5 Tips On How To Create a Business Website With Minimal Expenses
Nowadays many people deal with Internet business. Some use World Wide Web as an additional marketing channel to engage their target audience. For others – domain and hosting resellers, web-designers, social media marketers, etc. – all the Web is actually the primary target market.
Whatever your business is, you need your own website to run the desired project. If you are just starting out, you may get easily trapped by big expenses and the choice of costly and sometimes unnecessary solutions.
Here are some tips to help you build your own site without a risk of money waste:
Free domain name – the domain name is much needed for a business site – it should be catching and easy-to-spell. But who said you should pay for that? Many hosting providers offer free domains along with their hosting packages, so you should search for one, which does. Usually those domains are provided free-for-life, which means, that you’ll keep using this domain for no fee for as long as you stay with your host.
Cheap hosting – in the world of hosting the word “cheap” does not stand for “low-grade”. Modern technologies allow hosts to have hundreds of clients on one server and provide great services. Of course, there are many limitations on such so-called shared servers, but if you are only starting it may very well server all your needs. Once you feel your business needs a step-up – you will be always able to upgrade to a bigger plan or to your own powerful server.
Promos and discounts – constant updates and competitive spirit of hosting companies makes them constantly release new promotions and discounts. If you are lucky, you may come around a 30%, 50% and sometimes even 75% discount. But even if you get a 15-20% discount – the most usual rate – you may consider you’ve got a couple of months of free hosting.
Scripts-installers and sitebuilders – if you have never dealt with website building, it’s not really advisable to start training while creating your business page. On the other hand, no one says you should hire a webdeveloper. Many hosting providers provide script-installing and site-building tools, which let anyone create a simple but nice and professionally looking web-site with the help of couple of clicks.
Feedback – if you have just launched your business website, make sure your “Contact Us” page has only your current telephone number and a shared email address (e.g. info@mycompany.com). As you are only starting, you shouldn’t expect too many calls and emails to arrive, so you’ll be able to cope with them on your own, without involving additional staff.
Those tips should not be taken for a universal cure, as some projects may need a hi-end, top solution, which cannot be cheap or free. However, if any of those helps you make sure your online business is granted a smooth and affordable start.
About the Author: Arkadij Shkolnik is the PR director for SiteValley.com. SiteValley.com is a reliable Cheap Web Hosting provider that can help you meet your online business challenges. They exist to provide the highest levels of quality and service in the highly specialized area of Internet hosting and deliver value and performance to our customers.
Photo Credit: hellochris
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How to Find a Great Business College
Perhaps you’ve always dreamed of running your own business (or several). Or maybe your plan is to start in marketing or management and work your way up.
You might be interested in commerce, economics, government, or politics. Or your talents may lie in more creative fields like art or writing.
Whatever your interests and goals, a degree in marketing could help you. It is quite possibly the most versatile and misunderstood of college majors because many people labor under the assumption that it is only for the corporate-minded among us. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. Anyone who is interested in a business of any kind (from working for a major oil company to book publishing to running an eBay store) can benefit from a degree in business. But where should you go to get one?
Do Your Research
While most colleges and universities offer a business program, you want to find the one that’s right for you. Certainly there are people who want the best and biggest, and if you are entering a specialized and competitive field, you should certainly do some research into which universities offer the top programs (while the best known listing is probably the one compiled by US News & World Report, Bloomberg also publishes an annual list of the top twenty schools based on qualifications like post-graduate job rates).
However, not everyone is seeking placement at a Fortune 500 company, so you may not want to shell out close to $50,000 per year to attend top-ranked undergrad or MBA programs at Harvard, Stanford, or MIT.
Cost vs. Quality
The truth is, most programs are going to teach you the same basic principles of business. You’ll take the expected courses in areas like math, statistics, accounting, economics, and management (plus whatever relates to your specific field), but you may be surprised to learn that many schools now require you to take a more diverse range of supplemental classes such as writing, psychology, and (thanks to scandalous practices by Enron and others) ethics.
But in all honesty, you can pretty much engineer a tailor-made business degree by choosing to minor in literally any other topic. So you may want to seek out a school based not only on the value of their business program, but also on the level of training they provide in your secondary area of interest.
If your dream is to manage a publishing house, for example, you may want to look into a school that also offers an excellent English program. Or if your interest lies in marketing for a non-profit organization that provides AIDS relief, you may want to select a school that has specialty programs related to social work or disease control and prevention.
Be Selective
Whatever your reasons for attaining a business degree, you’ll want to be selective about the school you choose. You don’t want to amass a huge debt only to get a job that will never allow you to repay your student loans, or attend a state school when you know your career plans are to work on Wall Street.
Your ability to make a smart move with your schooling is the first step towards making intelligent business decisions, so be prepared to do some research to find the school that’s right for you. After all, you’re going to have to get in the habit of working hard and paying attention to the details if you want to succeed in business.
About the Author:Ryan Patridge is a writer for Grants for College. Ryan also gives advice on the pursuit of higher education and career options for young adults.
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Learn From This Customer Service Epic Fail
How many times have you heard that customer service is a cornerstone to a successful business? It is a fairly simple concept, yet so many companies fail to deliver even a reasonably decent customer service experience. Following is my latest experience of a customer service epic fail.
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I am fairly mechanically inclined and enjoy working on our vehicles. It was coming time to change the oil on our new car, so off I went to the Internet to find the oil filter wrench that I can’t get locally.
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The tool I was looking for was not that easy to find online so my choices of where to order it from were fairly limited, but there were choices. Having never ordered this type of item online before left me with having to roll the dice in choosing which online merchant I was going to deal with.
A Promising Start
I found one very promising online store that sells nothing but tools and lays claim all over their website about how good their customer service is. I mean, they lay it on thick with statements like “unbeatable service”, “commitment to our customers and superior service” and “your business is truly appreciated.” Not to mention their claims that 98% of the orders are received within 2-5 days because they have a massive inventory that is replenished several times a week.
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I thought I was in business. After all, if my experience was half as good as what was implied on the merchant’s website, I was going to be one happy camper. I quickly submitted the order and shortly thereafter received the order confirmation email. A day later, I received two more emails – one indicating the order was processing and the second indicating how the order was shipping. That is where the problem started.
The Unbeatable Service Starts To Crumble
The shipping email I received indicated that the part I ordered ships directly from the importer or manufacturer. Hold on a minute! What about having the great inventory and shipping quickly? Suddenly my order is being drop shipped? I quickly went to the merchant’s website to start an online chat because the website indicates that I can try the online chat for instant help. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, I received a message in the chat window stating it might be a good idea to fire off an email because there were no agents available. Guess I wasn’t going to get any instant service that day!
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I fired off an email with my order number asking about where the order was shipping from and if I could get tracking information. A couple of hours later, I received a two sentence response indicating it was shipping from the US importer and they would get back to me regarding tracking information. The email had no salutation. No signature. No “thank you for your order”. No nothing in the way of making me feel truly appreciated, even though their website says I am.
Things Start To Go Downhill Fast
I am a fairly patient person and I don’t get excited about many things. I figured I would wait a day or so and see if I hear back from the merchant regarding my tracking information. One business day passes, then it is the weekend. Come Monday morning I pick up the phone, as I still have no tracking information. As it turns out, I can’t even get ahold of anybody via the phone because when you are making an order inquiry, you have to leave a voicemail and they will get back to you via email. So I hop on the “instant help” online chat and wait and wait and wait (again) until the chat window times out and tells me nobody is available. ARGH! Really?
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Off I go to fire off yet another email to beg for the information that should already have been supplied to me from the get-go. The response comes fairly quickly, but with not much more than a UPS tracking number. Again, no warm and fuzzies to let me know how much my business is appreciated. I guess I have to take their word for it since their website claims I am appreciated. Just not feeling much love at this point. Definitely missing the small town service they claim to give, unless small towns have suddenly gone cold.
Lessons To Be Taken Away
Listen, if you claim to give unbeatable service and truly appreciate my business, then at least try to give the impression you care. Communicate with me. Let me know on the product description that the item is drop shipped so I can set realistic expectations and not expect to see my order in the 2-5 day time frame you claim on your website. Greet me in our email conversation and sign your name at the end of your response. Tell me how much you appreciate my business, because your website claims you do. Give me the level of customer service your website claims you give so I don’t have to write about your epic customer service fail.
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A previous article about 3 Examples of Awful Customer Experience states that “Companies that excel in communicating often excel in service as well.” See, I am not making this stuff up! The key to a happy customer is communication. Give me plenty of ways to get in touch with your company (and actually answer the phone, or chat, if you are going to provide these communication methods) and treat me like a valued customer. Be personable and grateful in your emails and don’t make me keep asking you for information.
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There is no excuse for a small business to provide a poor customer experience, especially when they plaster their website with all sorts of self-praise about how good of a job they do. I can almost excuse a large corporation for giving a poor customer experience, because an individual employee at a large company is just collecting a paycheck and has no vested interest in making the customer happy. Whereas, a small business depends on repeat customers to survive – something I won’t be for this company that treated me poorly.
Make Your Customers Happy So They Come Back
Unless you happen to be operating in a niche with zero competition, you have to fight tooth and nail for every customer. Believe me when I say that a superior customer experience will greatly increase the chance that you will have repeat customers, which you need in order to survive. After all, it is much cheaper to retain existing customers than it is to get new customers. So make sure to live up to the customer service expectations that your company sets.
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What should this company I had the less than stellar experience with have done? It is simple – do what they say they do on their website, which is give unbeatable service. Instead, all I got was an experience that I will remember for all the wrong reasons.
About The Author: Marshall Davis runs Talking Small Biz, a website that reviews products and services for the small business owner and entrepreneur to help them be competitive. Read his reviews of small business services to find products and services to help you better run your company. Heck, you will even find virtual phone system reviews to help you better communicate with your customers. Hint, hint.
