Site Building Programs
There are lots of programs out there that are designed to build websites. Some are easier to use than others - I suspect that all of them are too difficult to use for someone who just wants a 5 page "brochureware" website and who has no previous computer experience…
Some years ago, my bread and butter was in providing such sites to small businesses and individuals - it was not hard work sourcing new clients as there are thousands and thousands of businesses that have absolutely no web presence.
My idea is to bring together a package which allows the following;
- Domain Name
- Website Hosting
- 5 (or more) page brochureware website
The website would be a cookie cutter type affair. The buyer would create text files for the page content - 1 txt file per page. The program would be sent to the buyer on CD-rom (or DVD) - he would simply insert into his computer and follow the instructions - perhaps the whole thing could be done online instead, in fact it would probably be easier to do it all online. I am thinking that the process would be as follows;
- Choose Domain Name
- Choose Website Template
- Upload the Text Files
- Pay (link to payment processor)
- Create Hosting Account (done automatically)
- Create and upload website (done automatically)
- Wait for DNS to resolve
- Done.
I believe that there is a very large market for businesses to come online, even with just a small informational website (index, about us, our products, contact us, privacy).
Of course, it is also true that some customers would soon not be satisified with such a site, that is the time to upsell to an e-commerce solution (or whatever type of website they do require).
Cost; domain names are generally £10. A dedicated server costs £100 per month. Templates are nothing. If each client (remember that these are businesses) was charged say £200 per annum for the 5 page set-up, there is quite a margin of profit available. With a maximum of say 100 clients per server (remember that these sites are not "heavy"), the profit potential appears to be quite interesting.
The downside is that clients will require some hand-holding…this is enough to put me off the idea, but I believe the idea is a good one.
Comment by Dave — February 13, 2007 @ 2:56 pm
And this has been done 1000's of times already. But that is not to say you can't do it better. 123reg, streamline etc are domain companies that offer website building systems. Almost every PC mag comes with simple software to make websites. The key for the success would be the advertising, and you are probably looking at doing a physical mail out to local business to get a decent return as the potential client may not be all that "web savvy".
Comment by Chance — February 13, 2007 @ 4:14 pm
Most hosting companies pack 200+ sites on a single appliance with SQL databases and some sort of server side processioning (PHP, ASP, etc.).
Brochureware sites would more than likely be straight HTML and 90% of them would get less than 500 uniques a month unless they have some great diggable content. I would think you could safely up the density of your hosted sites on one server to 150-200 without adverse performance issues.
I know there are some web based scripts for automating the sales of hosting packages with cPanel- in theory this could be 100% automated where the customer signs up, buys their domain through your reseller account for one of the registrars, the server assigns them a cPanel account, and they move along to your generator.
Comment by Oli Allen — February 13, 2007 @ 4:46 pm
For such simple sites, why even bother with a dedicated server? You could fit tens of them on a pretty small reseller account.
As for the hand holding - get a premium rate phone line
Comment by Chris H — February 13, 2007 @ 5:01 pm
Aren't microsoft doing these small business sites for free with some respectable business software thrown in? Will see if I can find it.
Comment by Chris H — February 13, 2007 @ 5:04 pm
Ah, Office Live.
Comment by gary — February 13, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
The theory would suggest that everything could be done automatically - I see no (technological) reason why it could not.
A good idea about getting a premium rate number for hand-holding.
Comment by SarahG — February 13, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
I'm already in talks with a client over offering a similar service and although ours won't be automated I won't actually be doing any of the work!! My client will be my contact and he'll liase with the end business, he puts his price on top of mine and he does the hand holding and probably in a much better and less technical way than I would.
He's already got a list of businesses in need of a basic site, most of which believe it costs thousands to get a domain, a few emails and a web site up and running!
Comment by Oli Allen — February 14, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
Another idea - create a program that can perform the above tasks, make it look nice - and easily brandable - then sell it to other web design companies as a promotional tool…
Comment by Antony Berkman — February 18, 2007 @ 6:13 am
SiteProPlus.com does this however utilizing a content managment system. We do a free custom website design up front based on photos, logos and business of our client. Our customers have zero obligation to sign up after we do the design. If they like the design they sign up for $224 and receive 1 year of hosting, domain and content manager. It's a crazy value as we have professional designers customizing these sites for our clients. Provided they give us their content we will build out the first 5 pages. After that they edit and add content to their sites. We have a fast turnaround time. Self serving statement >>> for a service based business there is no better value on the net. People think we are nuts. Which I am
Comment by gary — February 26, 2007 @ 12:58 pm
Mark at 45n5 has a freebie site building program available. It's pretty limited, but for free, it's good.