Website

[paddy]

Anybody here got a business website???

I am after a website developer/designer for a business website that i need.

[thecornflake]

I've done some web design work for people before. I was doing it as a regular thing for extra income but I've put it on hold for now to pursue other things.

However, I'd be happy to consider doing one from a template for you. No ecommerce or flash animation though.

If you want to have a look at the most recent one I did visit my site - www.freshjuicestudio.com - and have a look at the portfolio section.

I'm also more than happy to provide free assistance with search engine optimisation etc.

[catalyst]

why not use a cms, such as joomla - relatively easy.
wordpress has search engine optimisation kinda built into it, or if you were looking for a specific type of business there are a number of off the shelf database run options such as realitymanager...

we have 7 or 8 websites - but too busy to do any for anyone else... sorry.

[mrsflibble]

how much is it to buy and run a website? I'm fully versed in fairly basic html (but my hairy little brother helps lots so he'd be doing most of the coding)... I need a website to start selling my services as a photographer as I'm getting nowhere by word of mouth.

[Martin]

e107, and do it yourself!

[Stonehead]

how much is it to buy and run a website?

How long is a piece of string? It really depends on what your aim is with the website, how many features you want to pack in, how much bandwidth you expect to need (and then how much you actually need), what backup and support you need, how professional you want it to look and how easy it is to navigate (many sites have good backends but the dsign and navigation suck) and so on.

You could do a nice, simple website that simply announces what your business is, gives your contact details, and provides examples of your work/services for the low hundreds of pounds. You could do it more cheaply but even a simple site needs to be done well to work well and look professional.

On the other hand, you can have £10 million and still end up with a pile of crud!! Yep, been there, got the T-shirt (change the directors, change the spec, change the directors, change the spec, change the directors, change the spec, etc etc etc.).

[Martin]

If you can manage some simple html webdesign, you can probably cope with a content management system - a "website in a box" that runs off a database.
Then you'll need some webspace - £35 spent with Xilo (the server company that's dishing this site up with great alacrity) will see you with a domain name, a chunk of webspace for a year, and a control panel.......if you delve about in it, you'll find it's often possible to install all sorts of web applications - blogs, cms', forums, shops etc by pointing and clicking. You then go to the control panel of whatever you've installed, and start customising!
The big advantage of a cms is that it arranges everything for you, automatically updates it, neatly arranges the content, and gives a very "professional" feel - you can customise it by changing the "theme" or "skin", and adding your own content/photos etc!
The best way is to try several (you can always delete them, and try something else), until you find something that suits you. Only slightly more difficult is to set up a database on your server, and install direct by f.t.p.
I'm sure other people will have their own opinions, but having spent a lot of time trying a load of them - I'd suggest the following as being good places to start
CMS E107 by a mile - straightforward, logical, easy to get to grips with, good themes and plugins! (Mambo on the other hand is impenetrable). E107 can encompass a vast and sprawling site, or a "one man band" with equal ease!
Blogs -Wordpress - very capable, the "industry standard", but not the easiest to implement
"B2 Evolution" is a nice simple "flat file" database blog that works well (no need to setup an sql database)

[pskipper]

http://www.trowbridgeosteopaths.co.uk/

I did this for a friend using basic HTML and tools from the web, cost £17 to host for a year including domain name.

[mrsflibble]

now that's the kind of thing I need!!!

nothing fancy,just to try and sell myself a bit.

[pskipper]

It's hosted on daily.co.uk, their basic package is £1.49 pcm with a current special offer of the first 6 months free, if you aren't expecting millions of people looking it's a good choice and they allow you to upgrade to packages with higher data allowances if you need to. (I have nothing to do with them just a happy customer).

I've also done my own site http://www.whirlo.org.uk and one for a local rotaract group http://www.bathrotaract.org.uk so feel free to look at the HTML source if you like any of the things I've done. Personally I don't like all the flash things you can get as they don't work with all the browsers and if you are on dial up take years to load!

[mrsflibble]

I can't stand flash. it was one of my pet hates at uni. i did the bare minimum to pass the module 'cos the program just drove me nuts; not to mention the loading issues. i was trying to run flash5 on a windows 95 laptop with very little memory.


anyway, thanks for the info!!

[Thomzo]

I need a website to start selling my services as a photographer as I'm getting nowhere by word of mouth.

Mrsfibble
I would highly recommend the various networking organisations. I think I've mentioned them before but for small businesses, especially services such as photography, I think they are excellent.

I have been to BNI, BRE (British Referral Exchange) and have posted on www.4networking.biz

I found them all to be really useful when I was trying to build up a business. The point of them is that you pass on your details to other business people. They can then give your name if asked for a referral. You do the same for them. If you go along to the breakfast meetings then you get to know each other fairly well so you can be confident in passing on the referrals.

Cheers
Zoe

[Des]

I'd also recommend picking up a basic hosting package (I've been very happy with Cirtex for my sister's "We've-got-no-kids-and-earn-altogether-too-much-and-fancy-taking-a-year-off-and-travelling-the-world-how-can-we-make-everyone-jealous" site, and will probably switch my own account to them come renewal) which comes with a useful control panel which will allow you to set up something like joomla or Wordpress.

Depending on how tricksy you feel like getting, you can set up quite a complex catalogue-style site or just a simple five-pages-and-an-index site, but the advantage of using something like a CMS (Content Management System) is that it's relatively easy for you to update it as and when you need to. Also, it's relatively easy to make it look spectacular.

The disadvantage (other than a bit of a learning curve) is that it's also relatively easy to make it look cluttered and busy. Less is generally more. For examples of this, look at... Well, most of the internet, actually...