One woman we spoke to told us she was wary of having a website because “Someone did come to see me. He spoke a huge amount of technical jargon and I didn’t understand one word. Then he charged me R30 000 / £2 300 and has now left me with a thing I’ve no idea what to do with. I felt embarrassed and stupid and told him to take it down and now I have nothing.” Ouch!

It’s all good and well to be told “you need a website” but unless you know what for and how you can use it in your type of business (and each business has its own unique aspects) you’re just about guaranteed to start off on the wrong foot.

A lot of people seem to be under the impression that to be able to understand how to make a website work for you, you need to understand all the technical detail involved with computers, the internet and whole bunch of other complicated stuff. But you don’t!

One of the comments I hear often is “I can hardly turn on the computer so a website will be just far too difficult!” Mmm, let me ask you this: can you drive a car? Yes? That big intricate machine on four wheels that has hundreds of different parts all working together to make you go from A to B – you can actually drive it? Yes!

Besides the absolute basics, like knowing the wheels turn to make it move and it needs fuel and water, do you really know how it all works? Probably not. But you can still drive! You can still make it work!

So why would you have to get into the technical side of a website to make it work? You use a mechanic to make your car work and a web developer to make your website work. Technical know-how and the desire and ability to do it all yourself isn’t necessary to drive in either instance. (Of course, for those who are interested, there’s nothing stopping you from “getting your hands dirty.” )

As for what you need to know to get started with “driving” your website effectively, it’s all quite straightforward. For a basic overview of the main “parts” or building blocks of a website, click here. A very easy explanation of terms like internet, ISP etc can be found here.

"Will My Website Work?" is a free guide that will give you more info on what you need to know to get a website that helps you do better business. (Subscribe to it at the top of the left hand column on this page.)

Once you’ve read this short guide you’ll have enough information to make a good judgement call on whether the website you’re getting is going to best serve your needs or whether someone’s just trying to pull a fast one on you.