It used to be that only larger companies could afford to have their own presence on the web. Hosting wasn’t the cheapest and getting someone to create a proper design could prove to an expensive endeavor. These days, however, shared hosting is extremely affordable and you don’t need to hire a custom designer to make your company’s website. For many small businesses, a simple WordPress site can do just fine; WordPress is for more than just blogs.

So, exactly what steps are involved in creating a WordPress-based website for your small business?

1. Decide on a domain name. Dot coms are typically the best, because they are the easiest to remember, but many companies also find success with .ca or .net domains. It’s up to you whether you want a wholly unique domain or one that matches your company name. After you’ve decided on a domain name, check to see if it is available and then go ahead and purchase it.

2. Buy hosting. If you’re just starting out, you may want to go with an inexpensive shared hosting plan until you outgrow what that can offer. If you decide to host your site on BlueFur, use the coupon code ilovepandas to get 10% off.

3. Install WordPress. BlueFur makes this process very easy, thanks to the Fantastico installation. It only takes a couple minutes.

4. Choose a WordPress theme. There are tons of free themes on the ‘net, so pick one that best suits your company. If you’re comfortable, you can alter and adjust these themes as you see fit too. Install the theme in the appropriate directory.

I’ll continue with this article in next week’s edition of Business 101. We’ll talk about how to set up the WordPress blog as a static site, issues that you may want to consider regarding a header image, and what critical content should be included on your site.

If you have heard of web 2.0 but not sure how these can apply to your business then the book Meatball Sundae is an excellent starting point. As always Seth Godin creates an excellent book chalked full of examples that you can ponder on how to improve your business.

I personally found this book to general for my own specific needs. The book covers topics like the long tail of search, Digg, YouTube and social networking. These trends are all things I am aware so for me the book could have gone in to more depth.

I see this book as a good resource for business that are not very web savvy. If you are an online business then this book might not be much use to you.

The title is a unique metaphor used through out the book. Most companies being meatballs that generate average products for average people are using web 2.0 trends to make their meatballs look more like a sundae. This leaves you with an unappetizing meatball sundae. The general idea of the book is that if you wish to make use of web 2.0 trends you need to restructure your business from the ground up.

If you have read this book what did you think?

I’m usually more of a Canon guy when it comes to consumer digital cameras, but the specs on the newly announced Sony Cyber-shot W300 certainly grabbed my attention. While most people can be perfectly satisfied with five or six megapixels on their cameras, other people want the highest resolution possible in the smallest package possible. For people like that, there is the W300.

The most notable feature on the Sony Cyber-shot W300 is that it is capable of taking pictures at an astounding 13.6 megapixels of resolution. That’s probably enough for you to print out a full-sized poster of Fido, Mittens, or whoever you happen to be taking a picture of. This is a quantum leap for most people when it comes to digital camera megapixel counts, but Sony has managed to keep the price reasonable at about $350.

If you take the megapixel count down to 3MP, then you can also take advantage to the W300′s burst mode, which is capable of snapping at five frames per second. The rest of the features include ISO 6400, smile detection, 3x optical zoom, and automatic scene detection. The Sony Cyber-shot W300 is expected to hit stores this May.

Welcome to season 2 of Geek of the Week. We are changing things up this time around with a modification to the rules. Instead of having a yearly winner we will have 4 quarterly winners. Every 13th round we will announce a winner based on who has won the most rounds for that quarter. The winner of each quarter will receive $50.

This weeks questions are…

1.   Who is this?

2.   Who is this?

3.   Who is this?

4.   Who is this?

5.  What do these people all have in common besides being bloggers?