The Affordable Web Site

 

Let's say you are starting a small business and want a web site. I'll assume you're providing some sort of goods and services locally, rather than be a company or individual who wants to sell lots of things on-line.

Your business could be something like a solicitors, a cafe or restaurant, a plumbers or any of the other small businesses that we all need and have tremendous difficulty in finding to suit our exact taste or requirements.

The information you put on a web site falls into one of two categories :-

• Fixed - Your profile, location and what you basically do.
  
• Variable - Special offers, new services and personnel, holiday arrangements and everything else that happens as you improve your business.
  

Depending on your business, the proportion of fixed and variable information is different. For instance, a solicitor or someone whose business doesn't change much, will have a higher share of fixed content. On the other hand, a restaurant will find that most content is variable and frequently changes. For example, how many restaurant web sites show a typical menu?

So why not split the fixed and the variable, with the fixed going into a traditional web site and the variable information going into a blog, that has been fully integrated into the web site.

Look at the Cambridge Law web site, which I have written as an example of how you can integrate a blog into a web site.