Web Hosting for Small Business

lil'H

Hi everyone,

I am setting up my own business and need a website, just wondering who you would recommend for a)value for money, b) ease of use c) technical support. I will be taking paypal payments on the site, nad will need email enquiry forms as well as around 6 seperate pages for general info, want a professional look but doesn't need to be all singing and dancing necessarilly! Also any other reccomendations or advice people can give me, as you've probably already guessed I have no experience regarding web building!

H

lil'H

Also forgot to add should I go for .co.uk or .com does it make any difference?

H

golddustmedia

I'm a professional web developer for the last 7 years. If you want the no hassle approach you can pay someone to do everything for you. Alternatively if you want to manage the site yourself you can get a company to register your domain and host for you. People like UKreg do cheap registrations and I use Streamline.net for my hosting, that costs me about £30 for 2 years. Then you are free to make your own site and upload to the hosting company yourself. There are lots of templates easily available to download online if you need a starting block.

Alternatively many companies will make a website for you for a cost, some will also manage for you at an ongoing cost (myself included).

Now this is the REALLY important part. You get what you pay for.
If "your neighbours son" (or whoever) is "a computer whizz" and will make you a website for the cost of a new bike or some pocket money then consider what you're getting into. You're putting your business image in the hands of a kid who quite rightly thinks like a kid, not a business person. This also means ongoing support may be shall we say erratic! I've often had companies come to me to have a site fixed/replaced after having one knocked up by "the bosses son" or similar and later its become unmanageable or the site doesnt look professional etc.

If you're going to pay a company to do the work, ask to see some examples of sites they've done. Like a portfolio if you will.

Costs wise, something basic site properly done may be around £500 or more depending on whether you want something designed or just from a template.
Ongoing support is varied too. Some will offer fixed price per job/year. Others an hourly rate. If using a basic company expect £30 - £40 per hour, by contrast a main media agency would be more like £100 per hour or more.

As for domain names, it's totally up to you. Dot Com ones are typically interpreted to be international, and dot co dot uk to be UK based. This is not cast in stone and many companies use dot com as it seems larger or more important. Likewise registration and hosting costs are slightly higher on a dot com.

irnbru_2

lil'H wrote:

Also any other reccomendations or advice people can give me, as you've probably already guessed I have no experience regarding web building!

Are you intending to build it yourself?

lil'H

Well I was undecided as to whether to build it myself, but looks like budget wise I'm going to have to! A good friend of mine has his own web based business and is willing to help, but at the same time I want something really professional as my target demographic is more affluent working professionals. Really unsure now which route to take, I'm pretty good on computers and don't mind putting riduculous numbers of hours in figuring out how to go about it, but if I could get it built for me that would be great however budget would be tight, ie under £100. I'm going to have huge printing costs when I start out, which unfortunately take priority over hte web site initially. Also am self funding this venture to avoid getting into any kind of loan/credit agreements.

H

golddustmedia

Printing vs Website.
Think like this. With printing leaflets you pay to print them up, deliver them etc and typically most will end up in the bin and generate no lead. However with a website people are searching for someone to fulfill a need they have so will actually seek you out and offer business. Which in my opinion is the better long term investment for a business.

Budget wise, websites can be done for £100, or even less if need be. It just depends on whether you want to get things done for you or by someone else and the quality you want them done to.

You can find cheaper hosting, and download free templates for your website which means you could be up and running for as little as £20. I'm just trying to highlight that like any skilled work, you get what you pay for.

lil'H

GoldDust

Thanks for your response, I know totally what you mean, and really don't want to do the website cheaply but needs must and all. Will have a rethink regarding printing, though I think I'll struggle as there are a number of items which need to be printed and there is no way round, in terms of forming part of the product, rather that just being advertising. Those elements alone are going to be around £500, though trying to keep flyer costs etc down, adn only posting a few up in well targetting locations as the business is serving only a specific geographical area. Ok so lets cut the web design through the middle, what price, in your opinion would I end up needing to pay to have the website designed to a good, an dprofessional looking standard, without going top spec. As in how cheap can I get away with?! Also where would you suggest?

H

nickmack

I have to agree with golddustmedia, you generally get what you pay for with websites.

You say you want a professional site, so therefore, you will need to pay a price for it. The same as any other service. Depending on the content, this is likely to be at least £500. It's hard to say an exact cost without knowing the number of pages, the basic content and what other facilities are required. But this would be an absolute minimum, I can't think of any professional web designers who would entertain anything less, even for a few pages.

Again from the angle of doing it yourself, with respect I sense you have no experience in web design and therefore it is very likely that what you come up with will look exactly what it is - amateur. Virtually anyone can use templates and stick up a basic site, but as you are targetting working professionals, it will stand out a mile as a 'cheap' looking site.

It could take you months to get to a point where you get to grips with designing yourself and even then, the creative side is still likely to be lacking. Saying this, by all means have a go if you have the time, you might find you have a knack for it!