Hi tnet
This sounds interesting and who are the companies who specialise in this? Also how long would it take to be up and running?
Me personally am a fan of website "rent". I currently maintain around 20 websites this way and based on that I must say that for small businesses, startups and entrepreneur who are not into IT, this is a great solution.
I didn't work with companies in UK that provide this kind of service, but I'll search around and let you know via PP if something interesting pops up.
Here are some pros&cons of website "renting":
Pros:
*
You are the owner of a domain name, design, email addresses and content of the website. Once you decide to cancel the service, you get to keep everything essential to your website( as that's your property), but you must purchase hosting by yourself( around 20$ per year).
* Good technical quality of the website.
* Nice and modern design, but unfortunately not unique. Branding the design is always included in price, but if you want some additional redesign that is usually charged additionally.
* You get basic SEO service for free.
* You get social media marketing plan setup.
* Me personally offer people to write content on regular basis for them and consult them about the online marketing strategies. IMO, that's the best thing as this is something that will actually get you clients online!
* When new browser or technology came into the game, you don't have to worry as service provider needs to take care of this for you.
* Companies that provide this kind of services are goal oriented as they need to keep client happy in order to profit from them. Thus, they will do better job at actually getting you clients.
* Maybe most important thing - you will have someone that knows his job well and will take good care of your web presence. This way you get nice website, constantly someone to create and promote content, advise you about social media marketing(and maybe do it for you), keep you website "live" and up to date.
* Someone said that you don't have full control of your website. In my experience, website owner can make any changes he likes by himself, write content, add pages etc. But IMO, you should always let a professional to do that for you and you should just suggest something etc.
* Someone also suggested usage of FTP. Using FTP is thing of the past. I've been developing enterprise level websites for more than 3 years and FTP was never used not only by customer, but also by developers. CMS should take care of documents management in user friendly and secure way, as FTP is very risky to use.
* You start with professional website for just around £100. And it can be up and running in week or two. True value of such solution is at least 5 times more( at least that's the case in Serbia, not sure how much you need to pay for such website in UK).
Cons:
* Usually companies force you to sign two or three years contract with them. You can cancel it, but then you have some penalties to pay.
* Although you are the owner, you are not in charge of the website. Some people just prefer to pay more to get exactly what they have in mind, not what someone else suggest that is best for them. Sometimes they're right, sometimes not.
* You entrusted someone your online presence. If you chose wrong company, it can be more harm than good.
* Communication can be problem if both the companies staff and owner of the website update content of the website. When some mistake is made, then there will always be some disputes over responsibility.
Feel free to expand both lists!
