Small Business Website: Do It Yourself For Only $141.50

If you don’t have a website for your small business, then take some comfort in the fact that you are not alone.

Did you know that only about one third (to one half) of New Zealand businesses have a website?

The 5 Most Common Objections I Hear From Owners:

When asked why they don’t have a website, owners typically come up with one or more of the following objections.

(Have similar thoughts gone through your head? If so, it’s time to update your thinking.)

1. “I don’t know how, I’m not good with computers”

  • Then learn. Or at least find a family member or staff member to take care of the basics.

2. “Websites cost too much”

  • Wrong. They can cost as little as $141.50+gst/year. I’ll tell you how in a moment.

3. “I don’t think I’ll get a return on the investment”

  • Wrong. A simple website is the best return on investment you can get. It beats all other advertising options. And the payback gets better and better the longer you’ve got a website

4. “That’s not how customers choose a business”

  • Wrong. It may not be how you choose a business but it is the way that hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders do it. Plus more every day

5. “I’m too busy, I don’t have time to keep it updated”

  • Keep the content simple. Don’t do anything fancy. Delegate to family or staff.

The 4 Best Reasons To Have An Official Website:

Ask owners who do have a website why they do, you might hear things like…

1. “Our website is the official place where I own and control the content”

  • That’s right. No longer are you at the mercy of business directories like Finda who display your brand however they like

2. “Our website is the official place where the public can be confident and trust the info because they know we wrote it”

  • That’s right. Otherwise you are annoying potential customers by forcing them to use a business directory like Finda that has missing, incomplete or just plain wrong details. Wouldn’t it be better if they went to your official website instead?

3. “We noticed that the public are increasingly using the internet at home, at work and even on their phones wherever they are, to choose a business”

  • That’s right. Having your own website means you get to appear in search results and get a chance at being chosen. Isn’t that better than no chance at all?

4. “We’d prefer to have an upset customer contact us via our website rather than complain publicly on Facebook or a business directory”

  • That’s right. Not having an official website effectively forces upset customers to vent their frustration on platforms like Facebook where you have zero control and you won’t hear about the complaint until it’s too late to fix it, or never hear about it at all.

What You Should Do Next:

If you are a small business owner and you don’t have a website yet, here’s the 5 steps you should take next:

The 5 Simple Steps To Take If You Want An Official Website

1. Go to 1stdomains.co.nz and purchase your website address for $21.50+gst/year

  • Get a .co.nz (not a .net, or .net.nz or anything else!)
  • Set the DNS settings to ns1.ramsu.co.nz and ns2.ramsu.co.nz

2. Go to the website hosting company Ramsu.co.nz and purchase hosting for $120+gst/year

  • Type in the domain name you purchased
  • Create a database using the admin panel and write down the username and password

3. The next day, go to WordPress.org and download the latest version of their free website building software

  • WordPress is high quality Content Management System that is easy to use. If you get stuck, any problem can be solved with a Google search
  • Follow the set up instructions written on WordPress.org called “the famous 5 minute install

4. Login for the first time and start writing content

  • Keep it simple. No fancy stuff. Just the basics that prospective customers want to know
  • Phone number + address + Google Map + your products and services + testimonials. That’s it.
  • If you check your email once a week, don’t you dare put your email address on your website

5. Register your new website address with Finda.co.nz (and a few other free business directories too)

  • This just gives Google a kick to announce that your website is up and running

Still Too Hard?

Then ask a family member or staff member to help.

They teach this stuff in primary school now, so find a 10 year old and get on with it.

Dear Universe: Thank You For All The Free Software I Use Daily

It is time I thanked the universe for all the software I use everyday for free.

I make money out of using these tools (because they help me do my job) and it doesn’t cost me anything.

So here’s a list of my top 6 (in order of “most thankful”):

1. Gmail

What is it? Email/Webmail

Who made it? Google

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • Cutting edge spam filtering
  • Accessing my 6 email accounts in a single place (POP3, SMTP, IMAP)
  • 7GB of online storage space so I never have to delete an email or get stupid “your email account is full” and having to save stupid Outlook archive files to my computer
  • Email search that is just as clever and easy to use as Google Web Search
  • Filters that keep my inbox clean and tidy
  • Labels instead of folders (so a single email can be in more than one place at once)

2. WordPress

What is it? Blogging & Website Content Management System

Who made it? Matt and the world (open source, collaborative)

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • Powerful CMS software that means I can build super-cool websites for clients (all it costs me is time)
  • Powerful plugins that extend the capabilities and functions of my clients websites
  • A community of theme developers that make it easy to make the website look great with just a click

3. Apache / PHP / MySQL

What is it? The 3 components you need for a website server. Apache: the software that runs on the web server.  PHP: the programming language. MySQL: the database software

Who made it? Nerds.

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free (for web hosting companies)
  • And super-cheap for me because the web hosting companies have low costs
  • Since it’s open source, it’s super popular, so there is thousands of people contributing to forums which makes any question easy to answer, every technical difficulty easy to solve

4. Picasa

What is it? Photo organising software

Who made it? Originally by IdeaLab, now by Google

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • An easy way to store and access all my digital photos and videos
  • Easy upload and sharing to Picasa Web Albums (1GB of storage free)
  • One-click email (resizes on the fly, interfaces with Gmail)
  • One click back-up to DVD for peace of mind (and next time it remembers which files have already been backed up)

5. Skype

What is it? Instant Messaging/Web Chat, Phone Calling, Video Calling, Screen Sharing

Who made it? A bunch of Sweedish/Estonian entrepreneurs

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • Free international phone calls
  • Free video calls with my dad to show him his grandson

6. AVG

What is it? Anti-virus software

Who made it? AVG Technologies (formerly known as Grisoft)

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • It just does its job and doesn’t get in my way
  • So I don’t have to pay Norton

More Free Software That I Am Thankful For:

  1. Firefox (My window to the world, with truck loads of useful plugins available)
  2. Google Analytics (Website statistics)
  3. Open Office (Just as good as Microsoft Office, and completely free)
  4. Google Calendar (Keeps me organised)
  5. Google Docs (Online document storage, excellent for collaborating on documents with others)
  6. LimeSurvey (Powerful survey software, and completely free)

I’d be completely rooted if these companies started to charge (especially Google).

More Free Software That My Twitter Friends Are Thankful For:

  1. Gimp (Photo editor similar to Photoshop) @AudaciousGloop
  2. Zoho CRM (Customer Relationship Management) @AudaciousGloop
  3. Seesmic Desktop (Desktop client) @ShotByRobins
  4. Faststone Screen Capture @ShotByRobins
  5. uTorrent (Torrent client) @ShotByRobins
  6. Copernic (Desktop Search) @ShotByRobins
  7. VNC (Virtual Network Computing) @ShotByRobins
  8. Hootsuite (Twitter client) @WebSam
  9. Sylpheed (Email client) @WebSam
  10. Thunderbird (Email client) @DeepWebDesign
  11. Tweetdeck (Twitter client) @DeepWebDesign
  12. Oolite (Addictive online game) @DeepWebDesign
  13. Faststone Image Resizer @DeepWebDesign

What Software Are You Thankful For?

Add your thoughts to the comments below.

What’s Your Excuse For Having a Crap Website Or Not Having One At All?

There is no excuse.

If you spend anytime on the internet (and if you’re reading this, you do), then you will come across hideous websites all the time.

Here are 2 I came across in the last 10 minutes:

all-about-sports-screenshot1. www.AllAboutSports.co.nz

3 Reasons why this website sucks:

  1. Broken/lost images
  2. It was built with Microsoft Word (which is NOT for website building!)
  3. Most of the links go to mht files which spew unreadable text onto the page

3 Reasons to make this website cool:

  1. It has a pretty cool domain name
  2. It’s a Cambridge based, community website that isn’t trying to sell anything, it’s just providing a service to the community
  3. It’s easy to make a cool website for free using WordPress, so there is no excuse

celsius-screenshot2. www.Celsius-Ltd.com

4 Reasons why this website sucks:

  1. It is a .com instead of a .nz, so if a prospect ever sees it in search engine results they will think it’s American
  2. It uses frames which forces the user to scroll in small windows
  3. The text is light grey on red. Very hard on the eyes
  4. “Celsius” is too hard to spell

3 Reasons to make this website cool:

  1. It’s offering a cool sounding service – thermal photography (thermography). Cool!
  2. The owner, James Doyle, is a decent, hard working kiwi bloke in Hamilton, NZ (probably. I don’t know him actually)
  3. It’s easy to make a cool website for free using WordPress, so there is no excuse

How to use WordPress to make a cool website for free, in 7 easy steps:

  1. Download the latest version from WordPress.org
  2. Upzip the files and upload to your webhost via ftp (eg I use Ramsu for $15/month)
  3. Login to your webhost control panel and create a new SQL Database
  4. Add these new settings to the wp-config.php file, and upload that file by ftp
  5. Go to yourwebsite.co.nz/wp-admin/install.php and click on install
  6. Login to your WordPress control panel for the first time and start building your website
  7. Choose from hundreds of sexy themes, and hundreds of action-packed, feature-rich plugins (all free of course!)

Too lazy? Need me to do it for you?

I dunno, I’m pretty busy… but ok, I spose I can do it for you, I’ll charge you at least $600+gst though, so if that’s acceptable email me, or call me on (07) 575 8799 (Tauranga, NZ).

wp-admin/install.php