Does anyone know how i go about setting up my own website for a cheap as poss?

cherrypie556

And who can do it for me? Clueless

Larumbelle

what kind of site? what capability do you need? Is is e-commerce? lots of pages, just a few, flashy, simple...

the more details you can provide, the more likely someone can help!

cherrypie556

Right i want to start up a maternity clothing site, so will be a few pages i think yes. As to size etc havnt a clue how much i would need, clueless to any of this.
Do you normally pay a fee then a monthly/yearly fee or just a monthly fee. Really dont know anything yet as just trying to do my research but iam clueless to what to do

Browntoa

this does it

http://www.ekmpowershop.com/ekmps/index.asp

Larumbelle

Right, will you be selling the clothes on the site or not?

I would say if you are just starting up and are a complete beginner, use ebay shops rather than 'your own' site. You are not tied to a contract then, you will have to do less advertising and you can use a template rather than creating a site from scratch.

If it is just information with a 'call for more info' or similar (i.e. no actual selling) you can get lots of free templates that you just tweak to your own requirements. That will keep you going until you have guaged demand for your product / need something bigger.

If you want a bells-and-whistles flashy exclusive-to-you site, why not advertise at a local college or university? My (sadly no longer with us) e-commerce site was designed for me by a local web-design student who used my site first as a project for his course and then as part of his portfolio to find work. I had to work really hard to persuade him to accept any payment at all for his hard work.

So far as the mechanics of the site is concerned, if you have an ebay shop it will cost you about £10 per month plus usual ebay fees. If you have your own site, you can register your domain name for as little as £2 per year plus vat.

You can get free webspace though this is usually not really 'free', there are ads and stuff put all over the place. There are usually restrictions on traffic (how many times the site can be accessed per month) and on size, though it doesn't sound like this will initially be a problem.

Paid for web space will be charged either monthly or yearly (usually you get a discount for paying upfront, though if you are starting out I would say go with a few months first to test the water. Make sure you don't tie yourself down with a long contract.)

It is worth checking if you have free space with your internet provider, I used to, and then you can have the web address 'pointed' to your free space.

Overwhelmed? Well, it is a bit overwhelming at first. Try to get a book on the subject. web business for dummies, that kind of thing. They will break all the stuff you need to know into simple chunks and libraries usually have copies.

Does any of this help? I think I've waffled on a bit, PM me if you need to.

Glad

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