Website building advice needed please

Heva00

Hiya,

I have recently buit a website using create.net (formerly doyourownsite.com) which I found really straight forward (although I must admit it was a long process, but I think that's more to the extent of my website, and also to me being such a perfectionist! SO don't let it put you off).
They also do a 30 day trial - then I pay about £6 a month. Have a look at create.net (also my website is on their 'examples' page - it's Indigo Orchid if you're interested to see)

I bought my domain name with 123-reg.com which was great, they also have services like web forwarding (where you can use an email address and it forwards the emails to another address i.e your hotmail etc). I also use a webmail service for my website from them, so I get my own email address, like a hotmail account.
Hope that helps! Good luck x

property.advert

I have a great deal of experience of businesses and their use of websites, though I personally know little about the programming. The most important thing you have to understand is that you only get one chance to create a first impression.

If it is not clear, the customer moves on to your competitor. If it is not intuitive and easy to navigate, you lose your customer. If it is not quick, slick and business like, your competitors gain your customer.

The biggest problem people make when designing websites is that they do it themselves. You understand your business. You know where everything is on your website. You know that a certain process must be followed to reach the checkout or contact us page. Your customers do not.

KISS (keep it simple stupid) is the order of the day.

By all means spend time on playing around with free and low cost solutions but then, when you have done what you can, get some people who do not know your business to test drive your website and get their honest feedback.

Use that market research to draw up a specification for your designer. Get them to quote, not only for setting it up but also for management (worthwhile I find). Make sure the contract gives you copyright and any logos etc. as well as all access codes to the back end.

If using a database, think how to incorporate that and really consider how often you will need to update your website. Do not forget backups and plan for bandwidth. Also remember that some potential customers are not sitting with 20mb download speeds.

Learn and understand SEO, at least what it is and how you get ahead.

Your website is your shop window. Would you shop on the High Street where they did not clean the windows ? where the displays were out of date ? where things were broken ? No, you would not and neither will your prospective customers.

Invest in your own success, it really does pay off.

Xeorix

Cora150892 wrote: »

I do A-Level double IT, were creating websites, and its not something I believe you can teach yourself not in the slightest, so I would advice you getting a proffestional to do it if your wanting your website to look genuine and proffestional, I know the problem your having there because its so expencive and so hard to know what your going to get yourself in for. I am currently looking at being a freelance web designer that why I know so much in detail, but just shop around for the best deals, wish you luck :-)

...seriously? I taught myself how to go from a design in Photoshop to a fully fledged website in about 2-3weeks. Then adding onto that using PHP took me about another month to grasp.

The easiest option would be to use a CMS or e-commerce system such as Joomla or X-Cart. Each of these premade systems have hundreds of plugins which are easy to install.
You can then just link your paypal account or google checkout account to this to accept payments. I would say that is the cheapest and safest way to go about it.
Otherwise your going to be running into costs for Private SSL Certificates etc and it will get very expensive as for this it would be better to get a company to do it for you which again, would be rather expensive.

Wolf_Hook

As a web designer, it is hard to agree with the people that suggest these quick build it yourself software packages. There is so much to web site design that people are not aware of because of lack of knowledge on the subject. Semantic and clean code, SEO considerations, knowledge of how to effectively write copy for the web and just good eye catching design. All of these things will promote confidence to the end user if done right, rather than throwing up yet another template website with the default stock imagery of support call girls wearing headsets.

If your idea is actually a winner then it is worth getting some quotes in from a professional, rather than screwing it up with a shoddy site.

GregHesp's suggestion of using an eCommerce system might be ideal as they are pretty straight forward to set-up. A fully blown CMS might be overkill as Joomla and others are beasts, and for someone just starting it can be overwhelming.

sockul88

If you want to create a website yourself, then i would recommend you learn wordpress as this is a CMS (content management system) and there are alot of plugins you can use to make your site. If you need any tips feel free to PM me.

bargainbonkers

I've been with multiple web hosts before, and I'm currently with Justhost.

A good webhost will give you a Cpanel
PHP
MYSQL
as much space and bandwith as possible

I would suggest Wordpress as a fantastic content management system - Some web hosts offer a 1 click installation within their cpanel which is a huge plus because manual installation of Wordpress can be a chore.

Also, if you're planning on selling anything on your site then a few hosts offer a free shopping cart setup too.

Have a good look around for the best deal, and try and look out for the features above

slowburneruk

Hi All,

I use Moniker.com for my domains and Phat Servers for Hosting, your looking at paying around £6 a month for your host and say around £6-8 for a 2 year uk domain name, .com and net are cheaper.

couriercompare

Get your site done by someone in the industry, otherwise you will be at it along time, most of the time learning.

Esqulax

You can get the likes of 'takeaway websites' from PC world or online, theres a few different packages and the more you pay, the more it enables you to do. a mate of mine was an amazing graphic designer, but only ok at website coding.
bought one of these to handle the payment side of things, and now has a business that ticks over. his main attraction is that he asks other designers to make designs... (yeah i know) for the t-shirts he sells, and gives them a few quid for it, he's happy, because not everything is in his style, and theres more variety, the designers - a lot of them young student types - can pop it on their portfolio. everyones a winner!
pity he's not as good at marketing as he thinks he is

peterdee_2

Google checkout is a system for allowing your customers to make payments online. It may be worth investing a least some money in professional design help - a badly design website would definitely put me off as a customer!