the right candidate you can almost be sure that they will really spend the extra time to produce a great product, after all when you are freelancing there is no better marketing tool than word of mouth. Next on the list would be the small design and development firm that caters to small and medium size business. They don’t necessarily have the overhead of a large company at this point, but they do have employees and therefore they have wages to pay. The advantages here are similar to when you are attending a small local college with classes of 25-50 as opposed to a large big ten college with classes of 2 to 3 hundred. You can be sure that the person you speak with is only one or two steps from the person actually putting your website into motion. And it may make you feel better to be working with a company that is not to far off from your own in the grand scheme of things. Lastly there is the large, full scale marketing firm. Not to take away from the skill of the fore mentioned as they are often times quite comparable but here you will most likely find some of the best. This is when you have grown to the point that your company is seeking more of a all in one solution. They will be in charge of your full marketing package from color brochure to flash website.

As you see there are a variety of levels here. Find the one that suits you and start looking around. Find out what others are saying about their finished product and be choosy when making your decision. Look for the one that is willing to work with you, the one that lets you know what they can do to meet your budget. Take a look at past work and compare it to what you have in mind. Design styles can be very different and you want someone who will deliver what you are hoping for. In addition you might want to consider what else they are able to offer you in the way of technology and what room there is to grow your package. Might you want to incorporate online advertising or complete online project management for your team in the future? Find someone that can offer a variety of services and is able to meet your growing need as a company establishing a viable online presence.

I hope that this gives you a good starting point when you set out to establish your company online, please feel free to add your comments or something I missed below and by all means contact me if I have triggered a question.

Tags: internet solutions, online presence, small business website, Web Design