Domain, website & hosting basics please

fenlander_uk

Have to agree with booler. Playing with a personal 'hobby' website is a good way to learn basic skills, but diving straight into a business site, which could cost you money if you don't get it right, is either daring or reckless!

Cornucopia

I have to disagree.

Unless the OP already has a well-established business where a bad website will seriously undermine his/her existing marketing approach, the scope for financial loss is not significant - and is mostly around the issue of signing up with an expensive design company that does not deliver in some way.

There's no reason why a smaller business shouldn't also start small on the web, keeping costs down, until the impact on their business is known, and further spend can be justified.

booler

Cornucopia wrote: »

£400 is high-end for a small website with no transactional capability.

It's not actually. I have been doing this since 2001 and I do know what people charge. Some of the large design agencies will happily take £4K for this.

Designing, researching and optimising a small website (properly - without using cheap templates) can take me two or three days. I run a business and I will retire before I start doing it for less than £400.

Actually, the truth is that all of these DIY website builders are making my business so much more difficult. TV adverts from companies like 1&1 suggest that anyone can build their own websites and this is just not true.

A business website is more than some text and a hosting account. It is an advert for a business and as such it has to be validated and capable of displaying properly in several browsers. Some people doing it themselves would not know what validation or a browser is.

The site also has to say the right things, provide the right info, use the right images and encourage people to do business with you. Putting the site online is only a small part of the process. Using a legitimate designer can pay off big time. Doing it yourself or using your next door neighbour's, brother in law's 14 year old son to do it can cost you big time.

You will notice that I am not trying to win friends or to influence people here. I am not looking for business. All I am doing is trying to advise on something that I have long experience of. :cool:

booler

Cornucopia wrote: »

I have to disagree.

Unless the OP already has a well-established business where a bad website will seriously undermine his/her existing marketing approach, the scope for financial loss is not significant - and is mostly around the issue of signing up with an expensive design company that does not deliver in some way.

You're right. It's less about financial loss than the scope for financial gain. Good websites get found on the search engines and generate business. Bad, amateurish websites don't.

Mikebellows

Build your own site using Serif Webplus software.
No programming required.

http://www.serif.com/webplus/

Loads of help on their forum...

http://forums.serif.com/forumdisplay.php?f=13

And use One.com to host the site for about £20 per year...

http://one.me/enamvylw

Have fun learning how to build a website - It really is easy.

booler

Mikebellows wrote: »

Have fun learning how to build a website - It really is easy.

As I said before, a website is more than pulling a few words and pictures together. These DIY providers do not offer advice or consultancy. This is an essential requirement for almost all businesses going into this for the first time.

Try calling Serif when you have an urgent problem.

Mikebellows

I have had a lot of success from building websites using the Serif software.
Phoning Serif has never been a problem. their technical help has always been spot on. There is also a fantastic forum with some awesome power users that give you help, should you be faced with a problem.
I would not be promoting this method, had I not had personal experience using Serif and their software.

booler

No problem! Best of luck.

Bowling_4_Gold

Another Serif user here. Designing and publishing the site is very easy. A few hours of design and imo my site looks pretty awesome. Social media integration, flash image galleries, custom logo etc all done using Webplus.

Use in combination with 000webhost and 1&1 (for the domain). Total cost is £2.99 per year. I am tempted to host it on my own PC to guarantee uptime etc.

honeypop

Thank you all, this is all really helpful. Answers my questions for sure, and gives me plenty to think about.

I'll be honest and say that I won't be paying £400 for someone to help me with it. I'm not expecting the site to win me customers via a search engine, although I take on board what you are all saying about reputation etc. The business isn't up and running yet, and I will be mainly using it to direct people to, to explain more about my service really.