First thing to mention, is that it’s not often I see a business succeed with little or no money invested to get things started. However it usually takes someone at least one try to learn this truth – and hopefully this Blog post will help save some time and pain in that learning process.
I always recommend engaging a professional agency (like us) to help execute a web project, as it’s often an important part of getting a new business up and running successfully. This article is aimed at those that don’t want to spend that sort of money, and instead are looking for a cheap & nasty solution to help get them started. Salsa doesn’t provide these services, but here is what we’ve learnt over the years.
Sorry I know it sounds cynical.
Once you’ve taken care of the paperwork (register a business name – https://online.justice.vic.gov.au/cav/br-home, and register your domain name – Google “cheap domain names”), you need to get a website built.
If you have $1,000 – $2,000 to spend on a website.
The cheapest way to get this done is to use a pre-existing Content Management System (CMS) such as WordPress, or Joomla, or Magento or OSCommerce for an eCommerce website. You should then look to download free, or buy a template for the site, instead of paying for a custom design.
Some places to get templates from:
WordPress – http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
Joomla – http://www.joomlashack.com/
Magento – http://www.silverthemes.com/
www.templatemonster.com is also a source of hundreds of themes, but the quality is inconsistent.
Once this is done, you need to then get someone to build it for you. www.nachomedia.com.au can help put together a template website at low cost. Or if you know a freelance developer, have them do it for you – should be around $1,000 for a WordPress/Joomla site, and $2,000 for an Magento/OSCommerce site.
They can probably help you with hosting also.
Credibility is important – so perhaps set up a 1300 number if you can – and have it direct to your mobile phone or land line – makes you look more professional, and doesn’t cost much.
If you have nothing to spend on a website!
Try setting up a Facebook page. It costs nothing. See this post on how to do that: http://lazarus.salsainternet.com.au/2010/06/howwhy-to-create-a-facebook-page/
Take a look at Twitter also, if you have the time.
You can also redirect your domain name to your facebook page if you want to advertise the domain name, instead of the facebook page in your marketing collateral.
Get people to find you.
Once you’ve setup some sort of online presence as above, people need to find it. To be honest, this is often the hardest part.
First, you should run a Google Adwords campaign (ads on the right side of a Google search results screen), as this is relatively low cost, and works instantly – you can setup a campaign, and get it running in a couple of hours – gets traffic to your site immediately. You can check keywords, etc at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
You can also read about how to setup a campaign here: http://www.salsainternet.com.au/adwords-explained.html
Once you’ve proven the model works online, you can start to work on getting the site to rank well in the free/organic listings in Google (left side of Google search results screen). There are 3 things that make this work – Structure, Content & Links. More info on how this works here: http://www.salsainternet.com.au/search-engine-optimisation.html
You also want to put your web address on your business card, flyers, email signature, etc to help get the word out.
As mentioned, this approach in my opinion is speculative at best, but costs very little, so maybe it’s worth a shot for those that haven’t tried before.
Good luck!
Tags: adwords, budget, digital agency, Facebook, freelancer, google, joomla, magento, new business, oscommerce, price, Salsa, save money, wordpress
