website help

nic-pink

I have just started a company with my husband and we have a physical shop but we would also like a website where we can sell our products. I don`t mind paying for it (name, hosting,etc) but would like to build it myself as we are now skint after stocking the shop. I have contacted somebody who was recommended by the federation of small business rep regarding building our website but their prices were way out of our league at the mo (they ranged from £1,500 - £25,000) but what worried me is they said you were paying for their expertise in ensuring your website came up near the top in search engine results now I`m worried that if I design it myself no one is gonna be able to find it because i haven`t used their service - I guess what I`m asking is, is there a way to get your website near the top of search results in search engines?
Also who would you recommend for setting up a web shop?
thanks.

faevilangel

have ya tried using ebay shop, they low cost and be perfect for you until your on ya feet and can aford to get a fully functioning website, you can then offer customers to pay via paypal, offering security

save-a-lot

Hi

Build your site using CSS for a start, also have friendly URLs, i.e. if you use a shopping cart on your site that is written using PHP get someone to mod_rewrite the query strings so that the URLs have the appearance of html. Just makes your pages far easier for search engine spiders to crawl.

Look up SEO on the internet, it stands for search engine optimisation. By the way, any company stating they can get you to the top of search engines are making promises they cannot always fulfill. However, they could fulfill this by getting you to the top by using keyphrases that are completely not competitive and that is probably their get out clause.

If you need more help let me know via PM... by the way I am not a web designer or anything I am just an enthusiastic website building sort... so I am not trying to tote for business here just offering out free advice.

Griogair

for buying online, use either a paypal integrated cart, or www.mals-e.com.

go to somewhere like www.freelayouts.com to get an idea of what you like then contact the person that made the template, usually their just guys who like websites and are happy for the work. thats what i did.

the best hosting deal ritenow is probably from www.one.com (free!)

zee_2

first buy domain name,to be blunt a crap name kills sales, You must own domain name as if you are a success name will increase in value,do not go down road of fee domain name with hosting.
I am disabled and specialising in domains for 5 years since becoming disabled
have 1400 sites..contact me if you need help..i'm housebound...norman

nic-pink

thanks everybody for all your help. I have been attempting to make my own website, have been learning html and so far i think I understand it. I have written my first html document including background theme (horses as we sell equine products) I have also paid servage.net around £75 - 79 (i think, it was late when i was doing it) for 14 months website hosting. However I have uploaded my page onto servage.net but when I try to view my website I get a message appear which says website not configured does this mean I have to wait for someone to authorise my website/payment or is this something I need to do? If so how do I do it?
thanks

save-a-lot

Whoah - that is expensive hosting. PM me your web address or put it in your profile.

Make sure you are uploading into the right folder - mine go into /public_html/

save-a-lot

Hi Again

OSWD - Open Source Web Design is good to pick up a free CSS template. I have just done a very quick search and found a horse related template....

http://www.oswd.org/designs/search/keyword/keyword/brown/sortby/date/page/2/

[Deleted User]

Please look at the cost of a website Vs the cost of advertising

When the net started out, and up till about 2001/2, you could get away with making your own site. People didn't expect much else.

Now, if you make one yourself, it will look bad. It will not encourage sales and will be a waste of time and money.

Save up a bit, pay someone a grand or two to set this up properly and do a nice job of it.

75 quid a year is a bit steep for hosting, unless it comes with some kind of shopping software

save-a-lot

ringo_24601 wrote: »

Please look at the cost of a website Vs the cost of advertising

When the net started out, and up till about 2001/2, you could get away with making your own site. People didn't expect much else.

Now, if you make one yourself, it will look bad. It will not encourage sales and will be a waste of time and money.

Save up a bit, pay someone a grand or two to set this up properly and do a nice job of it.

75 quid a year is a bit steep for hosting, unless it comes with some kind of shopping software

Tosh... shopping software is usually as standard with many hosts - on my hosting I have a choice of ecommerce scripts via fantastico in the cPanel. Also, paying upto £2K there is no need for. Some of the current big cashback sites did not even pay that much. If you want bespoke design done source the work abroad and pay less than £500 - it can be done and the quality is fantastic... try https://www.scriptlance.com - basically a site whereby you detail your project and dvelopers/designers bid on it... a bit like eBay everyone is rated and has feedback. Hope that helps

nic-pink

Hi, I don`t know if it comes with shopping software i think it does as there was the option to download oscommerce which I have downloaded and joomla. I didn`t think it was that expensive it works out at roughly £4.95 a month plus VAT.
I do understand that if we pay for a website it will look much better but from looking around I got the impression that it isn`t that difficult if you take your time and learn html.