People call me, email me, talk with me in person, and often they have the same issue. They lack the knowledge of where to begin with a web presence in today's business world. I understand, as a small business owner, there is a serious lack of time availability to teach yourself to do web stuff. Most people sort of understand Facebook, or Twitter, and think that a business can operate solely from those sources, but if you haven't noticed yet, people are becoming immune to business posts on social media. Maybe it's because everyone including your friend's Grandma wants you to buy essential oils, but people aren't looking at social media like they used to. The basic, yet beautiful and user friendly, website is back in full swing. If you're not relevant in Google, people won't find you.

Consumers today want a simple search and solution. They don't want to "find you on Facebook." Hell, a lot of them hate Facebook to begin with. If I'm looking for a painter in my town that does good work, I'm not busting out the yellow pages, I'm not polling my friends on Facebook, I'm opening my browser, and I'm searching for "Painter in (my town)." From there, I use Google reviews and page rank to find a company that takes the time to keep themselves relevant online and has a good website, and then I'm giving them a call or an email. Bada bing, bada boom. House painted.

"Okay, Chad, so what are you trying to tell me here?"

Well, I'm telling you that building a website isn't building a rocketship. It's simple these days, even with limited knowledge. The learning curve is exceptionally quick, and if your business isn't worth putting 8-10 hours into then your business clearly doesn't want or need more business.

"But, Chad, I can't keep up with this stuff."

Monthly upkeep time with an online presence is probably about 30 minutes. If you keep your site relevant by changing content and adding a post from time to time, you'll continue to remain high in the rankings. Just put your laptop in front of you while you're drinking your morning coffee twice a month...that's it. Use Squarespace, use Duda, use Weebly, use whatever...just don't hire a "website company" and pay them $600 per month to do literally nothing for you. I hate when someone tells me, oh I pay XYZ company $600 per month to "maintain my website." There is NOTHING TO MAINTAIN for them. They simply sit on their ass and collect your money. Once you pay for hosting, and purchase your domain, you're looking at about $200 PER YEAR. At $600/month (in my area this is a low figure for a web company to "maintain"), you're spending $7200 annually for something that can be obtained and done even better for $200 and a cup of coffee every two weeks.

Look, I get that sometimes people don't want to learn this stuff, and if that's the case, hire me, or whoever, to build the site to your liking for a thousand bucks or something, then teach you how to blog. Boom, less than $2000 later, you've got an amazing site, that does what you want, that drives business to you. All you have to do from there is give a crap about your business twice a month for 15 minutes. Totally. Worth. It.