I'm often asked, "Is it really hard to start a website?"
I'm also asked, "How much does it cost to put up a website?"
(These questions usually come from people who want me to tell them it's really hard, and really expensive, so they will have an excuse not to do it.)
They're easy questions. And the answer is easy, too:
It's like building a house. Until I know what kind of a house you want to build, I can't tell you a cost. Likewise, I can't tell you if it will be easy or hard.
As you read through the material on this website, you'll discover that I think most small and medium sized businesses... and even some large ones... should have a simple website powered by a content management system (CMS).
The old way could be expensive. You hire a web designer who has technical savvy and a great graphic artist, and they put together a "beautiful" website. It might cost you five, or fifteen thousand dollars, or more!
Then when you want to add a page about a special product, or an event, or a business idea worth sharing, you send that to the designer and, for a fee, they add the page and add links to various pages so people will find the page.
The new way is better, with CMS. If you're pretty savvy, technically, you can set up your own website with a hosting service, and install CMS software. Or, you may decide to hire someone (like us) to do that for you.
You post one or two articles, and your website is live.
Then, the next day (or the day after) you add another story. Each new story is added to the system and becomes part of your "online newspaper."
After you've posted five or six interesting stories, you have a viable content-driven website.
In many cases, you can run an entire website with CMS, adding stories, creating pages, sorting your stories into categories.
