Start Up Britain

Start Up Britain

Although It is certain to help many new start up businesses get off the ground, the Government backed “Start Up Britain” campaign doesn't go into much detail on how to promote your products/services effectively and cost efficiently on the Internet. Yes, a website is absolutely essential and constructed and maintained correctly will definitely bring you increased business.

Websites

The downside? Well, websites historically can range from a few hundred pounds to thousands of pounds and if you choose the wrong website designer you may find you lose that investment because very few people are visiting your site. There are free websites available on the Internet so these are obviously the answer aren’t they?

Free Websites

If you commit to a free website you will end up with your site being build around a common template so you may find extremely similar sites on the Internet albeit they will be promoting different products. You need to remember that visitors like to see a professionally designed bespoke site to give them confidence in your services. A free website sends out all the wrong signals and may create more problems than it solves. Neither will it be optimised so that the search engines can find you. It will do your business no good at all if it only appears on page eighteen of Google.

Rent A Website

Rent A Website will design a professional website for you from only £14.99 per month with a set up cost of only £29.98. There is no contract. There is no termination penalty. If you wish to cancel, just stop paying. It’s as simple as that. There are no catches. On top of that, they will keep your website up to date for you and redesign your site annually to keep it fresh for NO EXTRA CHARGE. They have taken the risk and cost out of having a website and added simplicity. In fact, if you rent a website, it’s 100% tax deductible.

To see what else is included as standard, visit the website .www.rentawebuk.com and have a browse. They will even design a logo for you at no extra charge.

Website Health Check

If you have already published a website for your business, why not visit their sister site www.dp-group.co.uk and try out the FREE website health check. It will highlight if your site is working as it should. It may also save you a lot of money.

Websites

Now, I’ve never been one to turn down a drink as most of you will know. So when my mate George (Publican) invited me around to his place with the promise of a very decent Australian Merlot, I felt duty bound to oblige.

 After two bottles had slipped down very nicely, George announced that he’d finally lashed out on a new PC and would I give him an opinion. “No problem” says I, and to be fair it was a fairly decent set up with a 26” monitor which was essential as George’s glasses looked like the bottom of two milk bottles. I mean, he certainly weren’t going to be top of the leader boards on Call of Duty, but it was OK.

“My website doesn’t seem to be doing a lot though” he said and I quickly realised what had been the real reason for the invite. “Ok, let’s have a look” I said. George’s fingers didn’t exactly dance over the keyboard; they more or less stumbled, fell over and died. We eventually got the site displayed though, and initially, I thought someone had hit me in the face with a hammer! The home page was bright orange with pea green menus and an image of a beer bottle, or bottel, as the web designer had spelt it.

“That’s……err, different” I offered as I fought the desire to regurgitate the Merlot on to the shag pile. “Who did that for you”. “Young Ryan down the road, he did it in between cramming for his A levels”. He replied. “Only cost me £400”. This time the shag pile got a liberal dousing of red wine. “George” I screamed, “it’s a one page site, people will think their monitor has blown up when it displays, it tells visitors nothing other than the fact you need to go to Specsavers, and young Ryan obviously uses your product as it’s affected his spelling ability.” I paused for breath. “On top of that, it’s not SEO optimised, it’s not constructed correctly and more importantly, it will do more harm for your business than good”

George doesn’t talk to me anymore. He doesn’t need to. He sends me six bottles of Merlot a month, free of charge. Why? Well, I got him a totally redesigned website, properly optimised and he can add information about his Guest Beers himself, and all for the princely sum of £9.99 per month.

And what about Ryan, I hear you ask, George persuaded him to hand clean his shag pile carpet which appeared to have a large red wine stain. He managed to do it between visits to the acne clinic. Think I’ll have a drink.

Frans LaRoc

PS Don't make George's mistake, visit www.dp-group.co.uk now.