Web Presence:
The Pro's and Con's of available approaches

(Why is SiteCosmos™ the “golden equilibrium”?)

The day comes when you decide that you need to have your own web site. Not sure what is involved in getting a web site started? This article attempts to provide an overview of the strengths and weaknesses of three different approaches:

1. The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Way: Create and maintain your web site yourself by using software such as Microsoft® FrontPage® or by writing the HTML directly.

2. The Do-It-For-You (DIFY), Full Outsourcing Way: Have an external party create and maintain your web site.

3. The SiteCosmos “Golden Equilibrium” Way: Use the SiteCosmos™ platform to build, publish, host and maintain your web site.


1. The Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Way

Advantages:

The cheapest way. No fees to consultants, only software tool cost and hosting fees to ISP.
Complete control over web site’s “look and feel”.
Chance to develop own skills, knowledge and creativity.
Rewarding activity as the final result is the product of own effort.

Disadvantages:

Web site often looks amateurish with poor design and navigation and minimal functionality.
Software tool cost and learning curve could be considerable.
Special knowledge about Meta tags, jpeg compression, browser compatibility, ftp clients, HTML and JavaScript coding, loading speed, etc. is necessary.
Web site marketing and promotion strategy, techniques and tools require extensive research and knowledge. Usually, DIY Web sites end up isolated and with minimum traffic.
Time- and effort- costly way. To achieve a desirable result could be an overwhelming task.

Skills Needed:

Patience and Time: This will all take time and effort.
Good PC skills; e.g. a familiarity with both text and graphics applications.
Technical skills or the willingness to acquire them.
Graphic design and page-layout skills.
Internet strategy and marketing knowledge.

2. The Do-It-For-You (DIFY), Full Outsourcing Way


Advantages:

No need for any professional technical knowledge and skills.
Fast and easy way, requires the least effort on your part.
Professional and built-on-your-needs web site. The consultants take care of things like design, navigation, speed and compatibility with browsers. They can even offer you completely customized web sites for your special needs.
Web site marketing (Domain name registration, search engine submission and optimization) can be included in the package.
Web site content creation (images, logos, photos etc) can be done by the consultants.

Disadvantages:

By far the most costly way. Even for basic small sites consultants charge a lot. Larger and especially custom made sites that need business analysis can cost much-much more.
Less control over content and “look and feel” of the site.
Still some basic technical skills needed (although not nearly as many as the DIY way), in order to be able to control the creation of your web site.
Risk that the consultants will not be able to deliver the functionality and design that you wanted.
Risk of project failure due to problems in the cooperation with the consultants.
Maintenance of web site delivered 100% by the consultants with extra charge (usually expensive), which renders your site fully dependent on their service level.
Most of the times content creation should be still done by you; consultants can help, but only at an extra charge.
As a result, you get entangled in a long-term maintenance contract that leaves you with little flexibility and high risk of consultant’s underperformance.

Skills Needed:

To have a clear concept of the purpose of your site. (Is it simply a promotional flyer or a commercial interactive site?)
The ability to liaise with the consultant about how you want the site to look and what you want it to achieve.

3. The SiteCosmos™ “Golden Equilibrium” Way

Advantages:

Ability to deliver your own “look and feel” without having any technical knowledge or skill. You can choose from many templates, styles, fonts and colours that produce an extraordinary number of combinations.
Functionality is based on your needs. Every solution is specially designed for the specific segment (e.g. doctors will find all the necessary functionality for a doctor embedded in the MediCosmosTM solution).
No matter what style you choose for your web site, it is guaranteed that issues like browser compatibility, search engine submission and optimization, professional and functional layout, basic e-commerce features, Flash intro etc. are completely and effectively covered.
Long hours of business consultants’ and design experts’ work is already embedded in SiteCosmos™ and ready for you to utilize!
Low cost for a full, comprehensive (building, hosting, maintaining) solution. No extra charges for maintenance or updates in functionality and layout capabilities.
Building your site will be a rewarding activity as you will have to use your own creativity and imagination in the web site’s building procedure.
Easy and amusing site building procedure …especially for Lego fans J
You do not only create a web site, but become a member of a community expanding in a multinational and multi-segment network of portals.
Content creation can be undertaken by proven professionals (graphic designers, photographers, etc.) within the SiteCosmos™ community – it’s your choice whether to outsource or not!
Maintenance of your web site can be done with the same tools used for building it. No extra charge, no need for extra skills and no need to take the site offline.
Your relationship with SiteCosmos™ is subscription-based; you can terminate it anytime, at no cost. That way you don’t have to worry about risky long-term commitments with third parties.
Contains all the “pros” of both the other ways and eliminates most of their “cons”, offering the best “value for money”.

Disadvantages:

Content (logos, images, photos, text) needs to be provided and updated by you. This can take you a considerable amount of time and effort, but you can always opt to benefit from the SiteCosmos™ community outsourcing capabilities.
More effort and time needed for building the site than with the DIFY way (although this may not hold true if you count the time and effort needed to find the right consultants and work with them!).
May prove not suitable for companies that require a website with extended e-business capabilities, capable of low-level integration with business applications, or highly specialized web design requirements. Nevertheless, it is always worth giving SiteCosmos™ a try – you can always terminate the subscription!

Skills Needed:

To be acquainted with using a web browser and your PC (mainly for uploading images mostly but also for creating your own images and texts).
To have the patience and willingness to experiment with all the templates and functionalities that SiteCosmos™ offers in order to achieve building the web site you envisage.

Conclusion:

SiteCosmos™ provides the “golden equilibrium” in web presence approaches, balancing attributes of “Do-It-Yourself“ solutions (low cost, high control and autonomy) and features of “Do-It-For-You” offerings (segment- or hobby- specific design, “turnkey” solution, professional support).

Solutions currently offered by SiteCosmos™ cover special web presence needs of companies (Small & Medium Sized Enterprises, Restaurants), solo professionals (Healthcare Practitioners, Politicians, Architects, Artists), social events (Weddings, Births) and lifestyle / hobbies (Students, Sport Clubs), in ways much more effective than you can imagine, for a price that is hard to believe!

Check the SiteCosmos™ solution that fits your needs at www.sitecosmos.com!