Advice appreciated with website hosting & website design

silverbeetle

I currently have my business website with Microsoft Office Live - it is very basic and was built using a template. It is rubbish and does not help sell my product at all.

I need to improve my keywords etc and redesign my website to give it a better chance on Google. I am selling 1 product and use Paypal as the payment method for customers.

I think the best way to do this would be to use WordPress to design the site.

I am looking for a website host - please can anyone recommend a reliable, not too expensive host which allows the use of WordPress. I have looked online myself and now am completely confused.

Any ideas and advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

leseul

silverbeetle wrote: »

I currently have my business website with Microsoft Office Live - it is very basic and was built using a template. It is rubbish and does not help sell my product at all.

Static templates are one of my pet hates, especially web pros who charge for 'em.

silverbeetle wrote: »

I need to improve my keywords etc and redesign my website to give it a better chance on Google. I am selling 1 product and use Paypal as the payment method for customers.

Google's Optimisation Starter Guide: Straight from the horses mouth, so to speak.
Make sure you get yourself Google and Bing webmaster tools accounts and Google Analytics to track your effectiveness.

silverbeetle wrote: »

I think the best way to do this would be to use WordPress to design the site.

Good idea, also consider Joomla.

silverbeetle wrote: »

I am looking for a website host - please can anyone recommend a reliable, not too expensive host which allows the use of WordPress. I have looked online myself and now am completely confused.

I use Namesco as they have 1 click installs for CMS's like wordpress and make setting things up very easy, they are also very reliable. You might find they are too expensive for marketing a single product (starting at £3.99/month).
1 & 1 are also very good and a lil' cheaper (their starter package includes PHP and mySQL for your CMS is only £2.50/month and you get the first 3 months free, plus their templates are quite good.

steve1980

silverbeetle wrote: »

I currently have my business website with Microsoft Office Live - it is very basic and was built using a template. It is rubbish and does not help sell my product at all.

I need to improve my keywords etc and redesign my website to give it a better chance on Google. I am selling 1 product and use Paypal as the payment method for customers.

I think the best way to do this would be to use WordPress to design the site.

I am looking for a website host - please can anyone recommend a reliable, not too expensive host which allows the use of WordPress. I have looked online myself and now am completely confused.

Any ideas and advice would be much appreciated. Thank you.

Check out Hostphere (https://www.hostsphere.co.uk). Their basic package is £1.99 per month and includes various one clickers.

redrockeye

I understand reluctance to be sucked in to highly expensive web design, but at the end of the day you get what you pay for and the professionals know what they are doing - my recommendation would be to do what people do in the real world, get a few quotes from reputable web companies and see what they can do for you.

VSC

Hi,

As has been mentioned, Wordpress and Joomla are good options. Of the two, Wordpress is generally regarded as being easier to optimize for SEO with more "plugins" available (a plugin is an extra script that you can add to your Wordpress installation for a specific purpose).

There are many free templates available for Wordpress, but you can get a custom designed design for anything between $50 and $150.
You can have a look here for designers:
http://forums.digitalpoint.com under Business / Buy Sell Trade / Templates.

There are also many companies who offer custom design, just do a search.

Hosting ... lots of options.
I trawled several web hosting forums to find the hosts I use (I have about 30 sites), and can recommend:
innohosting.com
ezpzhosting.co.uk

Important: If your site targets the UK, host your site on UK servers (it helps with SEO).