WebSite hosting and building

stefano

I want to help my wife in setting up a website to list and advertise her services as a podiatrist.
It does not need to be a huge one, maybe a few pages with information, but I am not very technically minded and have never done it before. Is it something that I could do or should I leave it to the professionals?

InsideInsurance

It depends.... how professional or individual does it need to look? As a podiatrist does she recommend people learn how to do it themselves or come see her?


Homemade websites tend to look homemade. One way to get around it is to buy a template, use a content management system and just add your own content. The one disadvantage of this route is your probably one of 5,000 people using the identical template so your site doesnt look very individual.

The other consideration is marketing the site, be that SEO so your site gets high up in the rankings when someone searches for "your town" + podiatry or SEM if you want to actively drive traffic etc. Most professional developers can help with these secondary areas or refer you to a specialist.

stefano

InsideInsurance wrote: »

The other consideration is marketing the site, be that SEO so your site gets high up in the rankings when someone searches for "your town" + podiatry or SEM if you want to actively drive traffic etc. Most professional developers can help with these secondary areas or refer you to a specialist.

What are SEO and SEM?

victor2

If one of you has an idea what you want and a little creativity, you could look at http://sites.google.com. Free site builder and templates. You will want a domain name, but you're only looking at a few pounds a year to do that. SEO is search engine optimisation. Building a site based on templates often takes care of the basics of that for you. You'll get bombarded by email once your site is up, telling you how for a small fee, you can improve your ranking on search engine results.

bob_a_builder

1&1 do simple business web sites off the shelf for £10 month

http://mywebsite.1and1.co.uk/xml/order/create-business-website

InsideInsurance

stefano wrote: »

What are SEO and SEM?

SEO - is Search Engine Optimisation - the activities you can under take to get your site higher in the listings when someone types in the keywords for your site (eg Your Town podiatry would seem an obvious one to target)

SEM - is Search Engine Marketing technically it should mean simply any types of advertising on search engines, such as the "sponsored links" (aka PPC - pay per click) advertising and SEO however it is often miss used (including by me) to mean other online advertising outside of SEO

singledaddy

i also recommend 1and1
play around with their templates and you should have a site your happy with in a few hours.
also, very easy to add to/change whenever you want.

lemontart

servage.net are good value

Sicksorry

I recommend trying out http://www.moonfruit.com

It's a drag and drop Flash Based website that you can try out for free and if you decide to upgrade it's only £4 a month and you can buy your domain name direct from them. If you pick the £8 a month package you get a tonne of extras and a free domain.

foot_loose

Sicksorry wrote: »

I recommend trying out http://www.moonfruit.com

It's a drag and drop Flash Based website that you can try out for free and if you decide to upgrade it's only £4 a month and you can buy your domain name direct from them. If you pick the £8 a month package you get a tonne of extras and a free domain.

I agree moonfruit is the way to go If you need help PM me and I will help you - you could choose a simple tenplate like this http://podiatrist123.moonfruit.com/ and be up and runnin within hours
as log as you have the website content ready because there is no point in wanting a website if you have not got any content

JuniorDesigner

Can also recommend Weebly, I use it for my site and have to say it's been a breeze to use and put together!