Building a website advice needed?????

MorknMindy

Hi, if you are just starting out (which is certainly sounds like you are doing), I would strongly advise you to use such sites as eBay & Amazon (could be dependant on what you are selling). People here have marked these sites already in this post with negative aspects I can understand, but as a research tool alone, you will find it extremely beneficial... So you can test such things as:

- Find out what your optimal selling price of your product(s) is.
- Competition research
- How much you can sell

Again, remember; such sites have been around many years now and their marketing campaigns online are amazing, plus they understand every single process from an eCommerce point of view, from how best to sell/display to search engine optimisation (SEO) that helps their sites rank higher for keywords in the search engines.

Using such websites is purely down to you, but I'd strongly suggest you just do some business projections, ie, projected income/outcome from using such sites and if it is still affordable/sustainable to use, or do you risk it and create a site... totally standalone and brand new with no reputation and by the sounds of it, not much tech no how behind it.

Sorry, I do not mean to put you down in any way in that last sentence, I just want you to understand how extremely difficult it will be for you have just a standalone site. If anything, use both - setup with eBay/Amazon or however and when time/money permits, research more so in to creating a site. However, for further advice, I strongly suggest you go elsewhere.

Try some of these websites in gaining technical and more importantly, online marketing know-how (I use these and I am an internet marketing manager):

https://www.seomoz.org - internet marketing (strongly linked to search engine optimisation).
https://www.webforumz.com - ask the question again ref building a website/hosting a website, design etc.

Best of luck. Any further questions from this, please PM me.

John.

Hardeman

Hellooo -

I'm sorry I can't offer you advice.. I too am like you - just starting out and need to build a website - a small one - I am a psychotherapist and trainer..therefore i don't need any pay facility - just a nicely presented page or two with info on it - any help where to start appreciated..

Hardy

MorknMindy

Hello Hardy, I would highly recommend Wordpress. It is a first class content management system used for blogging and sites of all sizes. Uses a WYSIWYG editor, it's free and you have a choice of thousands of templates, designs and other addons to use.

I use it all the time (great for experts and novices). How about hosting of this website. Thought about that yet? I've recently changed 90% of the websites I own over to BlueHost.com. It is an American company, but their product is very cheap, very professional and their support, even via emails is very helpful and more importantly, fast!

WordPress comes in 2 forms...

a) Sign up for free at http://wordpress.com/ and try it out... you'll get a web address like http://mydomainname.wordpress.com (ideal to use as a tester). Or...

b) Go to http://wordpress.org/ and download the software, then get hosting at a provider such as BlueHost.com (Wordpress recommend them also by the way: http://wordpress.org/hosting/) and then buy a domain name of your choice (oh and as you just need the one domain name - you can get that for free from Bluehost when you sign up for hosting!)

I apologise, I sound like a BlueHost.com sales person, but I assure you I'm not. Just a happy customer! ^_^

MorknMindy

Hardy, these may also help you:
http://www.ndesign-studio.com/blog/wordpress/best-wordpress-sites/
http://ifacethoughts.net/2007/06/24/wordpress-makes-sense-for-many-non-blog-websites/

Hardeman

Sounds good - I'm in Cambridgeshire - Nr. Peterborough...UK

Hardy

:j

RedShark

I'd suggest you try awardspace.com for your hosting Hardeman. They offer a free package which suits most peoples needs and is a lot better than paying out each month for hosting which offers a few extra unnecessary bells and whistles, £5 per month would be money wasted. If you want to build your own website then google NVu, it's a free design tool similar to Dreamweaver just less advanced. For registering a domain name, don't pay more than £3 per year for a .co.uk name. It's incredibly easy to do, I always use www.123-reg.co.uk.

bambammy

oscommerce.com is what I used previously for an online web shop. It's very complicated and ended up having one of the users on their forum sort it all out for me.

They are not allowed to profit from help, but anything sorted out privately will be between you and the user.

Careful though, the user who set up my online shop, wasn't forth coming with offering guidance on how to maintain it once he set it up. He did however offer to maintain it for 10% of sales.

Depending on what you are selling ?> your manufacturer may have a resellers programmes they could give you.

daz9643

Agree with Redshark, NVU is very good for a beginner, i use that in combination with CSE HTML validator (both free). Deluxe FTP to upload your webpages (free). There are loads of websites that provide web page templates that you can easily modify to make them your own. I prefer to register my own domain names rather than use the format mywebsite.wordpress.com etc. At least you own the site yourself and you are not promoting someone elses. So for about £4 you can register a domain name and host it.

taleye

I got it through this company

http://www.ukinternet.uk.com

So far so good, my site ranks high in google and they seem to be very professional and happy to help

laurenjs88

Hi, im going to pile in on this if you dont mind.

I've had an idea, its so completley & utterly ridiculas that it may well be amazing. I need to try and get a free website, free hosting, a free online merchant account preferably paypal, free bank account & a free domain.

I have no idea where to start. I've got the idea in my head and it all planned out, how to make it work etc.. however i am not technically or business minded to acheive the above... hmmmm....

Any idea's would be gratefully recieved