help with a new business

audi12

I want to set up a website for a new business i am starting nothing crazy just simple and effective. I am lost however there is so much advice on the internet its confusing. I would be grateful for any assistance

castpro

Hi Audi,

The basics:

1) You will have to pay monthly, annually or biannually for hosting your site (anything from €2 up for a basic website per month)
2) you will have to pay annually for the site domain name e.g. www.example.com (depending on wheather its a .com .ie .co.uk etc will determine price. (There are certain restrictions on .ie domains)

Now they're the main ongoing costs for a basic site. If you want ecommerce (online shop) then you could find additional fees for shopping carts etc. speak to a good developer though and they will talk you through some free and paid solutions.

3) Choose the type of site you want. There are many different types including brochure, ecommerce and blogging.

4) Choose if you need a content management system (CMS) or not. This will enable you to edit the content on your site, as well as other useful functions but expect to pay more for the set up.

That's really the basics, 80% of my customers just want to advertise their business, products & services and contact number online - a brochure site. 10% want ecommerce and 10% want blood out of a stone.

A good designer/developer will sit down and plan out your site with you. Remember we're not mind readers and you will need to write all the text content for your site and choose images (may be cost involved here with images as well). Most people leave the text on the long finger and then end up rushing over an evening to get it to us. This ends up costing them more when they come back to us a month later saying we need text changes, so plan ahead.

Prices vary so shop around. Here's a very very rough estimate on charges:
€99 - €199 for 1 page very basic
€299 - €599 for a standard brochure site
€500 + for ecommerce

This is very basic pricing as most of the work is charged on a per hour basis.

Beware of chancers, there's a lot of them out there. Ask for web address examples of their previous customers to give you a real sense of the quality you can expect.

Hope this helps

audi12

thanks i guess finding a reliable person to do the website is the most difficult part after that it is up to them to do the hard work .staying away from companies would be the best bet i would think as they would charge the most

tricky D

Careful with your assumptions.

A company will charge more as it has a greater knowledge and skills base, which should mean a better solution. Beware mistaking cheapness for value.

In relation to castpro's helpful post, a few points:

• A CMS is almost essential for most sites these days. There's little good excuse for not having one. Similarly for mobile/device friendly design.
• The prices quoted above are towards the cheap end. Eg. it is possible to get an ecommerce site for €500+ or even less, but it will be a bog standard setup with little attention to all the additional factors: Sales techniques, conversion, remarketing, and dozens of other important and too often neglected factors; which mean greater profitability for your business.

Some additional advice:

• Do up a proper and full specification, and refine this with a developer/designers input. You could post a request here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055802922
• Focus on your customers' needs, above your wants.

audi12

ok the website i want will not sell products etc it is mostly to advertise and promote my business and to give peace of mind to customers that the business is genuine and above board .. i want to have a link to facebook page and a few bits like that i dont need anything too detailed or complicated

Deliverance

audi12 wrote: »

ok the website i want will not sell products etc it is mostly to advertise and promote my business and to give peace of mind to customers that the business is genuine and above board .. i want to have a link to facebook page and a few bits like that i dont need anything too detailed or complicated

Learn basic HTML and put up a 'hello world' site and go from there. Come back for more advice when you get stuck on how to make the site more interactive.

Jiminy Jilikers

If you've a new business, I suggest you get someone to do the website for you .

HTML is not difficult and Wordpress makes life very easy but you'll never be happy and it's very time consuming. If you pay someone to work on it for you while you go about building the business it would be a much quicker way to start growing.

The key suggestion is to put your best offer on your homepage, make sure you put a price up. Conversion is very difficult but this will really help!

Best of luck with the business

Kevboom

I have set up websites using wordpress and highly recommend it. Hosting can be bought for as little as $12 per month on Hostgator. You can purchase a wordpress template which will make your site look professional at a fraction of the cost of paying some company to do it.

Mister Man

Kevboom wrote: »

I have set up websites using wordpress and highly recommend it. Hosting can be bought for as little as $12 per month on Hostgator. You can purchase a wordpress template which will make your site look professional at a fraction of the cost of paying some company to do it.

12 a month seems a little high in my eyes? I heard HostGator are meant to be good, never used them myself. You might want to shop around. I got my hosting and domain for the year for 50-60 quid I believe (Which reminds me, that renewal is soon.)
Onto the website. Have a look at Theme Forest for a WordPress theme you might light. You'll get a nice one that will get you by for now for a few quid. All you have to do then is install it onto your WordPress and change the content to match your needs. In the future, you could look at a student/freelancer to get a website done catering for all your needs.

Kevboom

Yeah I forgot to include that I got the mid-range package so can have unlimited hosting and unlimited domains for that price, think the basic passage is between $5-$7. Theme forest is one of the best sources for wordpress themes, I have used a good few from there.