5 Website Rights of Small Business Owners and One Responsibility

  So every business needs a website.  Even little businesses.  But there are many ways to get your website done, and many ways that people can take advantage of small business owners who don’t know what to look for or what to ask for.  So, based on more than 15 years in the web design business, here are 5 things small business owners are entitled to:

    1.    You have the right to be the administrative contact on your domain registration.

Your domain registration is the connection between a number computers recognize (an IP address on a server) and a name you create (mygroovybusiness.com).  It is a business asset, like your capital expenses.  While it’s fine to have someone else be the technical contact on your domain name, you need to be the administrative contact.  This gives you information about renewing your domain, power to change your technical contact, etc.  If your website company won’t let you be the administrative contact for your domain, they are controlling a key asset of your brand.

    2.    You have the right to text on your site. Actual text, not text embedded in images.

Search engines find, organize, and list sites based on their visible text.  Not keyword tags, not hidden comments, and definitely not text in images.  If someone offers to create a site for you, make sure it isn’t a ‘sliced’ site - a picture that is cut and pasted, with the text of the pages embedded into images.

    3.    You have the right to a blog that you can maintain yourself.

A blog is just content and comments.  It’s about providing content and creating community.  It isn’t about complexity or expenditure.  As they say on Wad’Ya Know “Anyone who says otherwise is itching for a fight.”  There are great free blog sites like Blogger and Wordpress.  There are free comment management systems like Disqus.  There are easy and affordable ways to integrate blogs into your site, from Sandvox to Drupal.  So don’t spend more than you should, just get it if you want it.

    4.    You have the right to a contact form.

A contact form is pretty simple - it’s a glorified, slightly managed email access point, and saves you from putting your company email addresses on a site, where they can be abused by spammers.  There are free form creation sites like JotForms, and many templated sitebuilders like Sandvox build them in.  All these forms do is compile information and send you an email, but they're important and worth putting on your site.

    5.    You have the right to a simple site at a reasonable cost in a reasonable timeframe. . . AND the responsibility to keep it simple.

You shouldn’t pay thousands of dollars for a simple 8 page site with a contact form.  These sites are straightforward and can be done in a few hours as long as you've got the content ready.  But you are responsible to keep it simple yourself.

• Simple means no customized templates, no complicated interactions, no fancy movies, and not dozens of highly customized graphics. 
• Simple means a couple of options, and a couple of revisions, not months of back and forth. 
• Simple means understanding that designers are small business owners too, that they have skills beyond those of a $12/hr retail employee, and that they shouldn’t be asked to work on spec or to do more than the agreed terms for a flat fee.