Alot of the folks I've talked to usually have a student do their site in exchange for lessons. Its a simple time exchange, and lets be honest, in most cases, the school owner comes out ahead.
The problem is of course, when that student leaves, or you decide to do something beyond their skills. Almost anyone can slap a site together in a few hours using Frontpage or the free sitebuilder tools many hosts provide. Of course, you often end up with a site that either looks slapped together or like everyone elses, just in blue, not red.
The other side of the spectrum is where you pay 10's of thousands of bucks for the same thing. I've seen the work that the folks with NAPMA do... it all looks the same to me, and they charge $15k+
Is either one good? Depends. I look at a website the same way I would walking in your door. If you have a ton of junk by the door, the floors a mess, and the guy teachings wearing half his lunch, I aint training there....and Im sure many others wouldn't either.
My personal belief if that your school/organization is unique, so you should have a site that reflects you, not someone else with some cosmetic tweaks.
Michael, We've had about 15 minutes total downtime in the last 6 months. Quality hosts have backup generators, redundant connections, etc. Full specs on what we offer is at our biz site, or ya can click the banner on the support forum.
You are right, 95% of your students will find you thru your local advertizing. What I tell school owners is to use their websites as an information source for their students, and a 'teaser' for perspectives. Put up an image gallery of past events, belt promotions, test schedules, video clips or even a virtual tour of the school. It becomes a full time sales tool, but one of many you should be using. Biz cards, flyers, brochures, signage, community events and involvement and a web presence. All combine to help market you and your organization. A good developer will help ya see the potential and advise you on how to best use it.
Put another way, you get what you pay for. If you go the cheep route, it won't produce as well as you'd like. For a pro look and push, ya go with a reliable pro. BUT! do your homework...I've yet to see any martial arts site (federation or otherwise) worth more than $3-5k, with most in the sub-$1k range.
Heck, I can slap a 1pg no-email site together and host it for a year dirt cheap $50 US ($78 CAN). (Add $15 for domain reg if ya need it) Ya want more? lets haggle
Of course, if you can run it yourself, more power to ya. Most of the MA folks I've talked with aren't the most PC savvy of folks. I thought about running a site off my home DSL, but reconsidered after a 15 min outage 1 day. With the traffic MT gets, I need the reliable box and datacenter support. (This place is busy!) Bottom line is though, if it works for you, then its good. I just think there are soo many good sites out there, they just need a 'nudge' or 2 and they could really rock.
As to the IKKA folks, tell em to contact a lawyer familiar with Domain Dispute policies and ICAAN (sp) regs. They may be able to get things corrected in their favor.
:asian:
