Business website help please

Hopefully you have read my post about a friend or a friend who has done us a very basic website which is terrible, we won't pay and they won't remove the dam site. They quoted us £250, which we now realise is quite cheap, our domain name only lasts 2 years, theres the hosting to consider and some places charge you everytime you want to make a change to the website things we weren't told about. Also when they give examples of the sites they have done, check that you can expect a similar site for the price they give. Ours showed us the sites they had done and ours is nothing like that standard, they came back and said something like that would cost more money, feel we were misled. And my other advice is to not to get friends involved as we now have an awkward situation at the school gates every morning.

Hi al i built my own with dreamweaver, with a downloaded template from
www.oswd.org/designs/browse/
Then you change it all you want

Whatever you do buy your OWN domain name if you can!
When we started we thought we had bought our own domain (website name) - it turns we had paid for it but the webhosting company had registered it in their name and it took ages and lots of hassle to get it into ours and prove we owned it - they were fine about it originally until we left them to go to a different webhosting company and then refused to give us the domain - we had worked on our website promoting it for 2 years so were gutted at the thought of losing it. Definately buy your own name - this is easy and cheap to do - just go to 123reg or 1&1 or a similar domain company, decide if you want it ending .co.uk or .com etc and check if the name is free and then if it is buy it- this is handy to do to 'reserve' the domain name whether you go ahead with the website just now or not, it stops others buying it especially as your business gets bigger and domains only costs a couple of pounds a year (approx £3-8 depending on which domain type and where you buy them). Also buy the alternative names if they are available e.g. mycompanyname.co.uk and mycompanyname.com - you can always point the unused one towards the main website (normally free to do through the company you bought the domain from) and this stops someone else buying that domain.

Sorry if you knew this and only wanted actual webdesign info but I had such hassle getting my domain name back that I mention it to anyone who asks about creating a website.

Oh goodness, do not pay £2000 for that. I use Bluepark as the options are perfect for me but you can get a build your own shop package for about £20 a month. Where it comes to the postage otopns you can choose 'collection' and a price of 0.00. I come out really high on SEO's as it is all about the keywords you use in your descriptions, I do not pay anyone any extra for this. The longer you keep your site running the higher it get's up the list. Simple as that. Google rewards longetivity by placing your ads higher and higher the longer you have a site.

If you right click my username and then choose 'visit my homepage' you can see mine. I do not really have any knowledge of websites, just how to add the pitcures and type the text. I've done all this from home and I've done the entire site myself. Mine is a medium sized package at £40 a month but there is an option where you can have under 500 products on the site for £19.99 a month.

It is so easy to set up and use I promise. You can even email them for a trial site to see how you fel about it. You get this free for 2 weeks and they can incorporate the trial site into the real one.

If you cannot find my website PM me and I will send a link over. There is no contract with Bluepark so if after 3 months it is not working you call up and cancel. Make sure you buy your own domain name via www.123-reg.co.uk and also go via quidco for the pennies in commission, you use that address with Bluepark and build your site aorund that. Bluepark address is www.bluepark.co.uk but there are others out there. I just ifnd that these people have the best options where you can search brands, colours, sizes etc.... If you look at my site you will see what I mean.

HTH

ETA: I did not mean it places your ads but places your items nearer up the list. Generally I am first page for my items, the site I use does all of this for me, I do not do any extra work, just type out the listing. I can see what people have looked for to find me as well as there is a statistics page on the site and you can see what people have searched for and how they found me. If I put a link here for example I can see that people have come via moneysavingexpert.com It really is good value for money IMO - and if you change your mind you've not outlayed all of that money. I was offered the same site design for 6k!! I said no.