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Website design help

awesome dawson

awesome dawson

Chris Armstrong
I'm considering starting my own planning consultancy and have looked in getting a website. Can anyone give me some suggestions as to the best way to approach this?

Do I buy the domain name first, commission someone to design the website or just pay for an online DIY package?

Any tips would be appreciated.
 
Check/purchase the domain name first off.

You can probably put together your own website (basic one) using something like Wix, which has a free or paid option.
 
There are plenty of options on this mate. You can register a domain with www.names.co.uk or, if you get a business package from an ISP they'll often bundle in a few domain names with your broadband and telephone.

If you fancy yourself as a half decent designer there are plenty of services like 1and1.co.uk who will do all of the above plus have a basic drag and drop website development tool, or as said above you can have a go with a desktop software package.

There are plenty of options before going to a designer if you feel comfortable learning. I've self taught HTML and CSS and can make a nice, quick loading web page. SEO is a little more difficult. If you want to really get noticed, then have a blog page on your website and update it daily with news and interesting things about your industry, that can do as much good as paying a few grand a year on SEO.
 
Could always use something like Wordpress (http://wordpress.org/) which is basically a web design tool piece of software which is free and based on PHP. Can make some nice looking stuff, worth experimenting around with to see the types of designs you like if nothing else.
 
If you want the simple answer, Google do a pretty good solution.

Buy the name, get hosted, get domain email via Gmail, basic website builder, etc all from one place.
 
I use WordPress every day and can't recommend it highly enough. It's free and you can pick up a good theme on the cheap.

Never ever ever ever go near Sharepoint.
 
scaramanga said:
If you want the simple answer, Google do a pretty good solution.

Buy the name, get hosted, get domain email via Gmail, basic website builder, etc all from one place.
Click to expand...

Got a link to their solution, always interested to see whats about.

Not that I have a business but I'm determined to start one at some point.
 
tommysvr said:
I use WordPress every day and can't recommend it highly enough. It's free and you can pick up a good theme on the cheap.

Never ever ever ever go near Sharepoint.
Click to expand...

I use Wordpress and Sharepoint regularly and would agree with this. Sharepoint is a clunky piece of brick. Wordpress is nice, easy to use and there are tons of decent templates/plug ins around.
 
P.D. said:
Whats so bad about sharepoint?
Click to expand...

Think about every bad product Microsoft has ever made, put them together and you have Sharepoint.

The version I had the misfortune of using didn't allow for custom templates or designs without buying another product on top of it (Sharepoint Designer).
 
Another good think about WordPress is most hosts have a one click install, meaning you don't need to worry about databases and the like.

Once its installed, you can manage everything from the Admin, but if you are well versed in HTML, CSS and/or PHP the possibilities are endless.
 
Wordpress is great. If you go down this route, let me know. I created my own template from scratch, so got a fair idea about how it works.

But there are some great templates available too.

Look on themeforest.net. I got a load more sites too for templates, but I'll have to dig them out.
 
Diego - Can you link me to any other sites with some templates? Looking at setting up a website just to mess around with really but always looking for business opportunities.
 
southstand1882 said:
I would also look at Microsoft Office 365

You get a company website powered by SharePoint

http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/office365/online-software.aspx#fbid=J7FTrq4VrxZ

All the software you need to start and run a business for ?ú4 a month
Click to expand...

Sharepoint? I would not go near this. First time I've seen sharepoint mentioned without a rant about how brick it is. ?ú4 a month? I guess you get what you pay for.

Only got up to that post before I replied. Just seen a few others also share the hatred of sharepoint. Normally products like this are used when purchased by someone who doesn't have to use it, or it looks good on paper.
 
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