Website Building advice

Julie67

I am just about to begin building a website for our business (telecom services) and am unsure as to the best package to use. Can anyone recommend a particular programme. I don't mind paying a small amount to get a better finished product. Thanks in advance Julie

faevilangel

"Noobs" tend to use dreamweaver but it isn't cheap.

I whole heartedly recommend getting a professional to do your website (if you can afford it), as the website will be your "face" of the business. You want to entice people to buy, and a properly built website will do this.

Having a website isn't just about getting a page, you need to think about how to get people to the site, will they buy online or via telephone?,

A decent optimised site should get your costs back within a year or less (depending on cost and the services you offer). A UK designer will cost you from £200+, you might get an indian and other nationalities to do it for much less

martindow

I think there is a lot to be said for diy sites as long as you read up seo thoroughly before you design and build the site. You will find you constantly need to make changes which can be extremely expensive if you have to pay a fee every time.

pitkin2020

faevilangel wrote: »

"Noobs" tend to use dreamweaver but it isn't cheap.

I whole heartedly recommend getting a professional to do your website (if you can afford it), as the website will be your "face" of the business. You want to entice people to buy, and a properly built website will do this.

Having a website isn't just about getting a page, you need to think about how to get people to the site, will they buy online or via telephone?,

A decent optimised site should get your costs back within a year or less (depending on cost and the services you offer). A UK designer will cost you from £200+, you might get an indian and other nationalities to do it for much less

Whilst I don't fully disagree with you, its all too easy to say get a designer in. If your main business is going to be web based then yes get a pro in, but most people use the web to attract a very small % of their target market and the cost of getting a pro to do the site well first off without the need for constant changes is not going to be cheap and will take a lot longer than 12 months to recoup it!!.

Take your time designing it, get as many people as you can to go over it and pick fault with it to see where you have gone wrong. At least when you do it yourself your not reliant on someone else to make changes for you when they need to be made.

faevilangel

pitkin2020 wrote: »

Whilst I don't fully disagree with you, its all too easy to say get a designer in. If your main business is going to be web based then yes get a pro in, but most people use the web to attract a very small % of their target market and the cost of getting a pro to do the site well first off without the need for constant changes is not going to be cheap and will take a lot longer than 12 months to recoup it!!.

A website is an amazing marketing tool if you utilise it properly. The OP said they were a telecommuncations company, therefor selling (im guessing) phone lines and broadband etc. That means they need to have a fully utilised site or why would someone go for a company with an amateur site or one like BT which dazzles.

Most "designers" now should be using CMS's for client sites, so that the client can update all their content without paying the designer to edit text and images.

987654

I have a website built through google to advertise a property abroad. However it seems that it can no longer be updated so I think I need to start again.

Any suggestions on how I can do this for free?

faevilangel

learn the code ..... https://www.w3schools.com/html & https://www.w3schools.com/css

Sign up to hosts that offer a WYSIWYG editor, or even a free one @ 110mb.com

Get a copy of dreamweaver or buy Mr Site (about £30 which includes hosting)

bingo_bango

faevilangel wrote: »

learn the code ..... www.w3schools.com/html & www.w3schools.com/css

Sign up to hosts that offer a WYSIWYG editor, or even a free one @ 110mb.com

Get a copy of dreamweaver or buy Mr Site (about £30 which includes hosting)

Free 110mb site for a professional telecomms firm :eek:

A quick way to scare off any potential customers. Pay for reliable hosting (plenty of threads on here about reasonable hosting). Well worth it in the long run.

As for learning HTML / CSS, I fully agree with faevilangel. There is no substitute to knowing how a site works should you need to tweak anything at a later date. W3Schools are excellent sites, but they will not teach you design, only how to make a design appear.

There are a multitude of WYSIWYG editors available, and some are better and more intuitive than others. Try a free one first and see how you get on with that. This will work especially well for static pages, but do yourself a favour and at least sketch a design first. Once you have that, the implementation wil be much easier.

If you intend to extend the site to include commerce options, then look at what you need, and then decide if you are confident doing it yourself. If not, paying a designer to do the whole site wil not cost much more than for paying one to integrate a commerce option into something you've already built.

And remember SEO. If you don't know what it is, then learn quickly, and before you do anything else. Check similar sites and see is there anything which sets them apart. While I could never condone plagiarism, ideas are rarely copyrighted, so fill yer boots!

987654

bingo_bango wrote: »

Free 110mb site for a professional telecomms firm :eek:

A quick way to scare off any potential customers. Pay for reliable hosting (plenty of threads on here about reasonable hosting). Well worth it in the long run.


I think the suggestion for the free option was probably in response to me about advertising my villa.

bingo_bango

I think you might be right 987654.

I did think that part a little strange in response to OP's query considering the rest of fae's post was all good anyway

charlea

if you get someone to design the site for you just ensure that you /your company buy/register and own the domain name yourself if this ensures that should your webmaster/designer go awol you still own the domain name also buy the .co. uk versions of your domain name
get them to incorperate cms so that you can do your updates quickly nothing worse than looking at a website and seeing old incomplete information on it from a customers point of view

like somone else said learn about seo learn about the internet and website in general and look at your competitions websites and see what they have
If you see a website that you like see who designed it and maybe contact them
There are some realiable and honest webmasters /designers out there just as there are some who not so honest and realiable

Julie67 wrote: »

I am just about to begin building a website for our business (telecom services) and am unsure as to the best package to use. Can anyone recommend a particular programme. I don't mind paying a small amount to get a better finished product. Thanks in advance Julie