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.

I also looked at what was being offered on the internet as ‘cheap websites’ and ‘affordable website solutions’ and the choices were, well to be very honest, horrific at best. What I found were templated websites that were ’sliced and diced’ up in Dreamweaver or Front Page, sites that were coded without any regard for search engine optimization, sites built without any regard for keyword saturation and code that was one giant tabled mess that was loaded with validation errors. Simply put I found websites that I would be ashamed to put my name on.

So the challenge was on. Could I create an SEO optimized, custom designed, tableless, 100% validated, keyword rich website that I could offer at an inexpensive price?

The one ‘trick’ that worked in my favor in these tests was something I have pushed for years, first to my students, then to other developers. That is my ’site controller’. Simply put building a website that is controlled by one single, centralized controller allows a quick deployment of a website. Once the layout is done and coded it is dropped into the controller and all that is left to do is add page content. It cuts down development time like nothing else in the world. It also allows the developer strict control over the layout, validation of forms and other client inputs and creates a rock solid structure for a website.

Well I am happy to announce my tests have been completed and the results were better than even I expected. The two clients were thrilled with their new websites and I have been able to turn them around in record time without having to cut a single corner. Honestly when I sat down and looked at the numbers I too was shocked, but very much a happy shock. Not only could I give these clients a custom designed site that included all my SEO ‘magic’ I could still do it quickly and without working for ‘peanuts’.

So I am proud to announce my complete affordable website package as of today. This package has been fine tuned to make sure each and every client gets the most out of every penny of their hard earned dollar and provides them a website I can be proud to add to my portfolio.

Next step? An affordable e-commerce solution that is easy to use and 100% optimized, stay tuned for that one.

Cheers,

Dave

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