Own Business Website Set-up

[bovril]

Can any of our more technical minded contributors give me some advice about this?

Even if its just a link to a recommended website "start-up" site.

Is a DIY site recommended?
Or is a professional required?

All advice gratefully received.

Thanks

[steveeeeeeeee]

Own Business Website Set-up

Whatever you do, don't pay for a third party to create it for you. My mum and aunt did this with a small business they started and the site was awful, they'd omitted essential things like meta-tags, meaning the site couldn't be picked up by search engines. When they asked the company to include meta-tags, they were told it would. cost them £250. They were being held to ransom because only the webmaster had access to the server to make changes, so the site was basically useless.

A good friend of my mother has recently started a site selling materials and patterns for children's clothes, you can see it here. Her son created the site, it's a really nice and simple design, obviously he's got some ability in that area. What's really important is that there is a blog attached to the site, blogs are essential for having frequently updated content on multiple pages which search engines respond to and drives up traffic for business.

My advice would be to find a hosting company to rent server space from. For a site like the one above, you won't need a lot of space, 100mb should do it. For that, you'll probably need to pay about £20-30 a year max. On top of that you'll need to pay an annual fee of about £8 for your domain name. The host will take care of linking the domain name to your site.

An important thing to look for when choosing your host company is to make sure they use cPanel. It's a program you access through your web browser and it has loads of features to help you review statistics and update your site. But the most important thing cPanel gives you is the ability to install and update Wordpress to your site.

If you search Wordpress on this board or the old otf, you'll find loads of threads by people who use it. Basically, you need very little IT or design knowledge to pick a theme and adapt it for your business. It takes care of metatags and there's tonnes of support. Using wordpress, your site will look just as professional as anything you could possibly pay for and you'll have total access to configuring it to your tastes.

Hope this helps.

[Ginger Yellow]

Own Business Website Set-up

I'd suggest enlisting a friend with good graphic design sense. It makes a world of difference.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Own Business Website Set-up

I agree about not doing the design yourself, unless you're particularly good at it.

Out of the box, Wordpress is set up for blogs, but with a little tweaking it's a very good content management system and can output static pages very well. So, I'd enlist someone to do the initial layout and design; after that, you can edit and create content fairly easily.

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

Own Business Website Set-up

What's the site going to be doing?

The type of site you'll need and the advice you should follow here greatly depends on the answer to that question.

I'm glad the advent of Wordpress and the like has put blogging and simple sites in the hands of most folk, but for more complicated things I cannot agree with steveeeeeeeee when he says not to look towards a third party. Yes, there are a lot of cowboys, but there are also a lot of enthusiastic, talented types who will create something far beyond what a templated blogging platform can achieve.

[bovril]

Own Business Website Set-up

thanks for the responses already.

CTT - my wife is starting up a small financial services firm - bookkeeping, tuition, accountancy etc...
The site would be used to advertise the company, be updated regularly, and be a platform for gauging performance.
So mainly as an information posting medium - rather than heavily interactive. Forums/Blogs would be useful.
Thanks