It is no surprise that cutting costs can be a necessity to keep your company afloat, especially for small and medium size businesses that feel the impact of an economic crisis. One major expense that most companies incur early on is the creation of a website. Depending on your budget and web designer, it can range from several hundred dollars to a few thousand. So what are you to do if you fell behind and have yet to have a website created for your brand? One alternative to a pricey website developer would be WordPress, a blogging platform that is excellent for customization.

You’re probably thinking, a blogging platform? It may have little or no customizable features and it’s free, so it may look tacky and not give off the vibe that your company is going for. Wrong. WordPress is fully customizable, and if what you want is a fully functioning, multi-page website, it could cost you under $100.

A great benefit of WordPress is what they call a CMS (Content Management System). This means you do not have to go out and spend several thousand dollars on a server to host your site, as WordPress will host everything you need directly online. You can access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Are you not web savvy enough to create HTML or CSS to edit your initial WordPress page? Do not worry, WordPress offers a variety of templates that will allow you to pick a general layout and feel of what you want the site to look like. If you like everything about the template, just start uploading images and entering content, and you’re set to go! If you are looking to change things around, you can purchase the Custom Design upgrade for $30 per year. This will give you access to changing around the font, color, and overall design layout of the template of your choice.  To properly make adjustments, this option may require a basic to moderate understanding of HTML and CSS coding.

Not looking to upgrade your template just yet, but would still like to add some features and give your site more life? WordPress allows you to use “widgets,” which are like plugins for your blog. It will give you the ability to include more on your site template without the hassle of understanding web coding. For example, if would you like to display your top blog posts on the home page, simply place the “Top Posts & Pages” widget in the sidebar when customizing WordPress. You can display tweets from Twitter or add a Facebook Like Box widget that allows site visitors to connect to your Facebook Page. With dozens of widgets to choose from, customizing a simple WordPress site is easy and quick.

As a web savvy person, would like to take a template and fully customize it to meet your expectations? You can, but you will have to host it on your own server. Many hosting platforms are available. For example, sites such as Go Daddy allow inexpensive hosting. This will allow you to fully customize your template of choice, as well as use plugins that independent developers have created online. With thousands of plugins available for free, you can turn what is a seemingly simple blog site into an engaging business page all while staying within your budget.

Aside from turning a WordPress template into a website for your business, you can also use the same site for your blog. So now you have both a company website that looks professional, and a blog for your viewers to read and stay up-to-date.

WordPress is a great place to start when you wish to create a website on a budget. WordPress also includes an analytics tool to keep track of site traffic, page views and more data to help keep an active and up-to-date log of how your website is performing. WordPress gives the user many great functions and tools to create and manage a full and detailed website.

Is your business looking for someone to build a website using WordPress? Contact Progressive Media Concepts today!