Building a website
Answer: Hi Lucy, in your case, you’re not just building a website as a ‘nice to have’ add-on or for the fun of it. It will be your shop window and your sales team rolled into one. So you need to make it work for you by attracting and handling business. As a start-up, time and funds are probably in short supply, so the question is how can we make your online presence felt quickly and inexpensively? There are really three main options open to you - build it yourself, get someone to do it for you, or use a free package with Do-it-Yourself building blocks. Who’s doing the building? Most small businesses find it easier to use a web designer, and obviously getting someone else to do it means you won’t waste as much time, but it will cost you. If you do want to go that route, then it’s worth getting one our IT partners to help you. You’ll find some near you at: www.officelivepartnerdirectory.com. It will also point you towards local companies who offer the kind of website training you asked about.
A better option in your case, though, is to use an online software package. A lot of software these days is moving into the online space, making it easy for non-techies to do lots of exciting things that previously only professional web designers could do - like setting up your web domain and analysing the traffic on your site. Our package for doing this is Microsoft Office Live Small Business – and it’s free, which is just what you need when you’re starting up. Office Live Small Business: three ways to get started
When you sign up to Office Live Small Business - which only takes five minutes - you get a set of user-friendly tools and templates that make building your website as simple as writing an email. Free web hosting is provided, along with your own domain name (eg mycompany.co.uk) and up to 100 company-branded email addresses. You have full ownership of the domain name and it’s completely free for the first two years, then only £10.99 every other year thereafter.
Show me the money!
Office Live Small Business includes complete integration with PayPal, one of the world’s leading providers of payment services. It supports all major credit cards, payments on account by email, and even recurring payments like subscriptions. PayPal is used by thousands of online businesses, and is secure, popular, and above all, easy to implement on your Office Live Small Business website. Opening your doors to the world To get that traffic, you also need to promote the site. One of the best ways is through Pay per Click (PPC) advertising -a search engine marketing technique in which you pay only when people actually click on an ad for your site. Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter are the most popular, and again, both are easy and economical to implement; costing much less than advertising in a newspaper.
Also, make sure to highlight your new web address in all your sales materials and newsletters. Lastly, on the subject of training, don’t panic: Office Live Small Business is pretty intuitive. You’ll also find many useful tips in our webcasts at: http://www.microsoft.com/uk/smallbusiness/products/office-live/webcasts.mspx. The Office Live Small Business Resource Centre is also jam packed with good advice. There’s also a new Microsoft Press book available called “Microsoft Office Live – Take Your Business Online” available here. Free and easy We wish you every success with your new venture- email us and let us know how you get on! --Tim | ||||||||||||||
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We'd like your online business to rake in some cold, hard cash; and for that you'll need a payment system. Office Live Small Business includes complete integration with PayPal. 
