Is this for real?
Yes, its for real. Seriously.
Why do you do this for so cheap?
Because I know that businesses need an affordable website solution that doesn’t suck. Big companies charge huge amounts of money for a basic website. And on the other end of the spectrum, cheap websites end up looking cheap and rushed. So I wanted to do something in the middle. This way it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg to get a website that doesn’t suck. How can you afford to be this cheap when everyone else wants my first born child? First, I cant afford to feed your kid. So please, refrain from sending them to me. Second, I make a small commission off of hosting fees that helps supplement my charge for putting your website together. Besides, you need hosting anyways, right? You might as well get a good deal, get what you need and get a website that looks good. Third, I use something called WordPress. It lets me not reinvent the wheel when it comes to building your website. So instead of starting from scratch, I have a place to start with. This saves me time, which means it saves you money. And saving money is good!
What is WordPress?
WordPress is web software is used to create beautiful websites and blogs. WordPress is one of the most popular blogging software in the world, and is used by over 25 million people to create a website. What’s really awesome about it is it lets you, yes YOU! make changes to your website easily. If you can type, you can probably use WordPress.
Hold the presses! Whats a blog?
A blog is a type of website where “posts” or entries are (usually) posted in chronological order starting with the newest stuff at the top and older entries towards the bottom. When you came to my website, my first page is my blog. On my blog, I write about stuff that interests me that I think other people might find interesting (of course the topic of if its interesting to anyone besides me is open to debate at another time.)
Am I getting a blog instead of a website?
Well, that depends! Most times, I include a blog in your website, but if you don’t want one, you don’t need to have one. Its free ( as in included) in the price of what I do. While some people like to write, some people don’t. I don’t believe in forcing people to blog if they don’t want to.
So what comes with my website? So here’s what you’ll get:
- Five pages: A home page, an about page, a contact page with a cool contact form that lets people send you e-mail directly from your website, and up to two other pages named whatever you want. And those two pages can be filled with whatever content (text and images) you give me. (And, if you don’t have any text and images ready yet, I’ll put in some place holder stuff that you can change later. It’s pretty easy to change; don’t worry.)
- A blog: Your site will include a blog unless you specifically tell me you don’t want it. Blogs are great. Not only do search engines love them, but they allow you or anyone else in our company to easily add fresh content that readers or prospects can keep coming back to check on, or even subscribe to receive updates through email.
- A contact form: This will allow people to send you email from your website, without having to start up their email client. The Demo site has one that you can look at here.
- A cool look: You’ll pick the look (called a theme) for your blog, which will determine how it is gonna look. There are close to a billion of free WordPress themes out there. A good place to start is the WordPress themes directory, but you can also Google “free WordPress themes” and find a ton. Just send me a download link to the one you want and I’ll do the rest. It’s that easy.
- Plugins: First off, what the heck are plugins? They’re little software programs written by other people and can extend WordPress to do almost anything you can imagine. Here are the ones I’ll install for you (and yes, I use these too):
- wp-spamfree: This will help fight blog comment spam (I hate spam!)
- HeadSpace SEO: This will help get you into the search engines, like Google and Bing.
- Google XML Sitemap Generator :This will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better find the pages of your blog. It makes it much easier for the engines to all the pages of your site and to put them into their records easier. And I love making easier!
- Subscribe to comments: This lets people who comment on your blog to sign up for e-mail notification if anyone replies to their comments. And this is great because it helps to keep conversations going. I know everyone’s busy person. You don’t always have time to keep refreshing a page to see if someone replied so something you said on a website.
- WP-Supercache : This helps your site appear on people’s web browsers faster, without your website having to recreate the website over and over. (As Martha says, It’s a good thing!)
Can more pages be added? Can you make my website super cool with customizations?
While I would love to say “sure, no problem we can do whatever you want” I just cant afford to do it for free. (But we can talk about doing it for a fee.) You see, when I made the prices, I wanted people to have an affordable website, but at the same time, I need to be able to pay my bills. So if you do want some awesome customizations, I’m sure we can work something out.
How hard is this stuff?
Its not very hard at all. Once I get you set up and going, you’ll be able to make changes to your website like a pro. Like I said before, if you can type, you can use WordPress. I’ve had people who still have their VCR blinking 12:00 able to use WordPress. (Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration. No one uses VCRs anymore.)
How long does it take?
On average, it takes about 2 weeks once I get all the information from you. Once you sign up, you’ll get an email from me with what I need from you. Of course, like anything else, the longer it takes for you to get me information, the longer it will take for your website to be up and running. So, are you ready? Lets get started!