A few weeks ago I read a BLOG post from Dharmesh Shah who writes/created the OnStartups website and 60K member LinkedIn Group of the same name. He had a particular post recently that I found interesting as it serves as a punch list of things to do if you are a one or two man start-up looking to get a presence on the web and drawing traffic to your idea/people/business (never to early to start in my opinion). Now much of it is pretty basic on getting a URL, do a blog, etc. but it got me thinking about the changes that have occurred in last few years and the process of getting a web presence and embracing social media. Not only has the technology improved greatly in the last year alone but with a MUCH LOWER barrier to entry enabling your company/idea cast a much larger shadow.
To give you an idea of how simple it is (and cheap) lets play a game similar to the old “Price is Right” game show where I give a list of items and you guess how much it would cost.
Here goes:
- Custom website domain for one year
- Hosting service for your website
- 100+ email accounts, group calendar, collaboration — with no advertising that you administer and control
- Very professional well laid out website customized to your unique needs
- Blog site with ability to post via web interface or mobile device
- Twitter and LinkedIn, site customized to your needs (note I avoided Facebook for business stuff as I think that is more of use for personal stuff & family)
- Ability to add pictures to your blog, twitter or other feeds
- Search engine optimization
- Google AdWords purchase
Well now guess …
10 years ago likely $100K and leave off items #5 thru #8.
2 years ago you could have all items but it would cost about $20K plus consulting to figure out what these things really meant and a very hard time convincing management to spend.
But if you guessed $17.95 for all of it in 2009 … YOU WIN!
Let me break it down as it is really amazing and how I created a very simple web presence myself for a project I’m working on:
- Website URL purchase (used GoDaddy and only selected service to buy the domain for 1 year w/coupon for $7.95 — avoid all the other add-on stuff they sell DO NOT NEED!)
- FREE* Web Hosting (used WordPress and mapped my custom URL to their site so when people go to wadeapp.com it is actually WordPress but hidden from user! Note I did need to purchase $10 credit for URL mapping service* to map to wadeapp.com and used PayPal to buy credit … couldn’t be easier.
- Group Email (Used Google Apps to have FREE email with custom addresses which I can setup and administer (i.e. wade@wadeapp.com or info@wadeapp.com) Note good instructions here too from WordPress on using GoogleApps and although looks daunting … very easy!
- Used the WordPress templates they have for free to pick a look I liked and then customized unique home page and sub-pages. Don’t forget to use widgets for extra info!
- Signed up for Twitter to setup my Twitter name (wca1) and got the free TweetDeck application to make it easier to follow groups of people and reply (oh and I customized my Twitter background and applied it for a different look). Note a good way to find people or conversations is to use Twitter Search or Twitter Location Finder Application
- Made sure my LinkedIn site I use for networking pointed to my website and also advertised my link in my profile
- Signed up for TwitPic to be able to send mobile pictures to my twitter account via mobile phone (check out http://twitter.com/wca1)
- By using keywords in Meta tag of word press blog I was able to start the SEO process
- Lastly used AdWords to purchase a few key search terms (like my name) so that if you Google “Wade Appelman” you find me quickly … it I only bid $.01 per click (guess I was cheap!)
One last thing — I didn’t need to setup a storefront to take in money or sell a product but if you do need a backend — check out this very cool product BravoCart. Other services I use regularly include Constant Contact and Siebel CRM onDemand but more on those usage models another time.
Now this whole effort took me about 4 hours at the most and I did it to learn the latest tools and try out the experience for a project I’m working on that is for another startup.
Try out these steps and tell me what you think and be blown away by the latest options if you haven’t tried it in the last … 3 months or so!!
