The World and the World Wide Web have changed in the past few years. A lot!
These days, it’s so easy and inexpensive to get on the web. At the very least with a single page and a domain name. There is no longer an excuse not to be “on the web.”
A few years ago, a study came out saying 30% of small businesses were yet on their own web page. I hope that’s changed, but I’m not so sure — especially in rural areas. (Does Your Company have a Facebook Landing page yet?)
Merchant’s Circle offers a great solution (one every small business should take advantage of in addition to their own site). And there is Google Local that can help support a web “presence.” But what of a small company’s own web presence?
Well, I’m traveling around small and rural towns with my li’l red wagon (aka, my laptop) building one-hour web pages and testing out theories. Almost like One-Hour Web-inizing. I call them Shingle Pages
You can get your own single-page site for less than $200. Just fill out this easy form to get started.
Your Personal Portal Page
I have my own portal page. It’s at MikeSansone.com It’s built on a cool tool called flavors.me.
Yesterday, I read about a new personal portal-type of tool called About.Me (hat tip to TechCrunch). I haven’t seen the admin area of about.me yet (I did reserve my name and you should too), but I know that flavors is very easy to use. Super simple to build a quick page that can act as several things at once:
- a single-page, brochure site for “who you are”
- a brief one- or two- paragraph bio
- contact info
- a photo
- a portal to other places you have on the Internet, be it social or otherwise
- Social Networks
- Online Resume
- Blogs or Wikis
- sites where you contribute content
- sites that have you ranked or awarded
I’d try to take a minimalist approach to these types of pages, but you can find various uses for them. I know there are even a few small, rural businesses using this type of page for their web presence.
I believe the trend towards single-page, personal portals is going to grow – especially with “free agency” and “gainfully unemployed” becoming popular job descriptions.
My suggestion is for you go reserve your name at flavors and about (and maybe both) today.
