Small office / Home office
Online Web-site builders a help to small businesses

By Doug Beizer
Special to The Baltimore Sun

E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Mark Tyrol is a lot of things: an engineer, an inventor and a businessman. He is not a computer programmer. But that didn't stop him from building a Web site where he markets and sells a product he developed.

Using just the templates and the point-and-click tools at Bigstep, a Web-based site builder, Tyrol built his e-commerce site for an attic-door insulating device he developed called the Battic Door.

The Web-based tools to build a site have been around for years, but the variety and sophistication of these offerings have never been better. Anyone, especially small-business owners, can build a site without buying software or knowing programming language. If you can drag, cut, copy and paste with a mouse, you can build a site.

Besides Bigstep, other services such as Homestead and Interland allow anyone to build a site — everything from a simple photo album to a business site with databases and e-commerce. The services host the site, provide or help register the Web address and give you building and maintenance tools.

Bigstep's entry-level offering for $9.95 a month includes the point-and-click builder, 25 megabytes of disk space and a tool for analyzing Web traffic, said Peter Chambers, chief executive of Affinity, which hosts Bigstep and similar sites.

Bigstep's more-costly packages include such features as more storage space and the capabilities to create custom pages and to build and maintain a customer database.

The offerings start out with templates. To customize from there, Bigstep has "building blocks" to add headlines and text blocks or alter the layout.

Like Bigstep, Homestead has a range of services starting with its newest offering, PhotoSite, a digital photo-sharing service that starts at $4.99 a month.

"We wanted to address what about 80 percent of individuals want a Web site for, and that's sharing photos," said Justin Kitch, Homestead's CEO.

PhotoSite comes with digital-photo software, the ability to share online photos and an easy-to-remember URL (yourname.photosite.com).
 
For $9.95 a month, Homestead offers the basics for one Web site with up to 10 pages and a Web address generated by Homestead.

Homestead's package for small-business users provides a personalized Web address, e-mail accounts and an unlimited number of pages.

The real power of Homestead is its click-and-drag page-design tools. Need a shape or border? Just click on one of the hundreds of buttons to choose one. Adding text is just as simple.

"We kind of equate it to PowerPoint usage; people who know how to use that application can easily use Homestead," Kitch said.

Another Web-site service, Interland, offers a professional Web designer who will craft a custom Web site, said Dan Bricklin, chief technology officer of Interland.

"You end up with a powerful Web site that you can add to and fill in with content," he said of the $95-a-month service.

The service also includes coaching and support from Interland's designers.

For small-business owners, Tyrol says, having a Web site is indispensable.

"It makes a little company able to compete with the big companies," Tyrol said, "and it makes you look much more established. Everybody should have one."

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company