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Do
you have a BUDGET set aside for building a web site?
By
Bart Smith, TheMarketingMan.com
| 566 Words | Published 06/21/2007
 Yep,
nothing comes free in life, "without a price!" And,
doing business online is no exception. Web site design services,
hosting fees, domain name registration/renewal fees, specialty
service fees, product development /printing costs, you name
it, it can all add up! Here are the two biggest areas you need
to be concerned with when it comes to doing business online:
- YOUR
TIME
— There's something about the doing business
online, if you're not careful, you can get sucked into the
"black hole" of checking in eMail, checking stats,
fulfilling to orders, tweaking your web site, revamping your
web site, writing/submitting articles, exchanging links with
other sites, maintaining your blog, creating new podcasts
... (are you tired yet?) ;-) ... That's right! There's ALWAYS
something to do. The trick, is to focus in on what makes you
money and nothing else.
-
YOUR
MONEY — Again, if you're not careful,
all those extra little monthly services you purchase, eBooks
you bought, seminars you attended, consulting you paid for
... that all adds up too!
Always,
always ... Keep track of how you SPEND YOUR TIME and WHAT YOU
SPEND your money on. Routinely check in with yourself and perform
an internal audit, at least every 3 months to find out, "what
you're paying for (review your monthly bank statements), and
how you're spending your time.
Take
the amount of money you've made in the past 3-6 months and divide
that by the number of hours you've spent working on your web
site, developing product, marketing your site/products, etc.
And, see what you come up with? Hmm, about $15 an hour? Why
don't you go get a job at the beach, sell t-shirts and ice-cream
and actually enjoy life! ;-) I'm kidding, but really, I'm not.
Look
behind the facade, the Internet does hold tremendous potential
for anyone prepared, niched, focused and organized. Similar
to the gold rush in California, you could be filled with hopes
and dreams of "striking it rich" (on the Internet),
but if all you do is pan and mine all day (for months) and discover
nothing in return$, then you have to ask yourself:
I
guess at this point you're thinking, "Okay, so how much should
I budget for when building a web site, marketing online, developing
product, etc.?" Well, in simple terms, try this on for size:
-
Web
Site Design: $500 to $5,000 on average for small to medium
web sites; higher for more upscale, membership/multi-product/ecommerce-driven
web sites.
-
Shopping
Cart & Merchant Account Fees: $50 to 150/month, depending
on the company and services you choose.
-
3rd
Party Services (i.e., web hosting, audio/video streaming,
affiliate software, etc.): $20-$200/month
Can
you see why it's important to document, plan and audit your own
business every now and then? What if you decided to stop using
a particular service, and yet, the same company kept charging
your credit card because you just forgot to cancel. Wow, $20,
$50, $80 a month in monthly charges (for services you're not using)
can really add up! So, PLAN your online business venture carefully!
Bart
Smith, TheMarketingMan.com, is the founder of MyMarketingCart.com,
which offers shopping carts and other Internet marketing tools
and services to small and large businesses; and MyPaymentServices.com,
which offers merchant accounts and the ability to accept credit
card payments from your customers. Bart is also the creator of
MyTrainingCenter.com,
an online learning resource which offers extensive written, audio
and video tutorials for computers, business, marketing, speaking,
web design and creating information products. Bart also created
ReallyCheapNames.com,
where you can register domain names for "really cheap"
and find web site hosting at extremely low prices. Author
of four self-help books,
totaling more than 1,000 pages, Mr. Smith dedicates himself to
helping others, personally and professionally, wherever he goes.
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