Business funding options for unemployed single mum? Stuck! Please help

Cazza

Have you checked your local authority (District and County level) websites for business support?

My local area has advice for existing businesses and startups, as well as search engines which you can use to search for grants / loans and other types of funding. My District Council is currently offering grants of up to £1,000 to new businesses to help them develop their websites too.

Percy1983

He my business started with a £40 investment and borrowing some equipment from family, I now have £5000 worth of equipment paid for by said business.

As mentioned website sounds rather expensive.

As it is also being an accountant I know exactly what you mean by knowing how to run a business so that certainly is promising.

Good luck!

carrot-cake_2

Suarez wrote: »

£2,500 is a lot for a website these days.

Does the website contain any particular functions that an off the shelf website couldn't do?

Its an ecommerce website. They initially told me it would be £1000 but when I looked at an example of one at this price it really was quite basic and not very professional. I sent the website company of an example of the kind of ecommerce website I want and they quoted £2500

carrot-cake_2

nonnatus wrote: »

I also agree that £2500 is a LOT for a website!

I run a successful Internet retail shop and a couple of months ago had a re-design of the website.

I got several quotes in and all came in under £1000. Included all the relevant pages, shopping cart, security encryption, blah, blah.
The one I picked even included new photo's of all my stock for illustration and some SEO stuff. The resulting Website is terrific. I'm on first page of Google for most of my search terms and I honestly can't think what an extra £1500 would have paid for??

Have you had more than one quote?

Thanks for your post this has really given me a bit more positivity as I was worried the website thing was holding me back. Could you recommend a good website designer? I asked sitewizard, igoo and one other and all were very confusing.

I can't get my head around web hosting, SEO and how to get to the front page of google etc.

Kayalana99

carrot-cake wrote: »

Its an ecommerce website. They initially told me it would be £1000 but when I looked at an example of one at this price it really was quite basic and not very professional. I sent the website company of an example of the kind of ecommerce website I want and they quoted £2500

Their would be no harm in getting a couple other quotes of other companys :-)

IronWolf

nonnatus wrote: »

I also agree that £2500 is a LOT for a website!

I run a successful Internet retail shop and a couple of months ago had a re-design of the website.

I got several quotes in and all came in under £1000. Included all the relevant pages, shopping cart, security encryption, blah, blah.
The one I picked even included new photo's of all my stock for illustration and some SEO stuff. The resulting Website is terrific. I'm on first page of Google for most of my search terms and I honestly can't think what an extra £1500 would have paid for??

Have you had more than one quote?

Hi nonna

Can I ask what SEO stuff you used to get to the first page of Google?

@OP, it is indeed a lot for a website. Wordpress is very powerful nowadays and I use a theme called Headway Base, which is extremely customisable and user friendly. This is my website, for which I did everything myself, all I paid was £60 to buy the theme and then designed the whole thing myself.

(Text removed by MSE Forum Team) I use a deliberately simple design, its capable of much more. You'd be surprised how many sites are actually wordpress underneath.

And Im not a tech expert at all, just an average PC user. The basic steps are:

-You buy a domain and buy a hosting package for the website.
-Then you install Wordpress, which is free
-Next install a theme of your choice, I use Headway and then designed the site using their GUI editor.
-Next you add pages to the website and develop the content.
-Finally you can add plugins, which are mostly free. These can handle things like shopping carts, member accounts, automatic emails etc.

Even if you end up paying someone to design a website, I would definitely ask them to use Wordpress as it is so easy to use and very customisable. Plus there are new updates and plugins being released for it constantly.

Percy1983

I have 4 websites I have setup using wordpress, 2 for me and 2 for other businesses (one still under development).

3 are based on the standard twenty twelve theme with much customisation and one on a different theme all together.

Due to heavy customisation and the different use of plugins you wouldn't guess they are wordpress.

If you have a domain I am happy for you to point it to my server and have a go on wordpress if you want.

Mark7799

Firstly, shop around and try and get better quotes for that website - as others said, £2500 seems a lot.

If you are aged 30 or under the Prince's Trust may help
If you are on JSA or some forms of ESA or IS then the New Enterprise Allowance offers a start up loan of up to £2500 at 9% (also the chance of some weekly payments for the first six months
Failing that try the StartUp Loan Company (unless you are in Scotland where it doesn't operate)
In all cases, you will need to produce a sound business plan to justify your application

im-lost

Mark7799 wrote: »

Firstly, shop around and try and get better quotes for that website - as others said, £2500 seems a lot.

If you are aged 30 or under the Prince's Trust may help
If you are on JSA or some forms of ESA or IS then the New Enterprise Allowance offers a start up loan of up to £2500 at 9% (also the chance of some weekly payments for the first six months
Failing that try the StartUp Loan Company (unless you are in Scotland where it doesn't operate)
In all cases, you will need to produce a sound business plan to justify your application

The NEA loan rates is 6% now, it's administered by those that do the start up loans scheme and the rates are identical, but are aimed at 2 different markets.

The former allows up to £2500 but you can get, I think 50 odd quid a week as an allowance on top.

Start up loans can offer up to £25000 but no other allowance like the enterprise allowance.

Saying that, I don't think the OP should start a business that is effectively in debt because of a website, such start up funding could be used in much better ways, extra stock to get lower prices etc, marketing and the like. a 2.5k website is an unnecessary expense imo

paddyrg

IronWolf wrote: »

Can I ask what SEO stuff you used to get to the first page of Google?

Just for info, Google search results don't have a first, second, third page, they only have those pages *for you*. What you see on the first page of results isn't what I see isn't what the next person sees. There is no absolute 'first page', it is tailored by your browsing etc history.

This is crucial to understand for two reasons. 1) when an 'SEO' company calls you with a bunch of technical sounding mumbo jumbo saying they can get you on page 1 for xyz search terms, they get it there for you, not necessarily Mr random punter. 2) most 'SEO' companies don't realise this, which makes them either useless consultants to spend your money with, or they do know this and are knowingly ripping you off.

I don't have a high opinion of 'SEO' types, especially when in reality Google know and render ineffective all their supposed tricks. Some Muppet who has read a few web articles and maybe paid for some dumb eBook can call themselves an SEO master. Almost all are parasitic.