Having a website is important if you're a small (or large) business owner and you want to stay visible in your community. More and more people are turning to the web for directions, phone numbers, and to get ratings and opinions. Not only is it critical that your business show up online, but when customers find you and look at your site you also need to make sure that it reflects the quality and professionalism that your business actually offers.

So how do you create a professional front online without spending too much money or time? That part's getting easier as more and more companies like Godaddy offer complete packages for $500 to $1,000 but just having a website is only the first step. You need to update your site for it to stay relevant and you need things like RSS (Really Simple Syndication) to help search engines find you and stay current as your business evolves. Websites really can save money and be a great, very focused and relevant advertising tool, but you need to know how to use them to be successful. You've probably noticed that the web is full of outdated low quality content and that is not something you want to be a part of.

Phone books, and the Yellow Pages have long been a great way to get your business noticed in the real world. You could place your business description, pay extra to make it bold, pay a bit more for color or a small tagline, or pay even more for an image. This could range in price from $500 to $100,000+ depending on the size and type of your ad and the city where it is being placed. That's a lot of money considering you have to renew annually! By comparison, the one time fee of website creation and the tiny monthly hosting and domain fees is a much better and more sustainable deal. There is a reason that every large company out there has a high quality website that they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on. In fact, many of them get updated and completely redone every year! There's a reason why domain names sell for millions of dollars, just the url itself is worth a lot because it communicates professionalism and trust, something you need online to make a good impression and keep a visitor's attention.

Beyond just having a website you can also pay search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN to show a little link ad on their pages when people are looking for products or services that match your business (you probably noticed the ads just to the left and bottom of the pages at Sustainable Online Solutions, these are the ads I'm talking about). You get to create the ad with a limit on the number of letters used, then you get to choose where and when it is shown online, and then you decide how much to pay (which determines where the ad shows up on a page). Essentially, you could tell Google to show your text or image ad only to people living in Park City Utah on Sunday evenings between 4 and 5pm. That's pretty amazing targeting, but it isn't free, and you're relying on other people to write content and do searches to be found. Furthermore, you still need a website for people to land on when the click the ad! Clicks on your ad will go through to your website where visitors can then be enticed with your products and services. Each click can cost between $0.05 all the way up to several dollars (depending on how crowded the ad space is that you want to show up in). And remember, more and more people are competing for those same keywords and phrases every day, the prices will never go down. All in all, the targeting of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is great, but you never stop having to pay for your ads to show up, just like the Yellow Pages.

By comparison, if you build a website using a content management system (CMS) like Drupal or Movable Type you can add new pages without even having to know HTML. You simply login (as you would with online email) and then make a post and hit publish. With this approach you pay more up front to have a content management system installed and customized but in the long run you are empowered to make your own success online as you share information, stories, pictures, and sales online with the world! This approach also means you don't have to rely on (or pay) a webmaster to make constant updates for you. The page you are reading right now was done using this approach through a content management system called Drupal.

Sustainable Online Solutions takes this approach one step further by eliminating the high up front cost of installing and designing a custom content management system. We charge a low monthly fee and then take care of the hosting, website address, website setup and design, content management system, email, calendar, analytics, and other difficult systems for you and then give you one easy username and password to access it all with an even easier controll panel with links to all of your tools. By taking advantage of our systems (or your own content management system) and regularly publishing stories and information about your business you will stay current with search engines and be able to track the success of your website. Unlike the old days of phone books, the internet keeps track of where people go, how they got there, how long they stayed and whether they bookmarked the page, what keywords they used or links they followed to find your business and then you get to see it all - using it as an input into your own marketing objectives.

Online business has been booming for the past decade as companies like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft follow these principles of empowering the masses to communicate and connect more effectively. If you want to leverage these tools you will need a website, and if you already have one but aren't using it, you need to learn how or switch to a content management system like the ones we offer. You really can see results and for just a couple of dollars a day in hosting and domain services getting online has never been more affordable than with Sustainable Online Solutions, call us toll free to learn more today.