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Whenever a business owner considers starting their much-needed website, the first thing generally to come to mind is the overall cost. Not so long ago it was quite expensive to even obtain a domain name (your .com address) and many hosting options seemed to be aimed at the ‘Daddy Warbucks’ of the business world. While many of today’s eCommerce options are a lot more inclusive and affordable, the cost can still be quite steep if you don’t complete a little homework first.
Your Domain Name Registration
In the early days of the internet, a dot-com registration required a 2-year minimum purchase at a minimum of $75 a year – with some places charges much more. The domain name is arguably the most important choice you have to make in this process, and coming up with a good, easy to remember name that isn’t already registered can be a feat onto itself. If you’re lucky enough to find one that isn’t taken you’ll pay an average of $10 a year, but if you’re determined to have one that someone else owns, you could be looking at anywhere from a few hundred bucks, to tens of thousands.
Another option you have is to select a name with an alternate extension other than .com, such as; .net, .io, .org, .us, .app, .info, .biz and a slew of others. These selections are generally much cheaper, with some going for as little as .99 cents, but there are also a few of the more popular choices that can run upwards of $50 a year.
It is highly suggested that you take your time on this step, confusing or easily misspelled names can be a huge detriment to your online presence and drastically affect your eCommerce sales. While it may be tempting to opt for the less expensive ‘yourname.online‘ purchase, it is well known that a large majority of online shoppers will automatically assume that your website ends with either the traditional .com or the new ‘high-end’ domains like .io. So, cutting corners here could very well inadvertently send business to a competitor.
How Will You Build Your New Home?
If you are already an accomplished web designer, then this is a no-brainer and you will decide what best suits your website aspirations and save yourself a decent amount of your budget. However, if you’re completely new to owning and designing a website there are a couple options that you can choose from.
Of course, you can simply hire someone to design, build and maintain your business website but once again the price on this can range anywhere on the spectrum. If you go this route, be sure that you see a portfolio of their previous work and get the quoted price along with the included services in writing.
WordPress is the new aspiring webmaster’s best friend – making web design cheap (it is an open-source and free download), and user-friendly. WordPress is a content management system (CMS), which simply means that it is designed to help you customize, organize and display the content on your website. This allows you to manage how everything appears on your site, from the header with your business name to your blog posts and even videos.
Hosting Options
This is right up there at the top as far as the importance of the decision-making process goes. The pricing options run the full gamut, from free all the way to hundreds or even a couple thousand dollars a month. Selecting a free hosting company for your business website is really discouraged, simply because of the inherent restrictions and total lack of support.
While there is a virtual ton of ‘helpful’ websites and articles available for WordPress, it can be a daunting task to first find what you need, and then to decipher the instructions. Hundreds of themes are available for free and while these can help with layout, many business owners find that they want to learn more simply so they have more control and flexibility with their site design.
When selecting hosting for your website, it is important to discern what support options are and are not included. Can you call for support at any time? Are you limited to how much support you receive? Do they monitor uptime? Do they provide off-site backups?
You also need to know how much space is included in the price and how they handle any bandwidth overages. If they offer ‘unlimited’ anything, be sure you probe to find out exactly what their definition of unlimited is – you may find that they throttle back your speed, charge you excessive ‘overage’ fees, or even shut down access if your traffic exceeds a certain amount.
BionicWP is The Answer
With the wonderful advantages of WordPress, having a professional and reliable host that provides exceptional support will ensure that your company website operates as effectively and efficiently as possible. And that’s what BionicWP provides – peace of mind so that you can focus on what’s important; your business.
With 24-hour support available throughout the year, off-site backups, real-time uptime monitoring and hosting packages suited for any sized business, we provide you with all the tools you need to be successful. Whether you need a simple page for your side-business, a WordPress host that you can trust, someone to manage your WordPress site or hosting for 30 sites or more, BionicWP is the company you need to call today.