I need a website built...help!

dizzytina

I had my online shop built by a company called clickbusiness solutions . I paid around £350 and it is great. if you check out my profile there is a link to my website if you wanted to see what they created for me (i think there may even be a link on my website to their business). Not related or affiliated to them just happy with the service for the money i paid.
Tina x

dizzytina

mehera wrote: »

Its all load of rubbish!

You can spend and spend and still get nothing on the web. EVery Tom, !!!!!! and Harry thinks you can throw up a site and start making money and it is not true.

I will give you some very good advice. Use a small local designer only . . .

There is no way you can design a successful eshop using the pre-built packages people are suggesting - no way!

If you had a great designer £8000 would be more like it! You can design a website of course but without proper SEO on it, no one will find it . . .

To some degree i disagree with you. I did have my website/online shop built for me but i have added all the meta tags and uploaded all the products once they built it myself. To that end i have not yet added any SEO keywords and yet my website still generates around 150 orders a month and my wooden wedding post box is ranked on the first page of google searches. Its not all about SEO's however i do feel you need to market yourself and network well if you dont have them (which is something i do). I would definately still recommed using a local business to design your website which is what i did. i have used other build your own packages before (mr site and weebly) and they are far from professional if you want to stand out due to the samey kind of templates they use.
£8000 is a ridiculous amount of money to assume that you need even by using a local designer. Its not necessary to spend that amount of money and to be honest if i was i would expect them to carry out all virtual assistant dutes for the life:D

Tina x

mehera

If you want to rank for something a little more compeditive than wooden wedding boxes then you have to put a lot more effort into SEO!

None of these services are doing REAL SEO.

Meta tags, keyword and onsite SEO is one thing. Without someone building backlinks and anchor text links to your website you will not rank as you are competing against others who have spend £100's or £1000's on proper SEO!

8K is a big number but you would be looking to spend 100's on SEO for many years to get a successful website!

dizzytina

I don't disagree that SEO can play a PART but depending on your business it certainly isn't the be all and end all.you could argue that the money is better spent on decent marketing and actual advertising rather than someone wanting to find you in a search engine. My friend has her SEO work done from India and pays $3 an hour. This allows her to also spend on other marketing. Each business is different and for the majority of small businesses whilst we would like to compete with multiple national company's we aren't as we are not geared up to do so ( due to staffing numbers actual output achievable etc etc).

I don't think 8k is a big number for a large business however this thread is about small businesses !

mehera

What people dont understand is that a website is nigh on useless without SEO . . .

It will only be found by a handful of guys online.

Essentailly places like '1 and 1' are miss-selling people packages telling them it is 'all they need to be found online' ect . ..

Its a lot of rot!!

No offense to you guys, but this is my experience from designing A LOT of websites myself.

shmeeko69

It's a fallacy to think you need to throw hundreds of pounds at a website and then, expect to make a good online income from it, so using companies who heavily market their product through magazines and TV ads like the 1 & 1 website crowd would be like throwing good money away.

One of my most successful websites I designed myself using Microsoft Frontpage 2003 (free download) and I've made a few grand in the past three years because I've been at or near the top of page one on Google for the main keyword phrase.

Two of the most important things in having a website is the layout and making it easy to understand and SEO. If you choose the right and relevant keywords for any niche and keep updating your page(s) with good content coupled with some decent PR backlinks pointing back towards your site then, you will get traffic (preferably targeted) and from that sales.

Like any other type of business, it's a numbers game and all you want to do is put the numbers in your favour every time.

mehera

If you have a good technical understanding then yes it is possible to do some good yourself . . .

If you are not technical do not even consider doing it yourself . . .

Please hire a proffessional asap - if you wish to be professional!