Webhosting, Webdesign & buying a domain - advice for ama

Secteur

that should say "advice for a clueless amateur"!

Want to create a simple business website which will ideally show up in google searches but there array of choices out there is mind boggling.

1and1 seems very good - all inclusive - what is their simple self-webdesign facility like?

123-reg looks like there are a lot of extra costs.

Any other suggestions?

Want something I can do myself and ideally all from a single site/company.

Cheers.

optimisticbiker

I use http://www.pay-as-you-host.co.uk for hosting my private websites. Its fairly cheap, they can supply and manage your domains and support backend serivces such as databases. They dont do a site design tool, but there are many available elsewhere and its not, IMHO, a good idea to tie your site design tool to your hosting provider... it makes it harder to move either later should you need to do so...

You'll need to say more about what you want your site to do. By 'business' I guess you want to show product, take payment and retain data about customers...

Showing up in Google is not as easy as some think... obviously there are keywords but unless your customers are searching for something pretty unique getting to the top of the list is a major exercise in itself although it does depend on your business and what your competition is... (I know, we have 2 full-time employees who are specialists in Search Engine Optimisation to keep our, admittedly UK top 10, site at #1 in the listings)

suzyb

A client of mine used 1and1 to host their site. Seemed decent enough although kind of hard to tell for sure as the site never went live.

Like OptimisticBiker said though, I'd stay clear of site design tools. HTML/Css isn't really that hard to learn or you could choose to use something like wordpress that have a lot of templates for layout and easy to use administration systems.

mroli

We use 123reg for our charity site:

www.georgesfoundation.org (and www.georgernoliver.co.uk) and to be honest it is clunky and frustrating and difficult to get right. You can see on our first page that the margin doesn't work, which is one of the gripes we have that can't get sorted out.

You are limited in template use, it is hard to get things right, there are some weird odditys that go on etc etc. For example when inputting text, a lot of the time something strange happens like it is all underlined, or photos go wandering around the page. I have left most of this up to my wife and she gets very frustrated with it.

What people say about learning some HTML may be a good idea - but it is a hassle, I would look elsewhere for a different "Mr Website" to be completely honest.

CiB

Edited for being bobbins.

FWIW I use these people, if only because they took over the original hosts that I opted for. http://www.2008hosting.net/Windows_Web_Hosting.aspx

I did use 1&1 some years ago in the days of dial-up and found their template & editor to be a right PITA, but I expect they've moved on since then.

gaz545

I use 1and1 for about 5 websites i run.
Most of them running some form of CMS or blogging engine, be that ModX or Wordpress.

If you are new to the world of websites and have little knowledge of HTML, CSS, graphics for the web, typography, design, information architecture etc.. then it's best to get something like wordpress and add a good template.
All the hard work is done for you and all that is required is for you to add the content. You also get a good backend system that makes it easy to update and edit content.

mudcow007

we use ehostings.com

Manchester based host, really really good support with them, been using them for about 7 years now, i think we have about 10 sites with them

davmaggs

If you are just getting a page or two up on the web and really want to invest the effort as a learning exercise then perhaps do it yourself. If getting clients for your business is a priority then spend your time on that and pay someone to do your site.

I spent a lot of time years ago getting fairly reasonable at we b design, but since being involved in a small business I've realised that there aren't enough hours in the week so stick to what you know. HTML coders can be cheap.

I've gotten a few sites into the top of Google and then thing that they really seem to like is good content. Make sure the first paragraph and page titles suits your market and contains the phrases that people will search on. A lot of the SEO stuff appears to be snake oil. Also make sure you create a business listing on Google (free) as they'll display your business if someone is searching by location.

cee

i have used a few....

godaddy is one not mentioned so far.

roadracedave

I use 1&1 for all of the website's I have built and found them brilliant. It supports all of the main CMS systems, its extremely easy to set up ftp access and email accounts. You can also add more domains easily and the general user interface is very intuative.

As gaz545 said, if you haven't got much experience of web coding, and don't really want to, or haven't got the time to invest in learning it then I would go down the Wordpress route. There are a lot of very good themes out there, and for a small price you can have a premium them which will look the dogs...

Alternatives, are Drupal and Joomla, but they require a bit more experience and aren't quite so simple to set up. I've never used the 1&1 site builder, so can't comment on it, but it depends on what level of site you are looking for. Personally, I think Wordpress sites are just as easy to setup, and would probably look more professional.

As far as Google rankings go, just make sure that your content is relevant and has got a good selection of keywords spread throughout it. Depending on what kind of market your company is in, will determine who you are competing with for similar search queries and how likely you are to get top ranking. It will always take time to get search ranking as your site has to be crawled by the search engines.

Secteur

Thanks for all the advice.

So I will use wordpress to design the site, and 1and1 to sell me the domain name & provide webhosting

SOmeone mentioned I should buy the domain name from a company SEPARATE to the one that will host my site? Is this really the case?

roadracedave

I would buy the domain name from 1&1, the benefits of this are a) it keeps all the costs together and saves having to pay two different companies, and b) if you buy the domain name from one company, and the hosting from another, you will have to redirect domains and have to mess about with nameservers.

Plus, I think even the basic 1&1 web hosting package comes with a free domain name, so doesn't really make sense to buy it elsewhere.

suzyb

Secteur make sure you get the hosting package with PHP if you're going to use wordpress. I believe 1&1 have packages without it as the client I worked for didn't have it originally.

Secteur

Suzy - no idea what PHP is, but I will make sure it has it!

Cheers :-)

Secteur

Seem to have stalled at the first hurdle - downloaded wordpress expecting a nice idiot-friendly package to open up.

Seems not to be the case!

Requires knowledge of databases, webservers, mySql and all sorts of other stuff I have no idea and no interest in.

"Before you begin the install, there are few things you need to have and do...

Access to your web server (via shell or FTP)
A text editor
An FTP Client
Your web browser of choice"

No idea what any of these things are.

Please could someone suggest something that a TOTAL novice can just look at, click at and make a website.

Alternatives please!

Cheers!

roadracedave

It's the programming code that wordpress is built on, along with mysql. As far as I am aware though, all 1 & 1 packages now how have full support for PHP/Mysql so you shouldn't have any problems.

I think they have also added an automatic Wordpress installer accessible from within the admin menu which, if like the auto installer on other hosting sites, will install all of the necessary Wordpress files for you so you can then just change the theme and the content and job done.

roadracedave

Secteur wrote:

Seem to have stalled at the first hurdle - downloaded wordpress expecting a nice idiot-friendly package to open up.

Seems not to be the case!

Requires knowledge of databases, webservers, mySql and all sorts of other stuff I have no idea and no interest in.

Please could someone suggest something that a TOTAL novice can just look at, click at and make a website.

Alternatives please!

Cheers!

I would take a look at the 'famous 5-minute install guide' here; http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress if you follow the instructions it is fairly simple.

If you have got your 1&1 hosting setup and are able to access the admin area of your hosting, try and find the auto-install for wordpress. It should be there somewhere and just use that to install Wordpress.

PeeDee

I guess you are not a born techie, so my advice is pay someone to do it, concentrate on doing your own core business activities which you know best.

It is actually very easy once you know how, but from a cold start getting to that point where it all becomes easy can take you months or years of practice (something the techies omit to mention).

Secteur

Thanks for all the advice - sorry for being such a pain!

It might all get easier once I have bought the 1and1 domanin name and webspace.

Will report back when I have managed it

roundthebend

Hold fire a second.......

Depending on how much space you need I could create a hosting package through my reseller account and then give you some assistance installing Wordpress.

If you're interested, let me know your requirements - basically, what's the site for and how much use it's going to get.