Home: Message List - How to Choose the Right Type of Website for Your Business

Re: How to Choose the Right Type of Website for Your Business

saageworks — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:52:09 GMT

All,
Thanks for the comments on my blog post. Appreciate the thoughts. DJM0231 excellent point about CMS, Squarespace actually serves as a great CMS and there are certainly more out there, my personal opinion is Squarespace does an excellent job. Some of them are a little more complex than I felt qualified for a "prefab", for example Drupal. I think there are so many options in the open source world that it probably deserves its own post. I do however consider some of these options to be not as user friendly as systems that have already developed modules. I really appreciate your reply and hope I can incorporate more thorough info in this guide for those less familiar with web development.

If anyone is looking for more information on small business and web technology/applications check out my blog www.saageworks.com. It is new but growing quickly!

Re: How to Choose the Right Type of Website for Your Business

DJM0231 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 22:10:51 GMT

Greeting Saage,

I enjoyed the article. Although, I am surprised that you did not mention any Content Management Systems (CMS), which there are many open source i.e. free CMS packages available.

I would recommend a CMS package that supports blogging type social networking before recommending a WordPress or similar blog specific application. I haven't had any real experience with Squarespace, it appears to be a mash between CMS and social applications. I'll have to look further into Squarespace.

Please don't take this as a critique of your article. I felt it was a very good read and look forward to your future posts.

Thanks,
DJM0231

Re: How to Choose the Right Type of Website for Your Business

Lighthouse24 — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 21:33:28 GMT

Saageworks, thanks for the info. I guess I've always seen two tiers within your description of "pre-fab":

(1) What I considered pre-fab before I read the article, i.e., a five-page, industry or application-specific site with all the design assets, feature functions, and navigation links in place -- so about all the business owner has to do is paste content into pre-formatted blocks. (A lot of hosting sites for independent craftmakers, artists, musicians, MLM reps, etc. have a pre-fab tool like this, with which nearly anyone can create a specific type of website very quickly.)

(2) What I'd consider a true DIY product (perhaps like the Squarespace product you referenced, though I'm most familiar with NetObjects Fusion) -- i.e., a development tool that is basic and intuitive enough for a near beginner, yet powerful enough to create almost anything a professional developer could create if the user wants to take the time to learn how. (This approach seems like a good option for a business that manages large sites with dynamic content when those sites are mainly informational -- as opposed to being the firm's primary revenue-producer, like a high volume e-commerce site, in which case an in-house IT person or outsourced developer would likely be cost-justified.)

Anyway, I enjoyed the article and look forward to the future installments!

Re: How to Choose the Right Type of Website for Your Business

LUCKIEST — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:52:31 GMT

YES, thank you, I would like to learn more about choosing what route to take
when developing a web site for my business.
I will check out your suggestion.
Thanks, LUCKIEST

How to Choose the Right Type of Website for Your Business

saageworks — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 18:45:43 GMT

Hi
I just wrote the first in a series of posts on websites for small business. If you would like to learn more about choosing what route to take when developing a website for your business check out http://www.saageworks.com/blog/2008/3/6/how-to-choose-the-right-type-of-website-for-your-business.html. Hope this helps answer some common questions.

www.saageworks.com