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If you think consciousness can be explained by computational devises (not, say steam enginesor wonder tissue), then you have already avoided one of the bugbears, which I’ll try to banish from your mind. If you also think consciousness is an useless biproduct and at the same time a fitness enhancing adaptation, then skip down to the part What part of our consciousness would a mouse have no use for?Dispelling the idea of an indivisible self and panpsychicism, I’ll use three intuition pumps, which repeat the same point, that the type of consciousness, some people want, is not worth wanting.1. An error of addition – The tuned deckA magician performs a familiar card trick of type A. Afterwards his audience of savvy magicians, would see that he might possibly be performing a type A trick, a hypothesis they could test by being stubborn and uncooperative spectators in a way that would thwart any attempt at a type A trick.When they try this, he would repeat the trick, this time executing a type B card presentation trick. The spectators would then huddle and compare notes: might he be doing a type B trick? They test that hypothesis by adopting the stubborn and uncooperative measures to preventing a type B trick and still he does the trick using method C, of course.When they test the hypothesis that he’s pulling a type C trick on them, he switches to method D or perhaps he goes back to method A or B, since his audience has refuted the hypothesis that he’s using method A or B.And so it would go, for dozens of repetitions, as he stays one step ahead of his hypothesis-testers, exploiting his realization that he could always do some trick or other from the pool of tricks they all knew, while concealing the fact that he was using this bag of different tricks. By this simple deception of chunking all the tricks into one called The Tuned Deck, he creates a phenomenon that defies explanation.Using the same rhetorical deceptions, when talking about The consciousness, makes the problem unnecessarily hard. Explain the bag of tricks and you have explained consciousness. Don’t commit an error of addition, there is no reason to be duped like the audience of savvy magicians.Somewhat Similar mistakes happen when you try to find The source of the Nile (there are many), The cause of you behavior (it's thanks to both nurture and nature) and, The cause of the 2. World war. Another closely related idea is the category error, mistaking the unversity for a concrete building on campus or mistaking the battle for the war.But why should you accept this plea to avoid the conceptual sleight-of-hand of The Hard Problem. Mundane explanations, requiring no revolutions in physics, no emergent novelties, might not satisfy your hunger for mystery. I cannot prove that there is no Hard Problem, and you cannot prove that there is.Dennett’s paper on explaining magic2. Real consciousness refers to consciousness, that is not real“I'm writing a book on magic”, I explain, and I'm asked, “Real magic?” By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. “No”, I answer: “Conjuring tricks, not real magic”. Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic.”― Lee Siegel, Net of Magic: Wonders and Deceptions in India3. No finish line in the brain exists, where unconscious thoughts cross and become conscious.“You go to the racetrack and watch three horses, Able, Baker, and Charlie, gallop around the track. At pole 97 Able leads by a neck, at pole 98 Baker, at pole 99 Charlie, but then Able takes the lead again, and then Baker and Charlie run neck and neck for awhile, and then, eventually all the horses slow down to a walk and are led off to the stable. You recount all this to a friend, who asks "Who won the race?" and you say, well, since there was no finish line, there's no telling. It wasn't a real race, you see, with a finish line. First one horse led and then another, and eventually they all stopped running.”“So, there is a sort of stream of consciousness, with swirls and eddies, but - and this is the most important "architectural" point of our model - there is no bridge over the stream. Those of you familiar with A. A. Milne and Winnie the Pooh will appreciate the motto: "You can't play Pooh-sticks with consciousness."The question "Exactly when did the British Empire become informed of the truce in the War of 1812?" cannot be answered. The most that can be said is, "Sometime between December 24, 1814 and mid-January, 1815." The signing of the truce was one official, intentional act of the Empire, but the later participation by the British forces in the Battle of New Orleans was another, and it was an act performed under the assumption that no truce had been signed. Even if we can give precise times for the various moments at which various officials of the Empire became informed, no one of these moments can be singled out—except arbitrarily—as the time the Empire itself was informed. Similarly, since you are nothing over and above the various subagencies and processes in your nervous system that compose you, the following sort of question is always a trap: "Exactly when did I (as opposed to various parts of my brain) become informed (aware, conscious) of some event?"― the three excerpts are from, Dan Dennett, Brainchildren : Essays On Designing Minds4. Amor’s arrow exists, it’s just not what you think it isWhen Helen Fisher in Anatomy of love explain the evolutionary history, the developmental pathway, the neurological correlates, and the function of romantic love, it doesn’t provoke the response; “You have explained away love”.The magic of love or consciousness, like stage magic, defies explanation only so long as we take it at face value. It’s time to stop believing in Amor’s arrows and the ineffable concepts of consciousness. Once we appreciate all the non-mysterious ways in which the brain can create benign user-illusions, we can begin to imagine how the brain creates consciousness.When you explain all the competencies of the mind, then you have explained consciousness. Consciousness gradually arise, when you add more programs to the mind. The user experiences for mice is poor compared to our user experience. I doubt the mouse’s hemi semi demi mind has anything close to our consciousness. It would have no use for it.What precisely would a mouse have no use for? Here Jakob Von Uxkil’s though experiment about the umwelt is a indispensable crutch. Umwelt means around-world or environment, and here describes it from the perspective of a flea, chicken, snail and many more. Jakob-Von-Uexkull-A-Stroll-Through-the-Worlds-of-Animals-and-Men.Here is a story about what it's like to be a snake on a hunt“The snake exploits three different sensory systems in relation to prey, like a mouse. To strike the mouse, the snake uses its visual system (or thermal sensors). When struck, the mouse normally does not die immediately, but runs away for some distance. To locate the mouse, once the prey has been struck, the snake uses its sense of smell. The search behavior is exclusively wired to this modality. Even if the mouse happens to die right in front of the eyes of the snake, it will still follow the smell trace of the mouse in order to find it. That the snake only uses its smell is particularly evident in snakes like boas and pythons, where the prey often is held fast in the coils of the snake's body, when it hangs from a branch. Despite the fact that the snake touches the prey it holds, it searches randomly for it, all around, only with the help of the smell.Lastly, the snake find its head in order to swallow it. This could obviously be done with the aid of smell or sight, but in snakes this process uses only touch. Thus the snake uses three separate modalities to catch and eat a mouse.” Sjölander 1993What part of our consciousness would a mouse have no use for?With consciousness, I mean having a self, a ghost in the machine, an awareness, an user illusion, a center of narrative gravity, fame in the brain, or an unified internal subject and its thoughts and actions.Did earlier humans, from the time of the Trojan War experience themselves as having a self? Should we believe in the claim of neolithic burial practices indicating a degree of reflection about the nature of conscious awareness. Did the reflection “I think therefore I am” occur to prehistoric humans. This inner source of truth plays a role in the inward turn, which is so characteristic of the modern reflective view of self.The introspectable mind-stuff the self interacts with is traditionally called qualia, and covers everything we can become aware of. It have been regarded as intrinsic, private, and ineffable, but current theories of qualia often reject at least some of those commitments. Dennett’s heterophenomenology is the attempt to make other people aware of what the true extent of consciousness is, this means you can in be wrong about your own qualia.Back to the question. How is this mind stuff useful? What’s the evolutionary benefit of consciousness? I will now list five reasons for the existence of consciousness. If you can't do some these things your consciousness is not fully human and I recommend you get an update.1. The public relation module, which help us communicate information in complex social groups, such as lying and enhanced social coordination. This increase in mutually shared knowledge of each other's minds, enables the relevant organisms to interact, cooperate and communicate in more advanced and adaptive ways.When you start keeping track of what other people know, you also have to keep track of what other people think about you. This would make human dominance hierarchies less dependent on brute force, because the group could use psychological violence and ruin the bully’s reputation. Declarative memory is a type of qualia, that helps planning and communicating. People with Blindsight lack access to these conscious memories because they can’t send a copy of the visual draft to the public relation module. People with blindsight can’t keep track of what they know themselves.Language have a central role in our consciousness. Thoughts aren't conscious, only our pronunciation. Many people treat consciousness as closely linked with thought - consciousness broadcasts thoughts to the whole mind. The “central systems” of the mind are concerned with making inferences, integrating knowledge, and planning a course of action. The “central system” have to work with meaning or thought, which isn't what we experience in our consciousness. The data structure or “format” that does correlate with consciousness is pronunciation - patterns of sounds. The form of thought and the form of consciousness aren’t the same.We need to pay attention to the experience of “hearing thoughts” as language in the head. Many people theorizing about language fail to distinguish between the two entirely different data structures involved in meaning and in pronunciation. It’s meaning that does the work the “executive” and “global workspace” theories want consciousness to do. But it’s the other data structure, pronunciation, that’s actually conscious.2. Farsighted elaborate practice. See Merlin Donald’s Origins of the Modern Mind. Increased flexibility and sophistication of control helps us deal with novel situations and previously unencountered problems or demands. Early humans used this elaborate practice to become tool-makers and could adapt to all sorts of environments and types of food.In other words, we have an echo chamber of consciousness. To succeed in the wild, a species needs efficient and timely information processing; dwelling on or constantly replaying information of no use in the present wastes valuable time and energy. Human beings got sidetracked. We developed a habit of “replaying events in our minds” over and over, and this habit, initially “wasteful” of time and energy, is very likely the source of our greatest talents’.Most of our behavior is performed unconsciously. But when you learn something new, you consciously monitor all the steps. Once the procedure is second nature, it becomes unconscious. Consciousness as a scratchpad, upon which we can examine all ways of solving problems, evaluate them according to feasibility and compare them with other alternatives.This is closely related to Free Won’t, which is the ability to delay gratification, where your executive functioning helps you to veto your desire to reach a short term goal, in order reach a long term goal.3. Unified and densely integrated representation of reality. It creates a user illusion filled the meaningful structure of a world of objects. In the stream of consciousness, the self appears to consider one bit of information at a time, creating the unified feeling. Somehow, the massively parallel architecture of the human brain has managed to simulate a densely integrated representation of reality. How does the brain accomplish this? By engaging in the kind of verbal self-stimulation – the kind of talking to oneself. Language is a serial medium: you can only talk about one thing at a time. When one talks to oneself, one imposes this serial discipline on the parallel architecture of the brain. This user illusion conceals the real work of the brain, rather like desktop user interfaces of standard software conceal the complex operations taking place in a standard computer’s hardware.4. Global informational access. Giving some mental content the appropriate amount of influence. Deciding what gets fame in the brain. He folk psychological concept of attention captures this design spec. It's important to remember the horse track story, there is no finish line, which define what's conscious. Depending on when you look on the race track, there is a different answer to who's leading, grabbing the fame, and stealing the attention. It's a pandemonium of thoughts running to increase their influence.5. Increased freedom of choice or free will. The freedom to chose one's actions and the ability to determine one's own nature and future development. When the inevitable of yesterday becomes evitable today, is what increasing your free will means. The more you learn, the more you can do. Today you can't decide to be cured for cancer, but someday that choice is possible. The kings and queens of the past suffered from a many inevitable things, which evitability we take for granted. Their consciousness was poor compared to the average Joe in the 21th century. The royalty couldn't have done otherwise.Why do we ask "could he have done otherwise?" We ask it because something has happened that we wish to interpret. An act has been performed, and we wish to understand how the act came about, why it came about, and what meaning we should attach to it.That is, we want to know what conclusions to draw from it about the future. Does it tell us anything about the agent's character, for instance?Does it suggest a criticism of the agent that might, lead the agent to improve his ways in some regard?Can we learn from this incident that this is an agent who can be trusted to behave similarly on similar occasions in the future?If one held his character constant, but changed the circumstances in minor-or even major-ways, would he almost always do the same lamentable sore of thing?Was what we have just observed a "fluke," or was it a manifestation of a "robust" competence or trend. A trend that persists over an interestingly wide variety of conditions?Was the act evitable or inevitable for the agent?Conclusion: All of the above can of cause be right. Whether a mouse wouldn’t have any use for these tricks in the toolbox of consciousness, I haven't thought through. The tools seems to come in handy for Mickey Mouse. But they would probably be overkill for a regular mouse, and since Mother Nature is stingy, the chance for the spread of Mickey’s genes would be slim. A mouse have all the consciousness it needs. It have a bag of tricks which creates the necessary affordances in its umwelt.Greedy reductionism: Neural myopia, bland evolutionism and the spiritual dualistLibet’s search for the precise time and place of conscious decision in the brain is misguided. The search for conscious will at such microscopic, neural scales is a category mistake(such as going around at a university and saying you can't find he university-building). There is no concrete, datable, conscious will in the brain. The categories ‘conscious will’ and ‘conscious self ’ apply not to brief activity in parts of the brain at specific times, but to spatio- temporally extended patterns of activity by whole persons. All it takes to have an efficacious will that issues in behaviour, for which a conscious self is responsible, is to be a sophisticated, self-redesign- ing system: a system controlled by a Joycean machine that enables it to respond flexibly to information about the past, by changing itself in ways that enable it to better pursue its goals in the future.Another misguided way to answer why we have consciousness is to the churn out evolutionary platitudes as Dan Holliday:First he shows his aversion of adaptationist explanations, and creates a degrading stance towards consciousness. He write: ”Consciousness may not be an adaptation at all. Consciousness could be a spandrel -- a "side-effect" of natural selection for other traits, such as behavioral flexibility and refined pattern-recognition.” Who say behavioral flexibility and refined pattern-recognition isn’t a part of consciousness?Evolution of adaptations through natural selection, explain most complexity, and the critiques of adaptationism, notably from Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin, don’t propose any other mechanism, that could account for the complex design of consciousness.Holliday then say some other blatantly true fact about evolution “Along the way in the evolutionary history of our species, various forms of mutation resulted in larger and larger brains with greater complexity. The reason these mutations (adaptations) survived, is that each generation with just a tiny bit more brain power was able to survive longer and make more babies. Eventually we gained enough ganglial mass to allow for very complex intelligence. There wasn't a moment of consciousness.”This could be said about any evolved adaptation. He misses the problem to which consciousness is the solution, because he is so found of the idea, that consciousness might not be a solution to anything. He therefore doesn’t tell us what is the function of complex intelligence, brain power and ganglial mass. This type of evolutionary explanations might provoke a reaction such as Craig Weinbergs.Weinberg write: “consciousness is not merely part of everything, but that 'everythingness' in itself is only made possible by a capability for participation and perception which is absolutely fundamental.” Or as another person writes “if consciousness could affect the workings of a physical system like the brain at all, wouldn't that violate the laws of physics?”. Or “Why ponder about consciousness serving an idea of evolution when one has the opportunity to revel in the mystery of it and simply enjoy it? Why limit the joy of the moment with a thought? Consciousness isn't a manifestation of biological process. Consciousness is a fundamental structure to reality.”All of the above sentences is a variant of this pernicious meme: “You just explained consciousness away”. In Dan Holliday’s case it is justified. But when less reductionist theories are proposed, they suffer from collateral damage. You should preserve the phenomenon is a philosophical dictum, which underlies Weinberg’s objection. To this I can only reply, consciousness exist, but it’s just not what you think it is. You’ll hardly miss your old conception. A story told by William James convey this plea more vividly.“A story which revivalist preachers often tell is that of a man who found himself at night slipping down the side of a precipice. At last he caught a branch which stopped his fall, and remained clinging to it in misery for hours. But finally his fingers had to loose their hold, and with a despairing farewell to life, he let himself drop. He fell just six inches. If he had given up the struggle earlier, his agony would have been spared”. [James, 1902, p. III]Weinberg continues: “In our rush to embrace a mechanistic worldview, many people have chosen (ironically) to deny the possibility of free will*. In that case, any possible advantage for consciousness would be neutralized, since all decisions which the brain makes would be deterministic rather than participatory, and whatever dubious role left for consciousness in the brain's functionality would be devoid of possible effects on selection. We can't have it both ways. Either consciousness is adaptive because free will allows conscious individuals to make their own choices (and more importantly to innovate new choices) or consciousness is some kind of epiphenomenon or spandrel, and cannot be an evolutionary advantage.”Weinberg wants consciousness to give us free will, which is just as scientific as Holliday’s brain power. These thin concepts invite misunderstandings, because they don’t get down into the nitty gritty details. (Cashing out free will or brain power, will have to wait until another time.) But an evolutionist talking about general facts of evolution will seldom say anything that rings clear for a folk psychologist theorizing about what it’s like to have free will.

The acronym OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. Much has been written on the topic over the years yet they still remain a mystery for many. I want to cut out all of the buzzwords and lift the veil on what OKRs are, how they work, why they are good, how to set them and why you actually should use them at your company or startup. Consider this The Ultimate Guide to OKRs.Let’s get started.Credit: OKRs - The Ultimate Guide to Goal Setting in 2019 - CorvisioThe FundamentalsOKRs (Objectives and Key Results) is a methodology of setting and achieving goals within a set time frame. You can use words like tool, framework, system, approach, strategy to describe it but they all mean the same thing. At the end of the day you and your team are going to sit down and write a few sentences on a whiteboard (or a napkin, as was the Uber’s case). Each sentence is going to have a top part (the Objective) and a few key points under it (the Key Results). Let me give you an example of what these look like right now:Objective: Increase user-baseKey Results:–Increase per day views to 2,500–Increase total monthly unique visitors to 40,000Before we get to explaining anything in more detail, let me give you another example:Objective: Delight our customersKey Results:–Hire 25 new motivated and aware customer account representatives–Simplify the refund process from 15 clicks to 5 clicks–Create 5 new seasonal products and start selling them in our storesWhat can we see from these 2 examples of real-world OKRs?We see that Objectives are short, bold, memorable and generally, inspiring. We see that Key Results are much more specific and they all have a number. In fact, in the OKR methodology, key results are almost always defined with numbers. They don’t tell you how to hit those numbers, only outline a specific goal. Also, key results often help define the objectives. For example, how do you know what Delight our customers means specifically for this business? Here, the key results explain and provide a definition for the objective: hiring 25 reps, giving customers refunds in 5 clicks and creating 5 new products will delight our customers.So, OKRs are…simple, concise and self-explanatory. They are well understood by every single employee in the company. Yet together Objectives and Key Results create a powerful system that helps not only to evaluate, measure and achieve what matters for your company, it unites employees around a common goal. Let’s take a look at what companies use OKRs today.What Companies Use OKRs?Those would be Google, Intel, Amazon, Uber, Box, Dropbox, Deloitte, Facebook, LinkedIn, Sears, Oracle and Netflix. And many more. Did I mention Panasonic? What about Slack? Yep, they too use OKRs. As you can see, OKRs are used by a wide array of companies which ranges from tech to retail to manufacturing. The reason I mention Google and Intel first is because these two companies are seen as the originators of Objectives and Key Results method. Let’s delve into a brief history of OKRs.A Brief History of OKRsAndrew Grove developed and implemented a system called Objectives and Key Results during his CEO tenure at Intel (the overwhelming success of Operation Crush has been attributed to his use of OKRs). In 1975 an Intel employee named John Doerr took a class on OKRs taught by Grove. John went on to work for a venture capital firm called Kleiner Perkins, which invested in a startup called Google in 1999. John introduced the idea of OKRs to Google’s founders and they have implemented it throughout the company during its first year. Google grew from 60 employees to 100,000 and still uses OKRs today.OKRs vs KPIsKey Performance Indicators have been around for a long time and are still used widely by many companies. KPIs are performance metrics which demonstrate how effectively a company is pursuing its key business objectives. KPI goals are defined to be attainable and to measure the process or a project already in place. OKRs, on the other hand, are bolder. They have greater depth than KPIs and provide a better framework for taking on new projects, ventures, even new directions for your business. They are aggressive and ambitious and in setting them higher than what is achievable right now, they make your company and employees stretch farther than previously thought possible. This helps promote individual and company growth.Why Use OKRs and How to Use Them?There are three major benefits to using OKRs. The process of defining and setting OKRs in and of itself is a great way to evaluate where you and your company stand on your journey. OKRs are about being honest with yourself. This is a chance to sit down and say: “This is where we are great – let’s do more of that”. And “this is where we suck – let’s change that”. By brainstorming for the OKRs you will be able to identify the weak and strong points of your company, from the company vision down to the marketing team’s productivity. You want to take an honest look at your business and create Objectives and Key Results which will empower your strengths and correct your weaknesses.A Clear VisionThe second major benefit of OKRs is that at the end of their time frame they provide a reference to evaluate how well you did in executing the set objectives. Things become clear – what works and what doesn’t. They let you reflect on the progress made and provide you with a clear numerical expression of success.Because key results and objectives include numbers in their definitions, it is easy to tell whether you have hit the number or not. Hire 25 motivated and aware customer account representatives this quarter? We hired 20. That is an 80% success rate, which is a great indicator that not only we were able to secure 20 new stellar employees, but we were able to move towards achieving the goals we have set in the beginning of the quarter. The total success rate of an Objective is calculated by averaging the success rates of its Key Results. Hitting a 70% success rate and above for objectives is a good indicator of a healthy team or company.A Way of ManagementThe third major benefit of using OKRs is that it offers a transparent and intuitive way of managing a company. OKRs are a communication tool. Setting company, team and individual Objectives and Key Results aligns the business in a way where all people focus their efforts on the same important issues. It communicates where the company is moving and how it is maturing. This helps promote a healthy culture of fellowship and unity among employees on all levels. And that, as we know, is good for business.OKRs Are AgileOKRs are usually set in the following way throughout the company: Company OKRs are set quarterly, Team OKRs are also set quarterly and Individual OKRs or initiatives are set weekly. Depending on the size of the business, whether a 2-person startup or a 1,000-strong company, this may change to accommodate your current growth dynamics.Unlike the rigid annual planning, OKRs let you adapt and respond to change. They allow for flexible goal setting and progress tracking. Because updates for OKRs are usually provided weekly, monthly or quarterly, it is easy to track progress during their life cycle.OKRs provide the flexibility to pause certain objectives if they become irrelevant after their implementation. You can adjust key results as the company needs shift and the business environment changes. Of course this might mean that Objectives and Key Results were not defined correctly. No big. Like with everything worth getting better at, you get better at OKRs with practice. Defining OKRs becomes easier as you learn what you should be measuring and what matters to your business.The agility of OKRs lies in the impact on the outcome and the people. Objectives and Key Results are less of a contract and more of a collaboration between various parts of a company, its teams and employees. OKRs facilitate synergy between profits and ideas. Not only do they help provide insight into your own business, they let you know exactly which areas you are being successful in and which areas need improvement and redesign. OKRs help inspire employees and promote a healthy, organic growth of the company.

Your website is like your car. If you never check fluids or get a tune-up, it won’t work when you need it. Maintaining your website requires some effort and includes a price tag. Even if it’s not a “BMW”, it is a vehicle critical to your marketing.The real cost of creating and then maintaining a website is usually not apparent from its onset. How the internet works is constantly evolving in a strange dance between technology that’s both pushed and pulled into existence by tech leaders and consumers.Cost and performance go hand-in-hand. Your website can be central to driving business revenue, or operate on the sidelines. To get more, you’ll have to spend more. The better you understand your needs, the less likely you’ll be surprised by unexpected fees.When first launching a site, you have to register a domain and space on a host server. Then expect to pay an ongoing fee, to continue using the space, at minimum. The provider, price, and package options vary widely. For example, you may pay the web host to maintain your website, or hire an independent webmaster.Building a website is now super-easy compared to ten years ago, in a relative sense. It’s possible for a complete novice to independently set-up a website for under a hundred dollars. The downside is a novice who’s not a fast learner with TONS of time on his hands can quickly become overwhelmed. At best the site will experience negligible traffic, and at worst get hacked or be suspended by the host if it lacks proper maintenance.Large companies usually have a contingent of geeks on call who can troubleshoot their problems, but small businesses often have shoestring support operations. But if you cut too many corners, your business could be offline for days. You should ask yourself from the outset what is the right level of website maintenance and support for my business?Here are the key elements that dictate the cost of maintaining a website.Hosting and Domain NamesBuying a DomainThe good news for startups is that you don’t have to pay a fortune to buy a domain. Speculation on domains by investors has faded since the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) rolled out more top domains.In a recent article, Forbes stated the best place to start your search for domains is via GoDaddy or one of the many other name registrars, and it should only cost you $10 – $12 a year. Domain extensions such as .tv and .vs will cost between $20 to $40 for a year. However, you can also get some pretty good deals depending on how the registrar packages their services.Small businesses should start thinking of a catchy name for their site. If you’ve done your trademark research, getting a domain that matches the name of your company should be doable.HostingA web host is essentially a company with a bunch of servers connected to the internet and the World Wide Web. Size, quality, and security of service ranges widely. Cost starts as little as $1 a month but you’ll get roped into a contract of least two or three years. I recommend paying a bit more and using a well-known host since they usually have better IT support and are less likely to go out of business.Recently, PC Mag reviewed the best cheap web hosting services in 2016. They range in price from HostGator at $3.33 a month to HostMonster at $6.95.There are benefits and downsides to cheap hosting. For one, a low-cost shared or managed WordPress hosting plan is acceptable because sharing doesn’t mean other users can check out your files. The space you use is “partitioned” from other space on the same server. However, crashes can happen periodically when the server space is used up. A good hosting company addresses this quickly and has backups to get everyone back online.Costlier versions of hosting are dedicated and Virtual Private Servers (VPS). VPSs start at $30 a month and make sense for larger websites that want to reduce their liabilities with downtime and get better customer support.A dedicated server gives you the entire piece of hardware on which you can host multiple sites or one super-sized site. It’s the best model for high traffic sites that need additional security, but you should expect to pay at least $100 a month.Besides the storage space issue, cheaper hosting services may lack robust options for managing your site. For example, regular backups and restoration should the server crash, or your website is hacked (which is much more likely than the server getting hacked). You may opt for a low-cost subscription, or tempt fate and take a chance on paying an expensive on-demand restoration fee.Also, email accounts and content management systems may not be included, requiring you to source them elsewhere. You can save the hosting fee by using free web hosting, but you will have to put up with annoying ads.Hiring a Web DesignerOne of the first questions you will face when planning a website is whether you should hire an independent designer, a web company, or (shudder) do it yourself.Many smaller businesses will use a DIY approach to save costs, opting for a CMS provided by the host site or an open source software like WordPress. Also using free or low-cost templates or themes (manages the overall look of the site), so all they need to do is plug in text and images.Images heavily influence the look of a website. You can expect to pay about $5 to $20 per royalty-free stock image. We recommend using professional photography as much as possible, so your website truly reflects your company.If you want something unique, custom built themes usually cost $1000 to $3,000. It depends on how much work goes into the design.There is a gradient between using purchased templates and a custom built one. Purchased templates are customizable to an extent within their settings. A good coder can also revise the template to make it appear fully customized with half the work.However, this makes the template impossible to update by the original designer (popular template providers are regularly updating their themes with new features), so carefully consider this avenue for the long-term implications.Your website builder may or may not help you maintain the site. If not, you need a webmaster who will be your go-to man for monitoring it and making updates.A webmaster can charge up to $150 an hour and package their services starting at 2-5 hours a month. There are smaller web design companies that charge $50 or less an hour. Skill level and responsiveness vary widely. Know what you need before looking around, and then check references. Nothing is more frustrating than an incapable or non-accessible webmaster.Small website owners can expect to spend approximately $100 a month, and medium sized site owners (15-50 pages) can spend approximately $400 to $450 a month for a webmaster to watch their precious digital marketing tool or point of sale system.Make sure the web company you hire doesn’t cut corners when it comes to security systems and backups. The savings you claimed on that bargain basement service will be wiped out when you have to rebuild from scratch.Ask yourself from the outset if your website budget will stretch from construction to on-going maintenance.Updating CostsIf you have a static website, you are likely to have a static business. Beyond routine maintenance, consider how often you want to overhaul your website. Some companies do small updates every quarter and then an extensive overhaul every two years. Others continually work on their site, so overhauls are far apart.The look and feel of websites change almost as quickly as fashion, and updates in Google’s algorithms can penalize static sites. There’s also the self-evident point that your website will become boring if it remains the same.If Giorgio Armani made his models wear the same clothes in Milan from one year to the next, his brand would suffer. It’s the same with your website. No matter the industry, a dated look implies a dated company.Reasons Why You Need to Update Your Website1.The Content is Out of DateIf your site refers to events that are old or hosts out-of-date reports, it will look dated to the visitor. Time sensitive material that’s old gives the impression your business is stagnating.Your webmaster can easily handle small improvements such as replacing photos or adding links. But, if you are adding or revising entire sections, consider hiring an SEO writer and website designer to give the content in your site an edge over the competition.2. To take Advantage of New FeaturesWebsite technology is evolving fast. In recent years, it has become increasingly important to have features on your site that integrate with social media because of how much traffic it can send your way.Online security is another area that’s fast-moving. You will need to invest in securing your site with an SSL certificate that will encrypt communications to assure customers their personal details are safe with you. We deal with the costs of SSL certificates in the next section.3. The Look May Be Out of DateAnimated graphics and flash elements went out of date in the 1990s. Now and again we still see websites that look obviously dated. It’s unlikely that you will dress in flares or rah-rah skirts. Update your website as well as your wardrobe. Today’s most successful sites embrace simplicity and clean lines4. It’s Not Responsive for MobileIn May 2015, Google revealed that more searches are taking place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 leading countries including the US and Japan. The announcement marked a significant milestone and one that Google anticipated the previous month when it brought in an algorithm change that benefits sites optimized for mobile.The Wall Street Journal reported on how the leading search engine had tweaked its algorithm for mobile searches to “favor sites that look good on smartphone screens.” If the content of a site is too wide for a phone screen and links are too small your site will be negatively affected.Most all websites built today use responsive design, so it displays cleanly on multiple devices. You can learn more about responsive versus standalone mobile websites in a few of our other posts. A fully responsive site that can adapt to any device or screen can cost anywhere from $2,500 to $25,000.The Cost of an SSL CertificateAn SSL certificate (security socket layer) is important to apply to a website that collects a lot of personal data from visitors. It ensures the information they enter through their browser securely reaches your server. Don’t worry, the cost of an SSL won’t break the bank.This article in About Tech evaluated 80 SSL budget certificates from 30 different certificate companies. The certificates that were evaluated ranged from about $9 a year to $60.Companies such as Thawte offer five SSL certificate options ranging from the $149 year to the Wildcard SSL option starting at $499 a year that cover multiple subdomains. All the certificates have 128/256 bit encryption and come with a warranty ranging from $100,000 to $500,000.Many of the cheaper SSL options offer a lower warranty. If you do a lot of e-commerce, it’s worth considering the higher end plans. Savvy buyers will not make purchases if they see the site is not secured.Form Processing FeesIf you are handling large amounts of form information or receiving large file uploads, you may need to buy forms.Forms can resemble paper or database forms because web users fill them out online using checkboxes, or text fields. Forms are used to collect credit card information and shipping details, for example. Building online forms that sync to a custom database can be difficult, not to mention costly. Services such as Wufoo will make it easy for you – at a price.Wufoo offers four packages. The first three forms are free. For $14.95 a month, you can get ten forms and up to 250 MB in uploads. An unlimited number of forms and 1 GB of uploads is $29.95 a month, and 3 GB is $69.95 a month.Paid CMS Versus Free CMSChoosing your content management system (CMS) is as crucial a decision for your website as the design of it. A CMS is the back-end of a website that you access to make updates to the content seen on the front-end or internet side of the site.Popular and free CMS include Joomla, WordPress, and Drupal. It’s easy to find themes and plugins (additional website functions) for them that cost little to nothing. However, each CMS has their strengths and downsides.For example, Joomla is often preferred by designers because they have more control over customizing the design, but it’s not super friendly to an average user such as a business owner that wants to make a few updates to a page. To-date, WordPress is the most popular for SMBs.The alternative is a standalone or custom built CMS. The custom route is for websites that have a unique purpose that an open source CMS can’t support. For example portals for learning, online communities, or systems for research. Costs can range from $10,000 to $100,000 and is usually taken on by purely online businesses.Custom built CMS are typically proprietary. The company that builds it owns it. They can choose to let others license the system or not. An online business is not likely to share their CMS since it’s unique platform sets them apart from their online competitors. However, it’s not unusual for website design companies to have their own CMS just for clients.In these situations, you will have to sign at minimum an annual contract for them to build and manage your website. If you want to move to another webmaster or designer at some point, you can’t take the site with you. It’s connected to their proprietary CMS.On the plus side, you have a company that manages the day-to-day tasks of your website, and you never have to consider such things as security issues, patches, and updates. On the downside, if they don’t maintain a good development team you could be stuck paying for a CMS that is limited and buggy.It’s wise to plan ahead when you might switch from one CMS to another CMS. The best time is when redesigning the website.AnalyticsGoogle and many other SaaS offer website analytics starting from free up to hundreds of dollars a month. The importance of accessing analytics at times is overrated. The data is not very useful if you don’t have someone who can interpret the trends and repurpose your online presence to react to them.The more help you want with analyzing data, the more it costs. You should plan in this in your budget if your business depends on website traffic.How Much Should You Pay for Analytics?Google Analytics Premium starts at a staggering $150,000 a year. You get “higher data limits, more custom variables, a service level agreement, and a dedicated support team.”Even if they threw in an Audi, we wouldn’t recommend a small business spending this much on analyticsIf you have a web provider that manages your website, analyzing the analytics may be included in the annual contract price. Otherwise, you can use Google Analytics for free. It’s relatively straightforward if you have the time to learn the system and then regularly check what it reports.The Cost of Plugin/Widget SupportA plugin is a somewhat technical term for a tool or function you can add to your website that helps either the back-end user and/or interfaces with website visitors. Widgets are mainly content or interactive components that you can arrange in the sidebars and footers of your website. Widgets are created via plugins and basic ones come with the CMS.Many plugins are related to social media, support the play of audio and video media, support e-commerce functions, or help make the site more secure.Plugins and widgets are predominant in open source CMS. Still, you can build custom plugins for open source CMS, and integrate purchased plugins into proprietary CMS if compatible.The majority of plugins are free, but you can only use the basic functions. You then either make a donation, pay one time, or subscribe to a service to access the full functionality of a plugin. Costs range widely. Most of the time you’ll spend up to $60 for a one-time purchase and subscriptions are often $5 to $35 a month.In summary, there are no easy and fast answers to the question about the cost of maintaining a website but there are some helpful estimates.Scott Darden, president of Devizan Inc., presented the following breakdown of costs in an article in NFIB.Domain name registration = $10-$15 annually;SSL certificate (assuming pricier certificates add greater trustworthiness) = $70-$300 a year;Hosting = $40-$200 annually;Templates and development tools = $100-$200;Design services including graphic design = $400-$1,600;Site development = $600-$2,000;Maintenance (dependent on how well the site is set up) = $400-$1,800/year;Payment processing = $0-$250 a year.The bottom line of Darden’s realistic calculations is a small business website will cost about $1,100 – $3,800 up front with annual upkeep and maintenance costs of $600-$2,800.You may keep your site ticking over for a few hundred dollars a year but it’s likely that you will be taking risks. Alternatively, you could be investing five figures a year on a raft of features that you don’t need.How much it will cost to maintain a website a year may depend on how much you can realistically afford to invest and how much business you generate. Draw up a realistic budget and hire an expert to help you. The more trial and error you can remove from the process, the better. Hope this guide helps and visit here for more details.