One of the principal things that has changed in the past five years is the perception of how much a website is worth to a small business versus how much it costs the business. Websites did cost a lot and in many cases were worth very little. Today, the perception is that websites can be worth a lot but that they should cost very little, if anything.

A unique, custom-designed, promotion-friendly, self-managed website costs around £700. Such a site, professionally hosted and backed up with email and domain management should cost around £300 per year to run. Assuming that the business redesigns the site every two years, that's a running cost of just £1.78 per day. That's probably less than the business spends on coffee.

If £1.78 per day is too much for the business to bear, then a website is probably an inappropriate method of promotion anyway. However, it may be possible to do it cheaper, but cheaper options mean compromise. The compromise is usually in systems or design. Poor systems mean that website will not be well managed. Poor design usually means using a pre-built template or an off-the-shelf design. Such site designs are the kiss of death for the small business because they simply tell your customers that you are the same as any number of other companies out there. All successful small businesses are unique and should be shouting it as loudly as they can.

So, for £1.78 per day, a small business can have a great looking, easy to maintain website. But is it worth it? Probably not if the business isn't going to invest both time and money in promoting the website. It's a bit like a business card. The actual cost of the card is 20p, but what does it cost to give the card to someone who is genuinely interested in the products/services of the business? With adverts, telephone, travel, event fees etc. the cost of giving that card to that person may well be £40, or much more. Small businesses don't look at the additional £39.80 because that is ‘overhead', or ‘just the cost of doing business'.

On the web, if you just spend your £1.78 each day, it is like having your business cards printed and then sticking them in your drawer, unused. If the same ratios applied to the web as to our business card example, a small business should be spending £356 per day on promotion. Thank goodness they don't.

So what should a small business be paying for website promotion? Those who have tried Google Adwords (the most popular form of paid advertising on the web) will know that if you follow Google's advice online or in their "For Dummies" book, the answer is still ‘a lot'. However, it doesn't have to be so. A specialist small business web designer should be experienced enough to optimise the site, then plan and execute a website promotion campaign for an additional £2 per day. This should also include educating people in the business on how to maintain the campaign.

A well planned and executed promotion campaign on an optimised website will cost additional fees. These can run into the thousands, but the return on this investment (ROI) will be measurable at all times allowing extremely tight control over the business spend. This means that the business ‘invests' rather than ‘spends' on website promotion.

The trick is to have the website drip feeding just the right amount, of just the right type, of enquiries to the business. Avoid those who promise top search engine listings for no effort other than opening the wallet. Google and others clearly state that this is not possible. Also consider where the business really needs to be and what the consequences would be of being top of Google for the wrong search phrases. A small business can drown from too many of the wrong type of enquiry.

So, is a small business website worth it? When done professionally the answer is a resounding ‘yes'. However, the business will need to be prepared to invest a reasonable amount in producing and managing the website, and a controllable amount in promoting it. Doing one without the other is a pointless waste of money.

Finding a partner who can do all of the things necessary for a small business to succeed on the web can be difficult, but they are out there. Good luck!

For more information visit www.web4sme.co.uk [1]