Need a website? Here’s what to expect and think about

by Anna Pilette | Nov 15, 2022 | Marketing, Small Business, websites

desktop with oversized graphic of a web design ux/ui

What to think about for your very first website

Never had a website before? Start here.

Let’s first address who this entire article is for. I’m not talking to people who’ve had websites in the past or run a massive corporation. I’m talking to people that are just getting started with a small business, in independent contracting, or even as a job seeker.

I’m pretty sure if someone like my dad was starting up his own business, he’d be asking for help with everything from logo design to website help. Which got me thinking. People don’t necessarily know what to ask for or where to start if they’re just starting up their own small business or for contracting or looking for a job.

In fact, based on past calls I received, they don’t know how web designers may charge them for help with website development. Having knowledge on where to get started, is important when you’re figuring out how much money you’ll need to have in your cost analysis for the business plan and understanding your initial budget.

THE DELICATE BALANCE OF A WEBSITE’S NEEDS & BUDGET

Website Domains & Hosting

First off, what’s in your wallet?

Anytime you look for tech to help you with a problem, you’ll have to create a budget. This isn’t a willy-nilly process since there are realistic costs upfront to even having a website to begin with. Best thing to do, is to start with a list of basic costs and create a realistic understanding of how to create your initial budget. This means you’re looking at initial costs of (at a minimum) of $154USD just to have a website plan that works online.

Description	Cost	Notes
IP Address	$10.00	annual – base minimum
WordPress	$8.00	personal – per month
WordPress Business	$12.00	business – per month
Shopify	$29.99	base plan – per month
Wix	$16.00	personal – per month
Squarespace	$16.00	personal – per month

Investigate the costs further, what I didn’t mention is that the IP address can cost up to a few thousand dollars depending on what you’re looking for. The ballpark is around $10 to $20 dollars per year. Finding a domain and purchasing one can be done in a number of places (here are a few of your options).

If you’re a job seeker (or a contractor) you can use a personal plan without a hitch for the basic price of about $154 per year. They’re simple to set up on your own, or with a professional’s help. Most places offer guided instructions to help you, so you can do this without spending extra cash.

For business owners, a basic business plan is a great way to get started. In this case, you’re looking at around a base of $310USD (minimum) per year to have a domain and website hosting. You’ll need the extra options as a business for integrations and themes that you’ll want to have.

Content

Content is a mixed bag of items. Typically, when you hear or read the word “content” you should be thinking about, text, graphics, photography, and video. It’s what’s contained in a website and on the web. So, it should go without saying that you’ll either be handing over your content to a having it created for you, giving it to a web designer, or posting it yourself.

Copywriter

If you need content written or edited by a professional, there’s going to be a charge for it. Rates for good writing will vary, but there’s a typical range you will see that’s asked for in the industry. And there are a couple of ways a writer will charge you for their work, either per word or by the hour. Both usually work out to about roughly the same price. If you aren’t writing your own content, you’ll need to budget on a copywriter.

	Copywriter Rates
	Min	Max
Per Word	$0.10	$0.50
Per Hour	$40	$100

Graphic Art

Art is important as part of the content of your brand, and it isn’t free. This can include your logo, typography, and digital art. The things that make up your brand should be included, even on a bare-bones website. A digital graphic artist can range from $50-$150 per hour based on their skills sets.

Photographer

Professional photography makes a significant difference in content & sales. If you’re business or personal website needs either you or products to look good, you’ll probably want to consider a photographer. Photographers my offer a package for their work, but the standard rate is around $100-$125 per hour.

Web Designer

Depending on the type of website you’re in need of, your price range for a web developer will range from $100-$180USD. I’ll point out here, the more complex the work, the more expensive it becomes. A UI/UX designer might charge a little less than a back-end software developer, but overall, you’ll still need to consider that you’ll spend on average $125 per individual per hour.

Ready to get your website up & running?

It’s pen and paper time.

When you call your friendly web designer (you can read this as: me), we’re going to ask you some basic questions. When I get calls it’s always “How much do you charge?” Well, that answer, as you probably guessed by now, varies. There’s a better way to get started to save yourself some time and energy when you make that call.

In fact, here’s a list of questions you’ll need to be able to answer for any web designer:

What is your website for?
Who are you targeting?
Can you show me 3 to 5 websites that you like from your competitors?
Can you provide examples on those websites of things you do not like?
What features do you want to include on your website?
What is the timeline to start and when would you like to launch?
What’s the overall style of your website that you are imagining?

Therefore, you’re first question should not be “How much do you charge?” It should be, “Can we discuss the different types of websites you create?” This will get you pointed in the right direction of getting help you need to create a website that works on your budget.

Need more help? I’m available and can give you direction or help you with a new website. Give me a shout at info@atomicdumpling.com with some deets about what you’re looking to create.

Anna Pilette

Owner & Project Director, Atomic Dumpling LLC.

About a million years ago, I was in the Navy. After, I worked for a bunch of companies and eventually realized that their business practices left a lot to be desired. Today, I’m helping small businesses and freelancers avoid mistakes and build their own brands. You can follow me on TikTok or where. You can also reach out for help info@atomicdumpling.com

Why is your business not training talent?

by Anna Pilette | Sep 28, 2022 | Small Business, Training

Typed page in typewriter that says "Bestest English for gooder grammar."

Why Is Training Important?

I’m so glad you asked! Before I answer this question, I want to give you a bit of background. I’ve worked for several companies, domestically and internationally. I only worked for one American company that has ever conducted training when coming onboard as a new hire.

After being in the Navy, to me it was surprising that companies didn’t train their people. In the Navy, we spend our time training (and cleaning) when we’re not on watch (aka shift work). We also trained people on watch, because it was important for them to understand both principles and application of those principles. Prior to going onto watch, we were spending a couple of hours every workday training for our job. There was never a work shift day that we didn’t train on a system or otherwise.

In the civilian world, the opposite is true. In fact, I remember several times over the years asking for training only to be denied. The reasons were always rather baffling why.

The Dollars & Sense of Training

Did you know that training talented people is cheaper than the hiring process? It’s also going to be faster than hiring a new person. Let’s talk about the reality I’ve seen in the last 20ish years. While in service industries, it may be that it takes as little as a week or two to hire someone, it can take around 45 days to bring an engineer through the hiring process. These averages I took straight from recruiting websites and Indeed. However, with talent analytics, it can take over 52 days to find the right person.

Now, I’m not going to discuss hiring practices in this blog. I have discussed job advertisements in a blog, but that’s not the total picture. In the very least, it will cost about $4,000USD according to Glassdoor, to hire someone new. But, it can cost as much as 30% of a new employee’s annual income to hire new talent. In the State of Oregon, where my business is located, Oregon workers averaged $55,027USD (in 2019). Obviously, these averages change based on the industry in the state, but you get the point. At 30%, you’d be paying an additional $16,508 for that new hire.

Onboarding a new hire, an average employer spends about $1,500USD to train a person. Of course, this depends on your industry, company size, and the type of training. That’s a big chunk of change. It goes further when you think about shifts in productivity. It’s puzzling to think about, but in the US (and UK), businesses lose an estimated $37Billion because of workplace ignorance.

Ready to talk about setting up a training program? Contact me at info@atomicdumpling.com

Anna Pilette

Owner & Project Director, Atomic Dumpling LLC.

About a million years ago, I was in the Navy. After, I worked for a bunch of companies and eventually realized that their business practices left a lot to be desired. Today, I’m helping small businesses and freelancers avoid mistakes and build their own brands. You can follow me on TikTok or where. You can also reach out for help info@atomicdumpling.com

Everyone isn’t a writer, but writers are a business requirement

by Anna Pilette | Sep 22, 2022 | Small Business

Writing Requires Work & Then Some

Not everyone is a good writer. Yes, I said it out loud. You know what? It’s perfectly fine if that’s not your skill set. But writing is a requirement for business. It’s time to understand why writing is important. It will help you make better business decisions and improve communication.

Forms Of Written Communication & Their Importance

Writing is communication, plain and simple. What isn’t as simple as identifying the various forms of writing and their purposes that can help your business. We also need to establish why good written communication is essential for business.

All forms of writing require skill, thought, and most importantly, the realization you are a mere mortal. Writing for any purpose outside of a wedding invitation requires an incredible amount of work. To undertake a piece of writing will take you through several emotions, at least one life-changing moment, and several stressful situations.

Outside of that, it’s a piece of cake.

Ok, I lied. It’s not as glamorous as cake. In fact, let’s just forget I talked about cake. Let’s talk about writing and why it’s a business requirement.

Day-to-Day Writing

We can start simple and think about the different ways we use writing in our business dealings. Just thinking about day-to-day communications from emails to reports, we’re using our skills to communicate with clients and coworkers. Digging deeper into it, businesses and freelancers need to have good writing skills to create everyday items. The shortlist of daily writing would be emails, memos, reports, meeting notes, and agendas.

Arguably, good writing is the most important skill set you have for your work, whatever it is. It allows you to lay out a logical path for others to follow. Providing comprehensive and informative written information creates structure and clarity for people.

Copywriting is Motivational

I love reading good copy and so do you. Copywriting inspires confidence and curiosity about a brand’s products and services. It’s motivational and persuasive, which is why it’s used for marketing, websites, social media, and newsletters. It’s also the reason we love it. Copywriting pieces are communication, just on a different level. It taps into the parts of our psyche that wants to be wowed by something cool.

It is essential to appreciate a great writer who can get you thinking about a product or service.

The power of persuasion is almost everything for text content in marketing (we’ll get back to this point in a minute.)

Complex Communications Through Technical Writing

On the tech side, technical writing is in three distinct areas, instruction, argumentative, and communication.

Of course, all three are still communication, but let’s talk about the specific role of technical writing.

The goal of technical writing is to always provide complex ideas to readers in a way they can understand even if they are not experts in a particular field. This means that a technical writer must take the information and create text explanations for any reader to understand. In business, the role of a technical writer is expansive covering everything from training to safety to production.

Good Writing Is Critical

For your business, you probably use a mix of both copywriting and technical writing. Understanding your business’s deficiencies in communication is critical in improving your brand. Your business should be constantly communicating to the public your work.

This can happen in several ways that include client or employee training, social media, your website, newsletters, or reports. Any business’s amazing story can be told through writing. It’s up to you how you tell it, and no matter the routes you take, you’ll need great writers to do it.

If you need some good writers, contact me at info@atomicdumpling.com and I’ll help you get started telling your story.

Anna Pilette

Owner & Project Director, Atomic Dumpling LLC.

About a million years ago, I was in the Navy. After, I worked for a bunch of companies and eventually realized that their business practices left a lot to be desired. Today, I’m helping small businesses and freelancers avoid mistakes and build their own brands. You can follow me on TikTok or where. You can also reach out for help info@atomicdumpling.com

Why is a business plan important?

by Anna Pilette | Sep 13, 2022 | Marketing, Small Business

image of newspaper clip for a job advertisement

Do you need a business plan?

When I launched Atomic Dumpling with my business partner, we didn’t have a business plan. Instead, we had an idea checklist and stuck with it. The reality is that we had set up the checklist to think about the things we wanted to do with our side project, which for all intents and purposes, that’s what Atomic Dumpling started as. We didn’t think we needed a business plan until we realized we did need one.

I know it sounds confusing, but a business plan is essentially a guide. After a few months of working together, we realized that a plan would help us be clear on our mission.

A business plan takes you along the stops of starting up and running your business from its infancy. Now what makes it a great tool is that this document is continuously updated as your business grows. It communicates succinct information to partners and investors.

Does my business plan need to be long?

Your business plan needs to be long enough to convey important information. What do you consider “important”? That is a question specific to each business if you are writing to interest investors and partners.

Start out by listing a series of questions that will help you determine what style of business plan you need.

What is your business going to offer as far as products or services?
What are your resources & activities?
What will the cost structures & revenue streams be?
How do you plan to set up your customer relations?
What is your marketing plan & strategy?
Do you have a funding request?
Will you have financial projections for Q1 or A1?

Depending on your answers, you can narrow down how long your plan will be. You can also determine which form of business plan you would like to use. Traditional business plans tend to be longer than a single page, unlike a Lean business plan.

What are the differences between business plans?

There are two styles of business plans both are well known. The first, aptly, is called the traditional business plan and is sectionally written and typically has multiple pages. The second is called a Lean business plan and is more simplistic.

You can download free examples of either from the Small Business Administration. You can create either to suit any business need.

It boils down to your style of writing and what information you feel is important to convey.

As always, if you need help or would like a template created to provide a rich context for your business, you can reach out to me at info@atomicdumpling.com.

Anna Pilette

Owner & Project Director, Atomic Dumpling LLC.

About a million years ago, I was in the Navy. After, I worked for a bunch of companies and eventually realized that their business practices left a lot to be desired. Today, I’m helping small businesses and freelancers avoid mistakes and build their own brands. You can follow me on TikTok or where. You can also reach out for help info@atomicdumpling.com

Are your job advertisements doing the job?

by Anna Pilette | Aug 31, 2022 | Marketing, Small Business

Job Adverts Written to Anyone

Writing a job advertisement seems like it should be a straightforward project, right? Your business needs extra help, you know what you want them to do, so you write a job advertisement for a job board. Viola! You’re interviewing in no time!

While those seem like logical steps, clicking through Indeed and LinkedIn is telling me otherwise. We need to talk, folks. Your job adverts kind of stink now let’s talk about why.

A job ad should be hyper-focused on explaining what the role encompasses and be directly written for the individual you are looking to hire. Again, this seems straightforward, but it isn’t. Most of the jobs that I review are written from a boilerplate template (straight from the job board) and give very little information about the company, role, or who you’re looking for.

What to include

The Basics of Good Job Advertising

What we need is a solid list of information that your business needs to advertise. This is marketing after all, and you want to put your best foot forward. It’s also an exercise in sales. You are selling your company to potential employees to attract their talent. Their talent adds to your business capabilities.

The list first needs basic outlined, think of it as what, why, and where of your business. Then we discuss the who and how.

What does your business do as a whole?
Why does your business need help?
Where will the employee be working?

Let’s start breaking these three points down.

First, you need to explain in a paragraph the business section you’re hiring for. This provides context to potential employees and hopefully will spark their interest to apply. It also provides a bit more background about the job role that we’ll be getting to. Nothing in this section should be found on your website, the point is to outline the department and the function of that space.

Second, why does your business need the help? Providing a little bit of information helps a potential candidate weigh the role further while rounding out the context for the hire. This is the part where you’re discussing the longevity of the role. Will you be hiring a permanent employee, contract, or temporary? It’s also good to discuss if you’re open to independent contractors.

Third, you’ll need to discuss where a person will be working. Is the role a remote position or in an office?

While almost every job posting lists What, why, and whereas a single word bullet point, you can strive to write better descriptions. Remember, this is an advertisement, the entire point is to market your business and advertise it! Providing a little more detail, in the beginning, is going to save you time down the road.

Yes, You Need to List the Compensation

This brings me to the next part. This is where you lead with how you plan to compensate someone for the role. Compensation is imperative to a job advertisement. I’m not sure why people don’t put details on the ads. And don’t give me “because anyone will apply”. People will apply for jobs if they think they have a shot at getting them. You’re missing the mark if you are not spelling out compensation, including the base payment of salary information. I can tell you that I skipped these job listings routinely because I knew companies that did not list their salaries were out to lowball people.

Everyone expects the basic compensation package to include medical, dental, and vision. If you’re looking to hire, you need to step up your game and provide a base salary, how much PTO/Sick Time, and the extras you plan to give people. Lay it all out on the line and explain it.

Totally as a side note, I’ll just tell you to know, that if you give a salary range, everyone will ask for the top of the range. Here’s another freebie for you too, if the compensation you provided is too low, you’d better reevaluate the role.

The Meat and Potatoes of Job Advertisements

Crack your knuckles cause we’re about to dig into the good stuff. Next, we need to discuss the how what, and who of the job advertising.

This is the heavily detailed section of information that explains what the job is and who you want doing it.

I guess I need to talk about something that is continuously overlooked in job advertisements. When you write a blanket explanation that anyone can do, then expect anyone to apply. This means you are not advertising to your target audience. Which is a giant waste of time and money.

Breaking this down to basics:

What responsibilities and authorities does the role encompass?
How will a person be completing the role?
What tools does a person need to know to complete the job functions?
How competent must they be to correctly do the job?
Who is the ideal candidate that you are writing to?

I’d like to point out that while number five on the list is last, this is the theme for the entire job advertisement. “Who is your ideal candidate?” is the reason you’re advertising and that is your target audience.

Throughout this blog post, I’ve asked you to consider this advertising and sales. This means that the writing you are doing is both technical in nature and persuasive.

Who you are writing to needs to be considered. Moving forward, you need to provide a detailed outline of their responsibilities and the authority they’ll have in carrying out the role. This means that there’s an expectation for an experience level as a guide with additional competencies that also need to be examined.

Lastly, how a person is expected to complete the work must be explained. What tools does your company possess? This means providing details for software, hardware, equipment, etc.

Bringing this information to the forefront narrows the pool of individuals that will feel competent to apply.

To Advertise or To Hope, that is the Question

Ideally, you are looking for a single person in a sea of candidates. How do you want to spend your time?

Do you want to write a detailed job advertisement and candidate description? Or do you prefer interviewing the applicants to a generic job ad that might get you the right fit? Which is more valuable to you? Should you spend time fleshing out the ideal candidate on paper? Or bringing in multiple candidates for interviews? I know which I’d pick.

If you need help writing job advertisements the right way, feel free to reach out to me. I’ve spent a lot of years as a hiring manager and building competent teams. You can reach me at info@atomicdumpling.com

Anna Pilette

Owner & Project Director, Atomic Dumpling LLC.

About a million years ago, I was in the Navy. After, I worked for a bunch of companies and eventually realized that their business practices left a lot to be desired. Today, I’m helping small businesses and freelancers avoid mistakes and build their own brands. You can follow me on TikTok or where. You can also reach out for help info@atomicdumpling.com