How to Leverage Low and No Cost Internet Technologies

We all realize intuitively that it has by no means been easier or inexpensive to do “x” than it is these days. In truth, statements like these are uninteresting and pedestrian to the point that you can already consider moving directly to the following article. What if I informed you it’s possible to build an internet site nowadays for $0 in a single weekend that could likely have a price over $100,000 and brought several months just 3 years ago?

After launching the net website Tremors, entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki published a presentation titled “How I Built a Web 2.0, User-Generated Content, Citizen Journalism, Long-Tail Social Media Site for $12,107.09.” And he did so in 7.5 weeks. Closer to home, I acquired an RFP to build a website for a local affiliation on a Friday afternoon remaining year. By Sunday morning, I had the entire website built online with nearly double the capability that turned into protection in the RFP. These two anecdotes illustrate that it has never been less difficult or inexpensive to construct net websites, talk, collaborate, reach out, or network. Nearly all the gear I’ll talk about in this newsletter is FREE.

Domain Registration

The first step in leveraging this equipment in your business enterprise isn’t always losing, but it’s inexpensive. You must be very own and control your domain call to benefit from complete leverage from lots of those tools. Domain registrars can be discovered online and consist of offerings like GoDaddy, Register.Com, and Network Solutions. Depending upon the area stage type (i.e., Com, net, org), the once-a-year registration value tiers are between $10 and $15 per year.

Web Hosting

Next, you want to select a website hosting service that could or might not be via the same corporation. This is your domain registrar. Choosing a web hosting issuer to have to be carried out on the premise of a) the operating system you plan to apply (e.g., Windows or Linux), b) any packages or frameworks you may be installing (e.g., WordPress, Drupal, DotNetNuke), and c) promotions that numerous companies can be going for walks occasionally. You need to pay no more than $four to $eight greenback in line with a month for shared hosting in maximum cases.

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Free, open-source web content control systems have obliterated the maximum of the boundaries to access, which have existed from the early days of the web until now. I commonly use the analogy of an “immediate web website online – simply add water” to explain them. In truth, many hosts provide one-click installations of those frameworks as a part of their service presentation. Most CMSs have the following advantages:

The most popular open-source CMS systems are DotNetNuke, WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. A contrast of these structures is past the scope of this article. However, my take is that WordPress is the very best to install and use, even as the opposite three are extra powerful and bendy with a longer mastering curve. Of the 4, DotNetNuke is the best Windows-primarily based CMS; the others are all LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP).
Google Apps

Google has an unfastened service called Google Apps that provides a laundry list of FREE, powerful services, including email, shared documents, shared calendars, shared contacts, internet analytics, and more. It’s quite easy to create an account and configure those services for your agency, and they supply powerful collaborative functions.

Newsletters

Many groups nevertheless ship email newsletters to their clients or participants through standard email. This is risky for numerous motives. First, many of these domestic-made newsletters violate the Federal CAN-SPAM Act. Second, if sufficient of these emails are sent, you could be violating your Internet Service Provider’s phrases of a provider. In addition to these dangers, they have numerous shortcomings compared to devoted e-newsletter services like Vertical Response or Constant Contact, like the lack of advanced reporting and analytics or attractive HTML-layout emails. Plans start at $10 in keeping with the month, but Vertical Response is FREE for non-profits.

Networking and Outreach

A full discussion of Social Networking is likewise outside the scope of this newsletter, but it bears citing. Facebook recently added the “Fan Page” function, which is turning into an increasing number of powerful tools for organizational outreach. LinkedIn is a more professionally focused networking website whose “Groups” feature is a powerful manner for connecting agencies of like-minded professionals. Many others have their virtues and vices associated with them, but they all have one factor in common: they are FREE.

Leveraging those technologies is like a “do it yourself” assignment at home; you do not need to be a plumber to replace a tap. However, you could now not want to install a new sink yourself. The trick is to locate your consolation area and ask for assistance while you’re out of the doors. The takeaway from this article is that you must, no less than, be aware of the sizable array of low and NO fee technologies to resolve problems today, and you ought to vigorously challenge the idea that “greater high priced is higher.”