Free website!

Lizbetty

I know that you can buy these in big boxes and wondered if anyone might find this useful.

My husband set up as a fork lift truck instructor and we needed a web presence, someone on MSE told us about Spanglefish. They give you a free website which would have a small space for googleads, and it's all set up so you don't have to learn HTML and suchlike, and looks pretty cool before you even start!

If it's for a business, you can have a site with no ads for £25pa on Spanglefish Gold. Your web address would be www.spanglefish.com/yourname but you can get your own domain, they have a company they are sort of linked to called Calico who we got our own domain name from and it's £15pa to administer it.

The Spanglefish folk are a fab lot who won't see you stuck, either - if I've ever needed help, I've posted on the forum and lots of people who have sites are quick to reply, plus the people who own Spanglefish reply quickly too. I wonder sometimes if they ever log off!!

Hth someone, we've had lots of business cos of the site and I can't tell you how fab they've been. I should imagine it might bea nice (moneysaving!) present for someone you know who might've always fancied their own site, too.

Btw, I'm not connected with them in any way at all apart from having our site with them. It's just that I'm always telling folk how fab they are seeing as they helped us so much, and I know a couple of people who have their own businesses have found it really useful too.

Luce

benf90

For small businesses Microsoft (www.officelive.co.uk) actually do a similar thing (free website + free domain name). They have paid options etc aswell but for a basic website the free option is good enough.

There's probably other options out there aswell but as I don't have a business I haven't looked into it.

I came across Microsoft Office Live on quidco, if you follow the link on quidco you get £5 for signing up (as well as the free site/domain).

Lizbetty

The Spanglefish site is excellent because you get pretty much instant (real live human) support with your site, plus the site is ready to just put your text & pics in- it'd be ideal for a family site or hobbies, etc. Having said that, they brush up really well for business ones, too!

Another thing I forgot to mention is that you can sell your own ad space if you go for the googleads free option (£25pa) which might come in handy for earning some extra spondulicks. It's something we might look into once the business is a bit more established - as OH is FLT training there's agencies and lift truck engineers/suppliers might be interested, we hope.

I'm noticing everyone's websites these days and tbh some of the local firms who I've come in contact with and mentioned Spanglefish to have paid a fortune for sites which look pretty poor. What a nightmare! Plus you can tinker with your site whenever it takes your fancy as it's so easy.

I think I'm a bit addicted (esp to the stats page, lol!....

Luce

Butlers1982

you seem to really plug this site lucyeff

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.html?searchid=16017925

I'm not connected with them in any way at all

Im not convinced to be honnest, you "over praise" them, i mean ive used companies before that have been excellent, but wouldnt go as far as what your doing:rolleyes:

Lizbetty

Butlers1982 wrote: »

you seem to really plug this site lucyeff

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/search.html?searchid=16017925



Im not convinced to be honnest, you "over praise" them, i mean ive used companies before that have been excellent, but wouldnt go as far as what your doing:rolleyes:

I'm afraid I'm not apologising for overpraising them - I can't praise them enough!

They saved us a few hundred quid and made us some by helping us make a business website we're proud of (that I can update myself without having to pay more out) which has helped us get more business in.

When you have 2 kids to look after, no money and a new business, saving a few hundred quid makes a difference.

If I can help someone else in the same boat then I will. I already know of someone from MSE who has found them invaluable for their business.

I'm fast at typing, it only takes two minutes to try and help someone else, so why on earth wouldn't I? That's what this site is for innit??? :rolleyes:

jhp

Dont Spanglefish promote your Hubbys Biz ?

http://www.spanglefish.com/casestudies.asp

Lizbetty

Hardly! They helped us design a new logo and I suppose they used that as an example of what can be done with the Spanglefish sites. Most of the sites aren't for business (and have been set up free) and this shows that they can be used for business to good effect.

To be honest I only noticed this recently on the main Spanglefish site as we have had one person have a look at our site via this link (who was based in Scotland and already has a Spanglefish site) and I found the article through our statistics page!

There's a lot of cynical folk out there, it's quite frustrating that folk should think I would be making wonga out of this (I wish). I purposely didn't put a link to our website to show what can be done as it's classed as advertising.

At least two people have found this thread useful, which I'm pleased about.

harryharp

I'm the other person on MSE (maybe there are more?) with a Spanglefish website- I know Lucy from the Spanglefish forums and I want to support all she has said. I understand why people are cynical, because we've all seen the people on MSE who post things for their own gain and not to help other people. However, this is not the case here and I can assure people that neither Lucy nor myself have any connection with Spanglefish except to have websites with them.

My job is to play the harp at weddings and functions- I've been doing it for years without a website, having always assumed they would be too expensive or difficult to set up. I must say I had a bit of a 'double-take' moment when I saw how cheap a Spanglefish site is. I thought I might as well give it a go- £25 pounds a year (for the Gold option- ie no Google ads) is nothing really. It took me about 2 days to set it all up (very easily for my non-technical brain I might add!), and then I sort of just fiddled with it and fine-tuned it, and I must say that now I'm pretty pleased with the result, though I say it myself. As Lucy says, equally as good as other websites which people have paid a fortune for.

Like lucy said, it's a small company (based somewhere in the wilds of Scotland), and are all very friendly and extremely helpful if you need it when setting up your site. There are also other lovely people on the forums who have nothing to do with the company, but still bend over backwards to help you. There's one guy on there who's brilliant at graphics and designed my top banner for me which I'm really pleased with- for no payment I might add, he does it for fun. Can't see that happening with Microsoft somehow....

The most important thing though, is that I've had a lot of business since I set it up a few months ago. I'm quite high up on the Google ratings so if people want a harpist in my area they can find me. Like Lucy I like looking at the stats page, and it even tells me what search terms people use which result in them finding my website, which is fascinating!

The other thing is (maybe helpful to other musicians?) I have a repertoire page where people can click on sound-clips of me playing. I used to have to send people demo CDs, but it's much easier now that I can refer people to the website.

I hope this helps to dispel some peoples' cynicism anyway.

By the way, I'm not the harper that's in the case-studies, in case you're wondering.

mikewebs

Hi lucyeff

I remember your first posts.Glad you managed to get somewhere with your website and that it is now paying dividends. Goo dluck to you and your hubby!

Lizbetty

Hi Oona and Mikewebs!

Phew, thanks for the back up guys! :beer: (nb I didn't buy them beer to post that) I really appreciate it. Sometimes posting a thread on here is a bit like jumping in a barrelful of pirahnas with a nosebleed!

I understand how people dislike posts hiding self promotion - so do I. But I'm not sure why trying to pass on information you've found really useful is seen as suspicious by some?

I also would help old ladies across the road, doesn't mean to say I nick their purse on the way. :rolleyes:

The advice I got from a lot of MSE'ers about going for a website rather than going for Yellow Pages (who were hounding us at the time) was the best piece of advice we had, finding Spanglefish came about after that. So as it's this site I have to thank for that, I don't think spreading a bit of moneysaving goodwill back is such an odd thing.

Thanks again folks...btw business is sporadic but getting less so, we're off own brand beans now, lol! :T

Lucy

Norman-B

Lucyeff wrote: »

I'm afraid I'm not apologising for overpraising them - I can't praise them enough!

They saved us a few hundred quid and made us some by helping us make a business website we're proud of (that I can update myself without having to pay more out) which has helped us get more business in.

When you have 2 kids to look after, no money and a new business, saving a few hundred quid makes a difference.

If I can help someone else in the same boat then I will. I already know of someone from MSE who has found them invaluable for their business.

I'm fast at typing, it only takes two minutes to try and help someone else, so why on earth wouldn't I? That's what this site is for innit??? :rolleyes:

Please ignore the cynics! Best of luck to your husband in his new venture.