Is Your Website A Money Gobbler?

These days, small business owners need to have an easy-to-navigate, informative website to attract customers and make their businesses more credible.

Websites, social media and mobile marketing are no longer options, they are necessities.

As you can imagine, running and maintaining a website can take up a good portion of your marketing and advertising budget.

Fortunately, there are ways you can save when it comes to your website and online marketing strategies.

Save Money on Your Website

While you may naturally want to put website expenses at the bottom of your list, savvy business owners know the importance of making their website a top priority. Building a website doesn't have to cost an arm and a leg, though.

Here are ways you can save money on your website needs:

• Budget for your website - Don't put your website last on the list of things you need to pay for, but instead, fit it into your budget and cut expenses elsewhere, if need be. As the following article looks at, “The new and improved way to save money” includes paying your bills, then yourself through savings, then spending money on other items. Think of your website as a bill, not just an item to spend money on if you have leftovers.

• Build it yourself - No, you don't need to be an HTML or coding expert to build a website. There are hundreds of step-by-step tutorials online that walk you through the website-building process. Find a hosting service, such as Bluehost or GoDaddy, download WordPress and purchase a theme or use a free theme. Websites can take as little as 15 minutes or less to get up and running.

• Write your own content - No one knows your business better than you do. Instead of hiring someone to write all your content for you, consider writing it yourself. Creating content for your website will be the most time-consuming part. Instead of trying to get everything completed in a week, try setting aside one hour per day to work on your site until it's up to your standards. This can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Not only will you save money, you'll also learn new skills.

• Hire out the hard stuff - If you're having trouble getting a pop-up window on your site or creating a slideshow at the top of your page showcasing your work, it might be best to hire out the work that could potentially take you all day to figure out. You can use sites like Elance or Fiverr to find website experts that will help you with your site for as little as $5.

Overall, saving money on a website isn't hard. Instead of spending thousands of dollars to get it up and running, give it a try yourself.

Find a host, download WordPress and purchase a theme or use a free theme to get you started. Create new content each day for an hour until your site is exactly how you like it.

Thousands of new websites are created each day by business owners just like you.

You'll learn new skills and maybe even enjoy the work in the process.