When business owners head out to buy a website, they often don’t understand what is important and what is not.

That isn’t surprising - there is no one size fits all approach to running a business online, and there are so many different tools and techniques it can be overwhelming.

Mike Moran, in his post The Most Important Part of a Website points out that the most important feature is being able to update it yourself.

Early generation websites relied on coding the website in HTML and then uploading the website files to the web server (and this technique - while dwindling in popularity - is still used today in varying forms).

Content management systems store the information on the web server. When content management systems were first released, they were often expensive and you paid a special license fee for them.This is no longer the case.

Open source content management systems are available - free of charge - that let you update your own website in a user friendly way. We use Wordpress, but you can also get a website based on Drupal, Joomla or many other open source software platforms that won’t come with a hefty licence fee.

If you can’t update your website yourself you are at a big disadvantage.

A lot of businesses want their own website, but have put it off because they don’t know how.

At OM4 we have put together a system that allows you to create your own website quickly and easily. Importantly, when you have created your site you can:

• update your own content - add new pages, add blog posts, change information any time you want
• update your own design - either follow our instructions to do this yourself, or you can use any graphic designer to do a custom design for you
• use your own domain name - just register with any domain name registrar and we’ll help you with the rest
• add images, YouTube videos, audio, links to Google Maps
• add contact forms to allow visitors to contact you with enquiries
• add your own BuyNow, Add To Cart and Donate buttons to accept payments direct to your PayPal account
• full integration with Google Apps so you can have free email at your domain

Sign up here for a free trial: OM4 Website 30 Day Free Trial

We’ll send you regular emails giving you instructions on how to use your site. While we have lots of information that you can read all at once (if you are in a hurry), most of our clients find it easiest to get instructions bit by bit.

You’ll be learning to maintain your website using the industry leading Wordpress platform. Every time Wordpress issues a patch or an upgrade, we apply it for you. You don’t need to use FTP or anything more complex than the Wordpress dashboard, which is used by millions worldwide.

You’ll have access to a very useful set of Wordpress plugins for you to use, and keep these up to date as well. While anyone can download and use Wordpress, in practice you may find upgrading the software can be a bit tricky. As can selecting the right mix of plugins to support a business website. With OM4, this is all taken care of for you.

And what does it cost? Nothing to try it out. If you want to keep on after our 30 day trial, then it costs $20 AUD per month. That is less than you would pay for a normal business website hosting account (and that wouldn’t normally include someone administering your website for you).

So, did you get the link? OM4 Website 30 Day Free Trial

Wordpress plugins are really useful for all sorts of business purposes. We support plugins that:

• let people subscribe to your blog posts using RSS or email
• enter client testimonials and have a randomly selected one display on every page
• maintain a collection of quotes and display a random one each page
• integrate an email autoresponder such as Aweber or iContact so visitors can sign up to your email list direct from your sidebar
• integrate your website with Google Analytics so you can see exactly how many visitors are coming to your website, which keywords they are using to find you from search engines, which websites are referring visitors to you, and which pages they are reading

Ok, no reason now not to give it a try. If you have any questions, just log on to our OM4 forums and ask a question - no charge for forum answers.

See you on board!