I’ve pondered the idea of creating an inexpensive small business website package for a few months now. With the economy like it is small businesses are struggling to bring in new business and many that have found themselves out of work now looking to the internet as a means of income. The need is obvious, the solution not as cut and dry.

After looking at the problem from every angle I could think of I decided to run a few test projects for two local businesses at a deep discount to what a normal website should cost. These ‘tests’ also included a new, very talented designer I had hired for one job. You see the biggest expense in any website is the design. Creating custom designs is not cheap but if you have talented designers that can look at a company and bring that company’s ‘vision’ to life in a design quickly you just might have a shot at bringing the prices down to the point just about any small business can afford it. While most ‘cheap website’ designers use free templates on their customer sites I wanted something that was unique to my clients and this new designer has helped bring that idea to life.

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I get emails, phone calls and contact forms all the time from brick and mortar businesses that are curious about getting their business on the web but more often than not they feel spending a couple of thousand dollars for a website just “isn’t in the budget” and that’s really a shame because most of these people don’t realize these days a well built website is the most effective means of attracting new customers.

So I have come up with a set of questions that I ask most potential clients and I really think anyone considering having a website built for them should ask themselves and their friends these questions.

1. When you are looking for a product, information or services where is the first place you look? Is it the phone book, the newspaper, the TV or is it in fact the internet.
2. When you search the internet for something how many pages of search results will you wade through before you give up or try other search terms?
3. When you find a site you think may have what you are looking for how long will you spend looking through it before you move to the next search result?
4. Does the appearance, layout of the site effect your willingness to do business with the company?
5. Is the site set up in a manner that makes you feel safe buying from them online?

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