In our world today, if a business does not have an Internet presence it is losing ground rapidly to an increasingly sophisticated marketplace.

The paradigm has shifted and the more traditional ways of doing business are quickly fading off the radar of consumers. Ignoring or abhorring technology equates to being left behind in the parking lot while those doing business online have already left the terminal.

The future is all about what the world wide web brings to the table in terms of competing in the free market. The old methods of advertising are fading fast. Customers prefer the convenience of online shopping to the ever increasing hassle and expense of traveling to a brick and mortar business location.

The number of prospective customers in the immediate area around a business location pales in comparison to the shopping audience online. The web numbers are exponentially larger.

To be off line in today's world of commerce is to be guaranteed that a business will fall behind the curve and only fade back even further as time passes.

The web offers marketing, sales, service, information and communication opportunities that heretofore have simply not existed. The future promises even more of the same with an even greater emphasis on speed and convenience.

So if you have a company that is not on the Internet, now is the time to catch the wave of the future. Without it the competition will become even tougher. With it, a business can grow and prosper in ways not otherwise possible.

The options available to build a web site and create an online presence basically boil down to two possibilities. First, hire it done. Second, do it yourself. Consider the pros and cons of both.

Paying a service has clear pluses. Find the right provider and you get instant expertise and a polished finished product. The downsides are obvious. Hire the wrong provider and, as is the case with anything else, you will not get anything that is anywhere near your money's worth.

In either case, it will cost a bundle and unless you can deal with the inevitable glitches and break downs in house, the ongoing expenses can be quite high.

More significantly, you can easily become dependent on that outside resource which may or may not be reliable, dependable or, for that matter, even remain in business. Under such conditions, when your supplier fails, you fail.

The do it yourself option keeps you in the self reliant category and keeps your expenses down at a minimum level. Thus when something needs to be done it can be attended to quickly and inexpensively.

On the other hand, if you do not, as is the case with most folks, have any expertise on web site design, creation and maintenance, it will require some time and focus to get there. In other words, you will have to learn how to do the required tasks yourself.

That can become problematic in terms of finding the right provider that teaches the basics and also supplies the resources necessary to get the job done. All along doing so in an easy to understand manner and at minimal cost.

When going this route, look for an established resource that is available online, provides all of the support required to get your questions answered, includes access to others doing the same work so that best practices can be shared, has web hosting, provides a user friendly step by step web site builder, has links to the most helpful Internet sites for add ons and can provide testimonials as well as examples of actual, functioning successful operations.

At the end of the day, do what works best in your setting. There are plenty of people for hire who can do the work for you. But if you are independent minded and prefer to be self reliant, an example of an excellent learning resource is linked below. Click on that link and see what you think.

But most importantly, do not get left behind. Start a web site for your business now. The longer you delay, the more you fall behind the curve. See you online.

BUILD A WEB PRESENCE

I am a career entrepreneur currently involved in starting a franchising business, running a nonprofit, taking occasional contract assignments and building a work from home online business. Thank goodness we live in a country featuring individual liberty and free market capitalism. START A BUSINESS

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