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What are you waiting for?By Jim Frazier I was talking to a small business owner the other day, and she said she was "working on her web site." I've heard this before, so I asked her what the hold-up was. She responded that she's been scared by all the people she's talked to. "Scared?" "Yes. They've got me flummoxed. They say I have to do it perfectly, or I'll ruin my business. And everyone I talk to gives me different advice. I know I should have a Web page, but I can't figure out what to do!" Does this sound familiar? This woman has found herself surrounded by high priests of the Web Cabal. They are desperate to prove that they alone are the keepers of ebusiness enlightenment and that she, poor un-cyberfied soul, can't possibly understand the deep meanings of HTML, XML, FTP, JPG, and meta tags. They've got her so overwhelmed with how "important" the Web is, and how critical her page will be to her business, that she's frozen in place and afraid to move. I set about to illuminate her. "What are you waiting for? You can have a nice simple page set up in less than a week." "What? They said it would take over $5,000 and a couple of months to get my site going." "Yeah, your site may eventually cost that much and take some time - if you want it to. Here, let me see your business card." She handed me her card. "How much time and money did you spend on this?" "Well, I had my printer set it up. I took it over to him with the logo and the information typed up. It took me about an hour and cost about $150 for the first run. I just had a second printing (I added my AOL address) and it cost about $75." "Did it damage your business when you handed it out?" "Of course not. It looks nice and it gives people information they need about my company and how to contact me." "So does a Web page. It should look nice and give people basic information about your company. Start simply. Why don't you just take the logo from your card, the text, contact information, slogan and other product information and put it on your Web site? It'll cost you a few hundred dollars to make that happen. Or for that matter, you can do it yourself, if you're inclined, and use the templates offered by the Web hosting companies." "But, but, but...don't I have to worry about design, ecommerce, pictures and stuff?" "Show me a piece of your literature." She showed me a brochure. It was nicely put together, with attractive graphics, images of her products, and sufficient text to give her customers a good idea about her business. "Add the content from this brochure to your site. Clean up the graphics to make them Web-friendly, and you're in business. A couple more hundred dollars." "But, but, but..." "I'm not talking about your final Web site. Your page will grow and evolve for the life of your company. Technology will change, bandwidth will get better, your options will be enhanced. But for right now, for most businesses, the easiest and most effective thing to do is simply to put a basic 'business card' presence on the Web. You get your Web address, put your business card online, add and update the information from your brochure, add a map to your location, and you've got a pretty spiffy Web page." "But what about ecommerce?" "Keep in mind that this is just the start. After a while, you can bolt on additional information, ecommerce capability, forms, surveys, forums, product specifications, a newsletter, etc. But the more complicated you make your site, particularly with ecommerce, the more you'll have to change the way you do business. Don't worry about that now. Just put your business card on the Web and grow your site from there. "The beautiful thing about a Web site is that it can grow, change, evolve and be replaced in an instant. Make a mistake, you can change it as soon as you find it. If you're going to wring your hands over something, do it over your next brochure. Once you print that baby, you're stuck with it. But if you see a typo on your Web page on Monday morning, you can have it updated on, well, Monday morning." "But what if I screw it up and everyone visits my site and then they never come again?" "Well, for one thing, few people are going to visit your site when you first set it up. If only it were that easy! Unless you're prepared to spend a LOT of money in marketing and advertising, your Web traffic is going to be pretty puny for a while. So don't worry about too many people seeing a work in progress. You'll have plenty of time to work out the kinks. As long as you follow some really easy and simple rules about Web design, you're not going to alienate anyone." "Well, you've convinced me. I'm going to go home and have my son work on this thing tonight. I'll call you when it's up." Sigh. Now, I've got to work on people who are having their kids, nephews and nieces, or next door neighbors create their sites. I wonder if they would have those same amateurs create and print their brochures? I'll betcha a nickel that the next time I see this woman, she'll still be "working on it." And we'll have ANOTHER conversation. There really are lots of tremendous reasons for you to be on the Web. Don't let all the buzzwords or the reported costs scare you. A basic, business card Web site IS pretty easy, and will cost less than that brochure you're having printed, and about the same as a couple of boxes of business cards.
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