To the starting internet entrepreneur, there is nothing more discouraging then the erroneous realization that your dream for a self sufficient business cannot be realized without a heavy investment. This may be why so many people shy away from the internet; seeing all the flashy sites, many of which are $50 templates, people are afraid to enter the world of internet sales and marketing.
One obvious, but perhaps frightening option is to build your own. You may do this in a variety of ways from purchasing a hosting package that comes with templates, to designing your own. Many templates are of excellent quality and can serve as a great starting point for your ancient website. A great site for getting templates is Templatemonster, here you will find many templates that cater to your general business interest. You may easily integrate them into your site and start promoting your site in this manner.
Another solution is outsourcing. If you do not have a corporate venture backed budget you may want to consider getting a freelance firm from India, Pakistan, or Russia or any other country where the dollar still carries weight to do your design. Russian companies tend to be more on the technical database development side, while Indian companies are all around excellent designers. One of the best sites for this freelance recruitment is Freelancer.com. They provide a forum where the companies bid on your project, any budget, any website you will get dozens of eager freelancers ready to make you your dream site. Freelancer.com is an excellent way to get your site up and running or even update your existing site within a reasonable budget.
The choice between making your own site and outsourcing it is hinged on a very simple concept known as CMS: content management system. In other words, how much freedom do you have to manipulate your site? How much will every update cost? The same company that quoted $400 per page also quoted $20 per 15 min of upgrade time, the reasoning that it is faster for the company to do an upgrade, meaning that a 30 second link exchange would cost you $20. For this reason EnkiTel looks home grown, however I can manage its content instantly, design and redesign at a click as inspiration strikes and I am not dependent on anyone.
Hence, freedom becomes a central issue; if your site is a static site and you do not plan to actively ad links or change content day in and day out, then you do not need the flexibility, otherwise be very careful when choosing your web design company. There are many options, make sure you do your research. Then again you can put your heart into it and do it all yourself, it's the content, SEO, and link exchange approach that will get your site ranked and showing in the top organic results in the end, the site appearance becomes more important once you start getting the heavy traffic, then eye appeal becomes more important.
Gene Leshinsky
http://www.enkitel.com
EnkiTel Communications provides a cheap alternative to traditional long distance and international calling plans. EnkiTel strives to identify the best deals on the market and present them to our customers. EnkiTel also runs a blog for starting business, sharing ideas, resources, and commentary.