Answers to Common Questions
FAQS
What is the best website for small business?
So after building and launching 1,300 websites, our opinion of this is probably a little biased toward protecting our clients' investment. The answer most developers will tell you would be a WordPress site. There are thousands of pre-built design templates, thousands of plug-ins, a fairly easy-to-use UI for content writers, decent enough SEO tools, and the cost to build a site is relatively inexpensive. While we do build these types of WordPress sites (we have built roughly 200 WordPress sites), they tend to be the ones that over time have the most issues and get hacked most often. This is normally due to two reasons. The first is that there are more WordPress sites than any other CMS, so hackers have a better chance targeting them. For us, what we've seen is that the client constantly updates their plugins (it's easy to do and there are always updates available), which cause errors and tends to crash the site, forcing them to hire someone to restore or fix their site. After this happens multiple times, they stop upgrading their plugins, which at first makes the site more stable, but ultimately creates a security hole, and boom, they get hacked. We've had this exact scenario happen to three of our past clients over the last few years. Not a lot, but one is too many in our opinion. So what this means is that IF you decide to go the WordPress route, you need to sign up for maintenance with an experienced development company and pay them to maintain your site, update your plugins, deal with the update issues and keep your site secure. Finally, if your business grows a lot, this would be a platform that you'll probably outgrow.
For companies that can't afford to "futz" with their site (in both time and money), and want a site to drive business, we recommend a more secure and robust platform, like DNN or Sitefinity. If you're planning on adding custom functionality and want the site to be able to grow and be customized as your business grows, then we feel these two are your best choices. We've built and launched over 1,000 DNN sites with not a single one being hacked. DNN also has an open-source version that's free as well, so the cost is almost the same, but the platform is much more secure and scalable. You can also upgrade it years later when you business takes off! Sitefinity only comes in paid versions, but is an Enterprise-level CMS with tons of features. Clarity is a certified partner of both DNN and Sitefinity and can design and build you a site on either platform.
How do I create a small business website?
The saying, "you get what you pay for" holds true for websites. If you want to build your own, then there are options out there. However, if you want your site to help drive traffic, convert visitors, and become an integral part of your marketing and sales process, then you need a full-service development company to sit down with you and talk about what you want out of the site. We can help show you how we've helped hundreds of businesses grow with a site that's designed to be an integral part of your business. For almost 15 years, more than 80% of Clarity's business comes from our own website. The other 20% (almost 30% this year) comes from ongoing maintenance work, and referrals from existing clients.
Clarity offers a free consultation for any business to discuss what they need and want from a site. We'll show you tons of examples of sites we've built and give you guidance on your options, from the least expensive to whatever you've got budget for. We'll tell you how long they typically take, what it takes to maintain them, how to improve and drive traffic through SEO, conversions through CRO, and more. If you want your site to help grow your business, then you need to invest in your site. If you only need a site to "be online like everyone else," then there are inexpensive ways to accomplish that. Know your options before you start spending your hard-earned money. Give us a call or fill out the form below for a free consultation. You'll be glad you did.