New website help.......

needhelpindebt

Hi all,

I am looking to create a new website for my parents who run a property management company in Spain.

They are keyholders of many peoples's properties which are used as holiday homes and rented out throughout the year. They also provide cleaning services for the properties and generally look after the day to day jobs that need doing.

The website would advertise the properties to people who wanted to rent them for holidays and also offer my parents service to landlords who needed their property to be looked after.

Unfortunately although i am reasonably PC literate I have never built a website of my own.

I am therefore looking for guidance on the best software to use (free if poss!) as well as tips for making sure I can get as much traffic as possible going through the site.

I would also like to explore the possibilty of gaining income from the site through affiliate marketing through things such as Google Adsense.

Any advice / guidance would be gratefully recieved....

Cheers :beer:

davidjwest

Look at "search engine optimisation" aka SEO for generating traffic, build the site so it appears high up the search engines listing.

You could probably code it using basic HTML although it might be more efficient to have a database for the properties if there are many of them and so you'd need to learn a language like PHP for example.

For coding I use Bluefish IDE which is free, I've never bothered with stuff like Dreamweaver etc so can't comment on those.

You'll need to get hosting and a domain name, you can get it free but for reliability and support I'd go for a paid option, but it's not expensive.

Good luck!

needhelpindebt

Cheers for the tips David.

How long would you estimate it would take to build such a website for a novice?

thumperrabbit

From scratch if you want to build a dynamic website, i.e one that takes bookings for the said properties etc using database driven pages, you are probably looking at 3 - 6 months work. If you are after a dumb site (basic html) then I am sure you could knock one up in a matter of weeks. You may be better purchasing and modifying a template!

steve1980

thumperrabbit wrote: »

If you are after a dumb site (basic html) then I am sure you could knock one up in a matter of weeks. You may be better purchasing and modifying a template!

Weeks??? You can have a basic site set up in less than an hour.

However, if you need a booking system, these are not easy. You could always find a 3rd party system that just gives you the HTML coding to put on your site.

needhelpindebt

Cheers for your replies guys.

Think i will leave the booking system till a later date if the site becomes successful. Initially i will handle bookings via email / telephone contact.

Also how simple would it be to put availability calenders for each propety on the site? Are templates available for this?

:beer:

saverstevedevon

There are templates for virtually anything....

I'd use weebly dot com or google sites.... just search for templates. Calendard and other add ons will most likely be available free as open source additions.

davidjwest

Booking system, probably doable in a week depending on how many hours you can afford, possibly do it in less time than that - but not for a novice.

You might be able to get a script to do that for free, try using a well known search engine!

GavB79

Have sent you a PM - I am in a similar position. I have used Wordpress for a basic site, nothing fancy but gets the job done.

JamesJamz

It might pay better to get a professional to build a simple site though... I've seen some people's sites whom are new to coding websites and they were full of errors and didn't look professional enough.

I know if i was looking for a place to stay, and didn't see a nice looking website, i would soon close that site and look on... Im not saying yours will be like that, just a thought for you to think about.

Then again, if you use free content management software (CMS) such as Wordpress / Joomla / Drupal... there are hundreds of free themes available for these CMS's which can make your site look professional, and then its just a case of adding content to the site.

From what you are explaining, you will be after a self made website, with special features (ie available dates and what not) - but that may be in the future.

If you are trying to get a site out there, with your name and contact details, then I would recommend the CMS way.

MrsTinks

I'd agree - with the amount of choice out there now if a website looks cheap and amateurish I immediately think "scam?" and move on... sorry but there are too many dodgey sites out there for me to want to risk giving my details to a company/site I didn't think looked professional and therefor "knocked up overnight".
I've build sites before and I've run forums and used phpBB and you can get the hang of it if you're willing to the time in and understand basic computing language and you have a logical mind...
I have a few sites hosted with www.topclasshost.com and they have a lot of software built in on the servers that you can use to create your own site reasonably professionally if you insist on doing it yourself. Remember though that this is a site you want to be able to compete with large professionally designed sites for the custom...