Small Business | Forum « Website Creation and Management

Website Creation and Management (6 posts)

Topic tags: company website, content management system, joomla, outsourcing, website, website creation

Mickey Murphy said
1 year, 5 months ago:
Being an owner of a very small company with limited resources, out of necessity I have done all of my website creation and management. I use a content management system called Joomla and I just finished updating my site from the default template to one that I purchased (it is geared more towards social media). Even though I’ve learned a lot it is really time consuming. Sometimes I wonder if the trade-offs of outsourcing my website management would be worth it.
I’m curious as to whether you do your website creation and management yourself, outsource it, or hire someone to do it for you. What are your reasoning’s for doing so? What successes and failures have you had?
@michaelmurphy | # | Top
Rich Brooks said
1 year, 5 months ago:
@michaelmurphy
Well, we’re a web design company, so take what I say w/a grain of salt!
When I first started out I bootstrapped everything. Designed my own logo, biz cards, website, etc. Went to my parent’s house to use my dad’s copy machine for my print (yes PRINT) newsletter because I couldn’t afford Kinko’s.
As time went on, I started hiring or outsourcing anything I didn’t want to do, or could be done cheaper or better by someone else.
You may not have that luxury yet, but with hard work it will come.
It sounds like you’ve done most of the hard work already, so I’m not sure that there’s much more to outsource as far as design and development go.
Ultimately you CANNOT grow unless you let go of certain activities so that you can spend more time concentrating on the ones where you add the most value and can be most profitable.
For some people that means giving up design, or content creation, or accounting, or HR, etc.
Hope this helps a little!
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Mickey Murphy said
1 year, 5 months ago:
Yes, hiring others is a little beyond my reach right now. Hopefully, sooner than later, I can make to the point where I can afford to let go of certain activities. Thanks for the input.
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Mark Ritter said
1 year, 5 months ago:
I agree that it is a trade off. It is hard to grow if you are tying up your valuable time with these kinds of tasks. However, if you don’t have the money to pay someone else then you have no choice. The bottom line is that you have to put a value on your time. Then if the cost of you doing it far exceeds the cost to pay someone else you have to decide. You also have to take into account other factors which are not easy to measure. How much business did you lose because you were focused on non-income generating activities? Also, what could your website be doing for you that it may not be now because you don’t know how to make it better?A very complex problem for a small business owner.
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Steve Hoad said
1 year, 5 months ago:

If your web site is defined as “nonincome generating” I think you’ve got a problem. Just because a site doesn’t sell directly it should be informative enough to make someone want to find you. Really, there are two types of advertising outreach, image or direct sales. More on that later, this is a web site discussion — at the least your web site should promote a positive vision of your image.
If you don’t have the money to buy a design service then you are obviously going to have to do your own or, think out of the box. Does your business have a skill or product you can afford to barter?
@mainefun40 | # | Top
David W said
1 year, 5 months ago:
How timely, I am in the same situation. Last time I created a website I was using Frontpage….years ago. I would love to have a slick web design firm create my site, but don’t have the resources. On the other hand I am learning new skills that should payoff down the road – installing wordpress, plugins/themes, using a visual design tool (builder), etc. The barter idea sounds spot on, I am going to post an ad tonight and try to trade out some design services for promotion on my site.
@cycleman37 | # | Top