""Set up your own website""

Yuwanda Black of Inkwell Editorials, Inc., has written a very informative e-book HOW TO GET YOUR SMALL BUSINESS ON THE WEB QUICKLY & AFFORDABLY. According to Black, a small business has been defined as one with less than 500 employees, a surprisingly high number because 80% of all businesses employ fewer than twenty persons, 60% fewer than five persons. Never-the-less, twenty-four million exist. Twelve million are part time businesses. Fourteen percent of the 500 fastest growing companies started their business with less than $1000 investment. If you contemplated establishing your own website, but wondered about its effectiveness, think again. Small businesses online grew from 1.4 million in 1996 to 4.6 million in 2002. This wide open field offers much potential.

Black defines some terms for the beginner. A website is like a book. A webpage is like a page in a book. Your website will describe your company. Your web pages will describe different aspects of your company. There are three main types of websites: Informational, Interactive, and E-Commercial. The benefits of creating a website are increased revenue, staying in touch with clients, saving yourself time, and having a professional look. Steps to get a website include forming an idea of what you want, naming your website, choosing a web hosting company, creating your webpage, and uploading your files.

Some steps are free, some cost money. Naming (registering) your site can cost as little as $10/year. For help, try www.namecheap.com. This is the company the author used. You can try to create webpages yourself. If you feel uncomfortable, a reputable freelancer will do it for a $50- 100 fee. Web hosts (the .com at the end of your address) make sure people can access your website. Their services cost $10-75/month. If you want to sell products on your website, you will need a web hosting provider, a shopping cart, a merchant account, and an on-line credit card processor. Shopping cart costs $25-75/month. Merchant account costs $100-300 to set up. Credit card processors cost $100 for set up plus 3-30% of sales. PayPal is very good. Cost of website development is $20-200 per page, the entire website can be established for approximately $1000.00.

Once your website is up and running, you will need some indexing of your address so others can access it. There are two kinds of indexing services. A search engine uses a computer program to index all sites. Google.com is an example. A search directory uses people to do the indexing, like Yahoo.com. You can get registered automatically or by request, free or pay for it. Black discusses ways of getting all this done.

If you have been thinking of setting up your own website, this informative "how to" book will take you step by step through the process. Yuwanda Black seems very knowledgeable about the process. She has done it herself. She has a small online business that helps others get their websites going. If you are interested in your own website, here are the facts at your fingertips.

Reviewed by Maurice A. Williams
Posted October 14, 2003