Small Business Website Design and Hosting – The Necessary Elements

 

The True Importance of Small Business Website Design and Hosting

If you are interested in small business website design and hosting, then you need to know how to get the right design company along with the right fast web hosting. These are two very important things when you are the smaller fish trying to compete with the whale in your industry. You cannot just go buy any hosting and hire any design.

To give you an idea of what can happen an example of a company we will call Company A is necessary. Company A opened about 2 years ago with one of the owners having the dream to open his own sport’s bar. With the backing of another partner the two were able to get the bar open and it has been pretty successful ever since.

However, if you were to go to their domain name and see their website you would think they opened just a couple of weeks ago because it is literally just one image. They started off by hiring someone to design their entire website, but they completely flaked on them. Now, this might not seem like a big deal since they are still very successful, but it is.

With a sports bar it is important to allow potential customers to find you online, find out if you have the right sports programming in your bar, and whether you are going to be able to accommodate their needs or not. Nobody wants to pick up the phone and call a bar anymore. They want to log on, find the bar that sounds best, and go.

They have most likely lost a few customers due to this website being poorly, or not at all, designed yet. Since this was discovered and they heard the story of a couple of men trying to find a good sports bar and being reluctant to show up due to the lack of a good website they have hired a professional designer to actually do the job for them.

What You Need with Small Business Website Design and Hosting

You should not have to be the one choosing your hosting unless your designer tells you to. They should be able to recommend a hosting company they are familiar with, like to work with, and know will do the job you need done. This helps the designer anyway because they don’t have to work with a new host they don’t know much about.

When it comes to getting the right website design for your site you need to look professional and you need to look like you are in the same league as the big guy. Spending a nice amount of cash on a good website design is an investment and will pay off tenfold over the life of the website if not more.

Even companies like Company “A” above that are not relying strictly on the internet can do much better if they have a professionally designed website. Imagine if someone came into your corner of the world and was searching for a company in your industry. Would they find your website and if they did would they be impressed or would they simply click away and go with one of your competitors?

There is something to be said for providing customers with everything they need to make their decision on your website. Sure it is nice if they call you, but we live in an age where picking up the phone and dialing a number is rare compared to doing a search on Google and finding the place we want to go to. We can even do the search right from the phone we won’t call you with.

Your design has to be done correctly and any design company you hire should be able to create professional graphics and fill your site with the right content to get the job done properly. If you don’t hire the right designer for your company you could end up missing out on a large amount of profits. It only takes one customer to come in and buy from you over and over again to pay for a great website.

How to Find the Small Business Website Design and Hosting for your Company

Just like if you were hiring a new manager or a new employee you need to interview designers for your site. Like we discussed let them recommend a hosting account for you since they are the experienced ones, but you need to choose the right designer. Make sure you get references just like you would if they were applying for a job, which the essentially are.

You also want to find out what it will cost to get them on a monthly retainer for any changes you need made to the website, any support issues with the hosting company, or anything else. If they are also able to provide computer repair, then you may want to keep them on retainer for this as well.

Having a professional website designer that can do more for you than just throw up a few graphics and put up a few words is very important. You need someone with a proven reputation that can recommend hosting and the right things to make your site look amazing. Getting small business website design and hosting done right is the first step to expanding online.


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