Normally, if you want a professionally designed, custom-built website for your new virtual assistant business, you should be prepared to spend at least a few hundred dollars.

But, all that can change if you know where to find the best deals and the best designs for the lowest price.

First, it costs more to have a brick-and-mortar company design a website for you. Have you seen those newspaper ads that offer a 5-page website for $500? These are probably companies with physical locations. They have to charge more simply to pay for their overhead: office rent, designers' wages, advertising costs and so on.

Therefore, it would be wise to use a virtual assistant (VA) instead! As you already know, VAs often work from home so they do not have high operating costs like a big company does. On the other hand, a VA will be able to design images with quality similar to (or better than!) those of designers from big companies.

However, choose your VA with care. The best way to find the right VA for your project would be to go to visit the website of a VA association. There you can post your RFP (request for proposal) and have hundreds of talented VAs bid on your project, so you will get the best deal. You will also be able to choose your designer based on her experience, past transactions and client testimonials, so your value for money is secured.

Another route you can take is to purchase the Virtual Business Startup System, created by Tawnya Sutherland. It comes with several beautiful, easy to use templates, perfectly suited for a new VA. The templates are easy to edit wth the help of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) programs such as Microsoft Frontpage, Macromedia Dreamweaver and so on.

Using Coldfusion dedicated server, web developers can build multi-functional websites, content publishing systems, e-commerce websites, and a host of other things. Coldfusion is an easy to learn, user friendly, tag based scripting language which has connectivity to enterprise level data and strong in built searching capabilities, all of which helps in creating brilliant web pages.

Developed by JJ and Jeremy Allaire and released as an Allaire product in July 1995, Coldfusion along with Allaire was acquired by Macromedia in 2001, while Macromedia in turn was sold to Adobe Systems in 2005. A Coldfusion dedicated server is an application server used to develop both computer software and dynamic websites. Products in the same category as that of Coldfusion are Microsoft ASP.NET, JavaServer Pages or PHP. ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is the scripting language, similar in nature to JSP, ASP.NET, PHP and HTML is a brilliant and distinguishing feature of Coldfusion. Nonetheless it must be remembered that other CFML application servers apart from ColdFusion exist as does other compatible scripting languages like Actionscript and embedded scripts written in CFScript.

A Coldfusion dedicated server is generally used for data filled websites or intranets but remote services like SOAP web services and Flash remoting can also be generated using Coldfusion. Asynchronous forms like SMS and IMs can also be handled by Coldfusion thanks to the gateway interface, available in ColdFusion MX 7 Enterprise Edition.

Some of the value added services that come with Coldfusion are:

• generation of client-side code for form widgets and validation
• converting to PDF and FlashPaper from HTML
• database querying, regardless of platforms via ODBC or JDBC
• data retrieval from Active Directory, LDAP, POP, HTTP, FTP, Microsoft Exchange Server etc
• XML parsing, validation and querying
• client and server cache management
• clustering of server
• session, client, and application management
• Using Verity K2 for file indexing and searching
• Task scheduling
• GUI administration

Certain implementations of CFML allow enhanced functions like running in a .NET environment and image manipulation.

First of all, what is a Content Management System?

A Content Management System, or CMS for short, is an application designed to facilitate the creation and management of content.

So, do you need a CMS?

Whether or not you may need a CMS solution depends on the size of your website, the amount of traffic you receive, your skills as a webmaster, the number of users who will be adding content to the website, and many other factors.

Website Size

The content of a large website can be very difficult and tedious to maintain if a content management system is not used. Most CMS solutions will store the content in a database in an organized fashion. The administration interface of the CMS should provide an easy way to manage the content.

On the other hand, a CMS solution for a small website may be overkill. A website with a small number of pages is easy to maintain, but may need a content management system solution as it grows.

Website Traffic

The amount of traffic a website receives can be a significant factor in deciding whether or not to use a CMS. Static html pages have always been the fastest loading, whereas dynamic pages need to be compiled or pull information from a database. The processing behind these operations can add time to the loading of the page. It is important to consider the amount of processing that takes place behind the scenes in a content management system. Fortunately, there are many lightweight CMS solutions these days for high traffic websites.

Webmaster Technical Skills

A content management system can be an easy solution for a webmaster who lacks the necessary skill set to create their own website. Most CMS solutions contain a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. The editor allows for the creation of website content without HTML or other website specific knowledge.

There are many templates available which can be easily installed in many content management systems. Some of these templates are free and some come with a small cost. Another solution to creating the look for your website would be to hire a website designer. This can come with a significant cost, but you'd be getting the exact look and feel you want for your website.

Website Users

In many situations, a website will have more than one content provider. In this case, it may be beneficial to consider a content management solution, as a good CMS system will have the ability check in and check out content. The purpose of check in and check out is to prevent more than one user from editing the same content at the same time. Multiple users on a static website can create many problems with content updates without the help of a CMS system.

Conclusions

There are certainly other factors to consider in whether or not to use a content management system, but hopefully the information contained above will help you in making an informed decision.