Essential Requirements for a Small Business Website

Owning your domain name. Sadly, many small businesses have to settle for extremely simple, cheap, website packages that often do not allow them to use their own domain name. Instead, they get a web address like www.websitebuilder.com/mycheapsite or mycheapsite.websitebuilder.com. Problem is, the longer a company uses such a domain, the more they build up their company's identity under that domain. Any success the site may have in terms of search engine optimization or gaining external links to their site will be completely lost when they finally get their own domain name. Any and every business needs to own its domain name. It cost between $10-$30 per year to register a domain and usually costs a bit more for website hosting, but it's an essential, long-term, valuable asset.

Using your domain for email. When registering a domain for your business you should also use it for your primary business email address. A business email address, rather than one assigned to you by your internet service provider, reflects on the professionalism of your company. When I get business correspondence from contacts that use old @aol.com, @netcom.com, or @comcast.net email address, I am tempted to think of them, accurately or not, as a very small, less-professional company.

Competitive design. For the small local business, award winning design is not critical. But professional design, especially as it compares with local competitors, is important. When someone searches in Google maps for "house painters" they get ten initial results. Of these results they will look most carefully at the ones with websites. And because it's the web, they can quickly compare these companies to each other. Those whose site's look best are most likely to get a call.

Owning your domain, a professional email address, and good design compared to your competitors are essential. Another important (though not absolutely essential) feature is content management (the ability to easily add and edit website content). Newfangled stakes its business position on the critical importance of content management. Nevertheless, content management is not absolutely essential for many local small business websites. The only reason I back away from saying content management is essential is that generally, the competition between small local business websites is still very low. A decently-designed, relatively informative static website can suffice for some at this point.

However, a site with content management capability is always extremely beneficial. And for any small local business that wants to complete aggressively, or take their Internet marketing to the next level, then content management becomes essential. Newfangled has a light-weight version of our content management system that we call SelectEdit. It's sometimes a good choice for a small business website that values content management. The cost of designing and building a SelectEdit website hovers around the $5,000 mark, so it's still in the reach of most small businesses. However, there are also some great blog platforms available that can form the basis of a very effective small business website with content management. Wordpress, Typepad, Movabletype, and Blogger are examples of free/low cost platforms. Just remember to make sure, if you go the blog route, to choose a platform or a price plan that allows you to use your own domain name.

With the rapidly rising usage of online local search engines, local businesses will start to feel the competition heat up pretty quick. Besides, since there is a low bar right now, securing a strong local position online is much easier to attain now than it will be after everyone else jumps into the game. So while content management is not currently absolutely essential, it may soon become so, and it's always to be preferred over a static HTML website.