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The Benefits of Starting with a Small Website – and How to Get Started
Starting a new website can be a pretty daunting task, especially for a busy small business owner. The good news is that you don’t have to start with a website that will rival the Wall Street Journal site, you can start with a 5 page site and grow into a larger site. Actually, if you start with a 5 page site, you will probably grow into a larger site anyway.
Some of the Benefits of Starting with a Small Website
1. Developing a small website still gets you a website. That means that your company has a web presence with the essential information about what you do.
2. It won’t take as long to get a site up and running. Of course, even a small site will take longer than what you think it should.
3. There are fewer decisions to make about a smaller site. When you change your mind about something, it’s easier to manage the changes.
4. The costs are lower. You might as well save the big expenses until after you have the experience to get what will work best for your organization.
5. If the site doesn’t give you the results you need, you won’t have as much “sunk cost” to swallow. You can learn your lessons and build a better one next go-round.
6. You will have time to learn more about your options, decide whether you got a good web developer, learn how to communicate with a web developer and understand what is reasonable to expect from a web developer.
How to Start a Small Website
1. Write down what the overall message of your website will be from the viewer’s perspective. This is what THEY want.
Hint: Don’t start with your mission statement. Most of your viewers don’t care about it.
2. Write down what you need to get from your website to make it worth the cost.
Hint: Make it quantifiable. For example, we need to receive responses from 100 people each month (these are called leads) – define what “responses” are.
3. Write down a description of the groups people who you want to use your website, and the people who you don’t want to use your website.
Example: My visitors will be sustainable wood business owners and support organizations, such as cooperatives, wood clusters, and woodnets. My visitors may be people who like the word “green” but don’t understand what “sustainable means. I do not want spammers to visit my site.
4. Decide on specific messages for about 5 pages.
Hint: this is generally easy enough if you have a Home page, About Us page, Resources page (links to people you want to link to you), Product page(s), Product handouts (How to Use Product X, etc)
5. If you don’t have a logo – get one.
6. If you don’t have photos of your products – get some.
Hints: get some good ones! That means, photos without the date from your camera on them, good lighting, simple background, where viewers can tell very easily what the photo is. Photos are content. If the meaning isn’t clear and beautiful, your viewers don’t want to see them!
7. Write captions for all photos and text for all pages. Get a copywriter, if you don’t write well.
Hint: this is just a starting point. You may find that you need to make some text changes during the construction process.
8. Do a Google search for the words you think people would type to find your product or service. Look at the websites. Now you know what your competition is doing. Write down specific features you like on the sites – and the ones you don’t like.
9. Ask people you know who has done great websites and make a list of their contact info and some of the sites they have done. Look at the sites. Make a short list of two or three people whose work you like.
10. Talk to those folks about what you plan to do in the near and long term future. Ask how they would do your site. Ask them to send you specifics in an email.
11. Choose a developer that asks you a ton of questions and explains everything to you. Your developer should be able to backup any development options with benefits and drawbacks.
12. Be part of the development team! It’s your site and your business has to bear the cost and the results. However, if you have a good developer, he or she also has a lot of experience with website success and failure. Listen!
NNFP has developed website packages for sustainable wood businesses. You can learn more in the Web Services section of the NNFP.org website. Also, note that other articles and HELP is available!
Some of the Benefits of Starting with a Small Website
1. Developing a small website still gets you a website. That means that your company has a web presence with the essential information about what you do.
2. It won’t take as long to get a site up and running. Of course, even a small site will take longer than what you think it should.
3. There are fewer decisions to make about a smaller site. When you change your mind about something, it’s easier to manage the changes.
4. The costs are lower. You might as well save the big expenses until after you have the experience to get what will work best for your organization.
5. If the site doesn’t give you the results you need, you won’t have as much “sunk cost” to swallow. You can learn your lessons and build a better one next go-round.
6. You will have time to learn more about your options, decide whether you got a good web developer, learn how to communicate with a web developer and understand what is reasonable to expect from a web developer.
How to Start a Small Website
1. Write down what the overall message of your website will be from the viewer’s perspective. This is what THEY want.
Hint: Don’t start with your mission statement. Most of your viewers don’t care about it.
2. Write down what you need to get from your website to make it worth the cost.
Hint: Make it quantifiable. For example, we need to receive responses from 100 people each month (these are called leads) – define what “responses” are.
3. Write down a description of the groups people who you want to use your website, and the people who you don’t want to use your website.
Example: My visitors will be sustainable wood business owners and support organizations, such as cooperatives, wood clusters, and woodnets. My visitors may be people who like the word “green” but don’t understand what “sustainable means. I do not want spammers to visit my site.
4. Decide on specific messages for about 5 pages.
Hint: this is generally easy enough if you have a Home page, About Us page, Resources page (links to people you want to link to you), Product page(s), Product handouts (How to Use Product X, etc)
5. If you don’t have a logo – get one.
6. If you don’t have photos of your products – get some.
Hints: get some good ones! That means, photos without the date from your camera on them, good lighting, simple background, where viewers can tell very easily what the photo is. Photos are content. If the meaning isn’t clear and beautiful, your viewers don’t want to see them!
7. Write captions for all photos and text for all pages. Get a copywriter, if you don’t write well.
Hint: this is just a starting point. You may find that you need to make some text changes during the construction process.
8. Do a Google search for the words you think people would type to find your product or service. Look at the websites. Now you know what your competition is doing. Write down specific features you like on the sites – and the ones you don’t like.
9. Ask people you know who has done great websites and make a list of their contact info and some of the sites they have done. Look at the sites. Make a short list of two or three people whose work you like.
10. Talk to those folks about what you plan to do in the near and long term future. Ask how they would do your site. Ask them to send you specifics in an email.
11. Choose a developer that asks you a ton of questions and explains everything to you. Your developer should be able to backup any development options with benefits and drawbacks.
12. Be part of the development team! It’s your site and your business has to bear the cost and the results. However, if you have a good developer, he or she also has a lot of experience with website success and failure. Listen!
NNFP has developed website packages for sustainable wood businesses. You can learn more in the Web Services section of the NNFP.org website. Also, note that other articles and HELP is available!
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