Website?

5limJim

to get a good site, that looks professionsla (and remember, if your site looks like its been knocked up by a 4 year old child, what faith would the consumer have in placing an order online)... I found this the hard way.. Most of the free places are fine for templates and things like that, but to have the professional and consumer-comfortabel edge I would recommend learning about web design yourself, or find someone to do it for you...

I found 123-reg.co.uk reasonable for .co.uk web addresses though, and its pretty simple to point the name of the website to where your content will be stored...

also, when you do start taking huge volumes of transactions (and I hope that you do) a few of my friends use a place called nochex.com rather than paypal, apparantly the transaction fees are less.... and nochex is widely used on ebay as well so its a reputable place..

Good luck!

nickmack

jassi_9 wrote:

ok im selling a service, that costs £5 (one off payment) so i think paypal is best

FYI, You'll get £4.63 of this after fees with PP, so not too bad.

i will only really need to change text daily. i dont know anybody that can creat a website for me, but if lky2k23, has made a page through, microsoft frontpage, then i might be able to get a copy from projectx for free, and do this myself. once i make a webpage in front page, is it a complicated task to upload this page? (im guessing this is done through the web host i choose, the webdockers graham lee suggested sounds good, as it includes paypal)

It's not difficult to upload a page. You simply upload the file via FTP. If you only have one page then you can make your changes each day and upload.

nickmack, when you said "the selling part requires some programming" could i avoid this if i went with somebody like webdockers, like graham suggested?

For an online shop it requires some coding. Even for using PayPal, some knowledge would be required in order to set it up with your PP account.
Webdockers use some eCommerce solutions by the look of it. You wouldn't bother with these if you were only selling one product.

im guessing the only cheap way to get my website, is to do it myself? through a package like front page. i didnt want to spend a penny more then hosting and domians anyway.

As I said before and 5limJim reiterated, it depends on what you're selling but if it looks cheap, people are unlikely to have confidence in purchasing your service. This is the reality I'm afraid. Thousands of sites appear every day selling all sorts, so many people are getting more careful about who they buy from.

silverfoxdude

Hi iky2k23

This may not help you, but it might help someone else out there. I found a free webhost and design site called https://www.bravenet.com I havent had a good look at it yet but there is a lot of free html codes that you might be able to utilse on your own anyway

Good luck

scorpio_biker

Hi,

Just thought I'd add to the mix.

I developed a website for my motorcycle club (just basic html pages) and we use SupaNames to host it for us. It costs us £13.99 per year (you have to sign up for a minimum of 2 years) for the value package. With that we get a free .co.uk domain, 50mb webspace and 1 pop3 email account (which I set up fine in outlook). If you are happy using FTP (I use FTP commander which is freeware) to copy the files to their server then this works just fine, a college of mine actually signed up to the same service when she developed a website for a friend. As you have control daily uploads would be easy.

We also use Bravenet freebies (guestbook and counter) on my website which are easy to bolt into an html page. All the instructions are clearly displayed. As long as you can cut and paste they are a doddle to use.

I agree with the other comments about payments. This does take you into the relm of programming. If you are serious about that it may be worth looking into getting a professional to design you a site. There are lots of small companies out there that design sites for resonable money. Or, if you have an IT dept where you work ask around. There are a lot of us programmers around who can do websites and are happy to come up with something to add to a portfolio. Its worth a try.

MortgageBroker_2

I also use Frontpage. With web hosting you first need to decide something, do you need to use any of the built in Frontpage (FP) components. One obvious one is the ability for an enquiry form to have the results emailed to you. FP does this very easily but you need a web host that supports FP extensions and many do not. It is possible to get around it but you need to be able to edit some html code

For registering domains only I use https://www.123-reg.co.uk
For domains plus cheap webspace I use https://www.nameroute.co.uk you can upgrade for more web space or to include FP extensions

Both include email options

lky2k23

Would there be anywhere people would recommend learning the advanced web design features as at the moment the page I have in frontpage is pretty basic - Is learn direct any good does anyone know?

Dalavich

Try Easyspace.co.uk

They offer for £25 pa.

The Package

* Free Domain Name or Transfer in
* 500MB Webspace
* 10GB Monthly Bandwidth
* Choose from Windows .Net, Linux or Microsoft Frontpage 2002 Hosting
* FTP Access
* Unlimited Subdomains
* Latest Firewall Protection
* Daily Backups
* Easy to use Control Panel
* AW Graphical Web Statistics
* Point Unlimited Domains to your Webspace
* Domain Registration Account
* 10 POP3 Mailboxes
* Unlimited Email Forwarding
* Unlimited Email Aliases
* Access Anywhere Webmail Service
* Access Anywhere SMTP Service
* Lo Call Dialup Internet Access
* Email Support Helpdesk
* Telephone Support
* All Product FAQ Service
* Supports ASP, Perl, CGI, PHP, SHTML
* Compiled CGI and SSI

nickmack

lky2k23 wrote:

Would there be anywhere people would recommend learning the advanced web design features as at the moment the page I have in frontpage is pretty basic - Is learn direct any good does anyone know?

Depends what you mean by 'advanced web design features'. If you mean specific to *your site*, adding the PayPal payment part, you may be able to muddle through with help from here and the documentation supplied.

If you mean designing a more professional website, it's not just something you can go on a course and learn in a couple of weeks. Sure you can learn some theory and tips, but a web designer is like a specialised graphic designer. They either have a natural flair for design on the web or have worked quite long and hard at learning and making designs work on the screen.

Programming and coding is different again. Most programmers are not web designers and vice-versa. Many dabble a little in the other but it is quite rare that you find a competent programmer and great web designer in one.

Don't have any experience of LD, maybe someone on here has?

Looking at their website though, for the Web Development course under 'Specialist IT', I'm not convinced by the course outline. It looks like a lot of waffle. The cost vary from £55-£100 it seems, so depending on your discipline, you may want to get a good book instead.

It all depends on the time you have available to you and how quick you are at learning. There are some good books that should be able to help you. The time it takes obviously depends on your learning speed, how much you need to learn and how much time you have to devote to this.

wolfman

Nickmacks right, here we've basically got two teams, client-side (html/css etc.., the look and feel of the site) and server-side (.Net, Java, what happens behind the scenes when you click something), so there can be a split between the two.

However, you can find people that are able to do both though. They'll usually specialise in one more than the other though.

As far as learning it is concerned though, be prepared, it takes a lot of time and money. Making a professional website is by no means easy, it can take months if not years to master good coding skills.

lky2k23

Well the site im trying to develop on a basic scale is a comparison website like

https://www.find-dvd.co.uk

Looking then to become more complex and be like https://www.confused.com

would I be better getting someone to help me do this then?