Freewebs and SEO

[exotic detail]

Ok, now before you shoot my down in flames for using freewebs, i had too!

I have set up a site for my car cleaning business, the total cost (including .co.uk) was £5.88. I could not afford to spend a penny more, but what ways can i help with SEO?

Can i change some coding? or would i need to pay up for a decent site? I think the current site looks good for the price but i am aware that SEO may have been compromised.

Any help would be great.

Regards, Simon

 

[awebapart.com]

You will get zero/little SEO for your domain from your current set up since the website is not hosted under your domain. If you view source you will see that the page under your domain just performs a hidden redirect to the freewebs site. So most SEO will take affect not under your domain, but the freewebs domain freewebs.com/exoticdetailuk - and since freewebs.com is US-based and it is a .com, it will not do very well in UK searches anyway.

You would have been better off buying your domain from a registrar who gave you a free web page with sitebuilder as part of the deal, e.g. 123-reg.co.uk, at least then you would have content hosted under your own domain. Better still you could have opted for the Microsoft Office Live free website service, where they give you a domain name and multipage website for free.

 

[exotic detail]

Could i buy the plus instantsite from 123-reg and transfer my domain? and then just design a new site?

If i do that would SEO be easier? or at least better than it is know?

Thanks for your help, and sorry about all the questions.

Simon

 

[awebapart.com]

You should be able to fully transfer your domain name to 123-reg to make use of their instant site sitebuilder (a bit more complex a process), or simply point (redelegate/change nameservers) your domain to Microsoft office live basics (this is explained on the Microsoft site as part of the sign up process - i.e. change name servers to NS1.officelive.com and NS2.officelive.com).

I was just giving you examples of what was possible and what might be better than your current setup SEO-wise but still within your £6 budget.

 

[Ganceann]

In my opinion, even creating a blog at blogger.com would have been better to get some basic information about your business online.

The reason I say that is that it would mainly be used for a few information pages that could later be transferred over to a domain and its own hosting.

I have a couple of domains from 123-reg.co.uk and have never really used the sitebuilder for it so cannot offer any help on that whatsoever. Though you said it cost £5.88 in total - was that for the domain name? (did you buy it through freewebs? 123-reg.co.uk? or through a different registrar?... Do you have full control over the DNS settings etc?)

I think blogger has the option of using your own domain name - but using the blogger system to create/store the information on their systems and simply use your domain name.

Just checked my blogger account and in the Custom Domain name settings option it also enables you to keep the Pings option set to yes - so would still notify places anytime you updated content.

And when you had your own hosting, it would be a matter of transferring things over and to continue site development. Though I do not know how this works for things such as email or a contact form etc.

 

[blown away]

For God's sake don't bother with an instant site from 123.
I'm surprised that Paul has suggested them after all the trouble I had (and posted about) with them - put it this way, I had no sales in 4 months with that site.
There are half a dozen other site builders you could use - I won't suggest one as you need to see which one suits you.

 

[RedEvo]

I have set up a site for my car cleaning business, the total cost (including .co.uk) was £5.88. I could not afford to spend a penny more

You are in business but the absolute max you could afford for a website was £5.88? Surely not?

If your website is in your business plan as a lead generator spend some money and do it right.

Just my humble opinion.

d

 

[exotic detail]

Thanks for the comments guys

RedEvo - I understand what you are saying and i would like to spend more, but if there no funds to spend i cant.

I mentioned the price as i think the site looks alright given the amount spent, it was only later that i came across SEO and started regretting past decisions.

I want to see what i can do with a minimal price, if that doesnt increase revenues then yes i will look to spend more.

The domain is with Telivo, although i may move to 123-reg...depending.

Simon

 

[RedEvo]

In a nutshell to build a decent site AND get it coming up in search engine results pages for terms people use when looking for your services will take either;

A budget of £1500 - £2000 (at the lower end)

OR

A lot of your time so you can learn to DIY. Our SEO Blog has a some simple pointers SEO wise. A lot of people in here go the DIY route which is fair enough but will take a big effort to get it right.

Hope this helps

d

 

[RayB]

I'm with Red on this - it is better to INVEST properly in an optimised ecommerce site rather than waste £5.88.

For that £5.88 you have a shop that is likely to never be found = no sales.

 

[awebapart.com]

For God's sake don't bother with an instant site from 123.
I'm surprised that Paul has suggested them after all the trouble I had (and posted about) with them

You were using the instant site ecommerce package eshop module, not the simple instant site system for normal (non-ecommerce) websites. 123-reg have subsequently introduced an epages system for their online shop offering which is a completely different system (the same system BT use with their hosted managed service). The problems you had with your online shop are not necessarily going to be repeated for someone who just wants a simple website, since an online shop is far more complex.

My experience with 123 has been fine, although I only use them for domain registration and the odd 1 page instant site website.

For an experiment, and for demo purposes, I set up a site with 123-reg a while back (several months ago) using their free with domain purchase sitebuilder system (free 1 page sitebuilder website with ads, with domain name purchase):

www.webdesignnorthampton.org.uk

This site is on page 2 of google for:

web design northampton
web design northamptonshire
web design northants

and page 1 position 3 on Microsoft's live.com site for: web design northampton

and believe me, there are a lot of companies competing for this term, not just local web designers, but web designers targeting all areas nationally, and the directory sites too. The site could probably do better if it didn't have the adverts.

For a much less competitive term, e.g. car cleaning lincolnshire or car cleaning lincoln, it is feasible that you can do better than google page 2 just by spending £6 - of course it helps if you have your keywords in the domain name.

 

[exotic detail]

I think im going to get a 123 site and try the DIY method. I am promoting the site though flyers and networking so its getting around a little.

If i get 1 customer from the site in a year i have made my £6 pack so i guess it would be worth giving it a try.

I will let you all know how it goes!

Simon

 

[awebapart.com]

You will probably find there is a 60 day waiting period after buying your domain before you can transfer it, so you might be better off looking into the Microsoft Office Live Basics offering first, which doesn't require a domain transfer, merely a nameserver change. Or opt for a different domain with keywords in it. With the free Basics package you get more pages than the 1 page with 123-reg, and you dont have adverts. With the 123-reg offering, most of the nice templates are only available for the paid for instant site service, with the free service you only get a choice of 10 templates.

Even having a simple and cheap web presence and domain name can save you money, it can mean that you don't have to print such a large flyer, or place such a big advert in your newspaper, just add the domain name to your advertising instead.

Your type of business will determine the spend and the level of expectation for your website, for instance if you are a one-man-band local home repairs odd-job man, nobody is going to expect a corporate quality website. However if you are trying to launch a national car cleaning franchise then the level of expectation will go up.