Which Self build website provider?

[craigap]

Hi

We currently have our website hosting, site builder and email forwarding with 1and1, and have for a long time.
We've had a few issues since using Office365 for email and have struggled to get things resolved for various reasons which has resulted in our site basically disappearing.
We haven't really used our website to gain new business as we have a lot of repeat business and don't sell anything via the site as we are a service based company. However I am aware of the importance of some form of web presence and we are starting to look to increase our client base.
Therefore we are looking to move the hosting of our site to a new provider with the usual access to templates, etc., for a 3-5 page site. However I'm looking for recommendations for companies with accessible and good customer support, reasonable hosting costs and reasonable domain renewal costs.
Sorry if this is a bit vague but not sure what else we should be looking at.

Thanks

Craig

 

[fisicx]

None of them.

Seriously, if you want a business website avoid any of the online site builders. Invest in a professionally build website just like the business invests in any other asset.

 

[Page]

I know it is hard when you do not know and do not know enough

But what you should do is do your best to say what you are trying to do

You can achieve what you want with wordpress - free - and do it yourself
But you need the hosting etc and might want to learn nothing
And you may have no design skills etc

If you are not going to be changing anything - much and do not have much time or skills - the consider getting some help in to do it for you
Ask them to do it in wordpress and make sure that you have all the keys so that your short and curls are not twistable by them

There will be some decent people on here who - if that is what you spec up - will get it all going for you a great starting site- hosted in your name etc - give you some basic training and then hand over the keys but be on call on a job by job basis should you need it down the line

Unless you have skills/time and want to do all the learning - then that would be the route I would go down

if you want to try playing with wordpress then bing it and you can create a free one within minutes

But that does not mean you can create a lovely looking website quickly - it is easy - but if you need to learn about graphics and fonts and look and feel and have a lovely site then ...

 

[Clinton]

You can achieve what you want with wordpress - free - and do it yourself

He can't. He wants simplicity and no learning the technical stuff needed to run a website. That's not what he'll get from WP.

I don't know why people keep recommending Wordpress as a blanket solution for those who need to build everything from a forum to an ecommerce site to a static HTML site to a three bedroom house with an onsuite toilet for the master bedroom.

WP is an awful solution for someone like the OP!

Did he really say he has days worth of time to learn everything he needs to learn about WP - from finding and tweaking free templates to configuring Yoast or other SEO plugin? And weeks worth of time to learn how to keep his site secure and how to take backups of files and the database (or configure yet another plugin)? Or the patience to update plugins and Wordpress every couple of days?!

All he needs is a static 3-5 page site with the minimum complication. There is nothing as crap as WP for his particular problem.

However I'm looking for recommendations for companies with accessible and good customer support, reasonable hosting costs and reasonable domain renewal costs.

Tip: Do not use your hosting company as your domain registrar, use different companies!

Also, web design is a highly competitive area so you should be able to get someone to design you a good, static HTML website, to your exact specifications, at a fraction of the price it would cost you to go down the Wordpress route (unless you value your own time at under £0.01 ph).

 

[KM-Tiger]

All he needs is a static 3-5 page site with the minimum complication.

That's what I would call a 'brochure' type website.

Recently a client of mine went against the received wisdom that WIX is crap and built their website with WIX.

They are a company with full order books and no need of further marketing via the internet.The website is principally there as a courtesy and basic information, and as one means of interacting with customers. They also use Facebook for that.

Have to say the site looks good, it loads plenty fast enough, and suits their purposes at a reasonable price.

 

[Paul Babiak]

wix.com

weebly.com

squarespace.com


Choose your poison. All work on the same basis and are easy to use. You will find free trial for all of them. Go, test them out and choose one that you like

 

[fisicx]

If you want to use the site to generate leads (as the OP suggested) they aren't good platforms. Especially as you don't know where the business is going. A small 3-5 page site might suddenly need to expand and a site-builder is often a hindrance rather than a help.

 

[Alan]

We haven't really used our website to gain new business as we have a lot of repeat business and don't sell anything via the site as we are a service based company. However I am aware of the importance of some form of web presence and we are starting to look to increase our client base.

The important bit here is

starting to look to increase our client base

The question is how?

If the answer is through SEO or Adwords this is serious investment in digital marketing, a serious part of your marketing plan & budget, and that investment should be reflected through your website ( as @fisicx use a professional or you will get it badly wrong )

If the answer is through other offline means and the website just needs to be there as a brochure incase people decide to look us up by name to check us out AFTER they have decided to buy from you, then a DIY / Wix type of approach may be appropriate.

 

[Mirecart]

There are a number of new business out there who offer serviced websites, you either pay a monthly fee for small and medium active sites, but you only have to provide content. Or a 1-5 page landing site for a nominal set annual fee. Either way you don't have to worry about the tech, and updates are taken care of for you.

 

[craigap]

Hi everyone

First;y thanks for your replies and apologies I haven't responded to any so far.
I should have expanded on how we are increasing business in the first instance. This will be via direct telemarketing, email etc. I don't intend the site to be really used for the likes of adwords, etc. I suppose your suggestion of it being more of an online brochure is on the money. We want to state a bit about the company, a small write up on services and some case studies to provide a presence to reinforce our 'existence'.
A definitely font want to learn any design skills, sorry just not my forte.

Wix was one I briefly looked at but just wary of signing up to something that is going to give me ongoing issues.
Also briefly looked at a web designer but again for the money, we are not expecting the site to generate business, just reinforce our presence. Hopefully this isn't being short sighted!

Craig

 

[Alan]

Static HTML site to start with - Hugo maybe https://gohugo.io/

 

[fisicx]

Also briefly looked at a web designer but again for the money, we are not expecting the site to generate business, just reinforce our presence. Hopefully this isn't being short sighted!

But you can use the site to publish case studies, testimonials, examples of your products/services, insurances, trade qualifications, pictures of the team with bios and so on (big trust builders).

Yes it can be a brochure site but it can be so much more. If you are emailing people you can direct them to the website for more information. Telesales can point to case studies and galleries. You may even discover a niche that works perfectly with adwords and brings in business for a few pounds each day.

When you launch a website you can suddenly discover all sorts of opportunities.

 

[quikshop]

None of them.

Seriously, if you want a business website avoid any of the online site builders. Invest in a professionally build website just like the business invests in any other asset.

Can't agree with this. As a starting point self-build or hosted shops are a low cost lower risk option well worth considering. Just make sure they have a full export option for shop content as and when you're ready to move to a standalone Ecommerce platform.

 

[fisicx]

Yes I agree. But the likes of 1&1, vistaprint, godaddym, weebly et al are not a good way to do things. They sucker you in and you may get a pretty site but it doesn't take long before you end up playing more and more for functionality that comes as standard on many other platforms.

But I suppose if a wix site does the job then go for it - but most of my business comes from people who used a site builder only to discover a year down the line it's no longer fit for purpose.

A shop is a totally different thing - and not what the OP was asking for.

 

[antropy]

None of them.

Seriously, if you want a business website avoid any of the online site builders. Invest in a professionally build website just like the business invests in any other asset.

Well yes and no. If you want to get something up very quickly and very cheaply as a temporary solution then sure, Wix etc. have some value.

WP is an awful solution for someone like the OP!

100% agree, I'm glad I'm not the only one to realise WP is *not* client friendly.

 

[Paul Norman]

None of them.

Seriously, if you want a business website avoid any of the online site builders. Invest in a professionally build website just like the business invests in any other asset.

This is the correct answer.

 

[BPML]

I can only agree with what others have said here, avoid these type of web-builders if you are a serious business.

My recommend would be Wordpress, either self-taught or via an agency/web company.

 

[Alex Watkin]

I seriously recommend wordpress and woocommerce, and you'll find its the cheapest, and there are plenty of tutorials on youtube,lynda.com etc

 

[SoleTraderHub]

I see it all over the web, this necessity to throw Wordpress at each and every request for Website help and to be honest, its embarrassing.

In the right hands, Wordpress can be an amazing tool. For the general user or DIY'er, it can and usually is a complete nightmare.

It is not intuitive at all. To get anything out of it you need to put time into learning it and its nuances. Demo's look great, but have you seen a user try and recreating them from just a base template? Then there is plugins, none of which seem to have any standard way of working (I'm talking about back-end differences and lack of continuity in admin visuals), security, backups, cache...the list goes on and on.

The small business owner has no time to be learning and understanding all of this. Yes, Wordpress is free, yes it is capable (to a point) but you need to become a semi-expert to get what you have in your head onto the screen. The small business owner doesn't have the time to be looking at countless Youtube videos or looking on forums to solve the inevitable problems they come across. More importantly, in a lot of cases, the small business owner doesn't have the capability or even want to do this.

There seems to be a lot of promotion for Wordpress, but very little discussion on the problems using it can cause. Plugins and templates constantly throw out the site you have created, or even worse, they are abandoned and become a security risk. This can cause incompatibility with the ever increasing versions of WP meaning that you have to source, install and configure a new plugin just to have the same functionality. Really? What business owner has time for this?

Take the latest Divi update (I am not a Divi fan, bu i appreciate the fact that a lot of people use it). Check out any of the Divi Facebook support pages to see how a simple theme update recently has screwed up hundreds of peoples websites.

Of course, using a staging platform alleviates all of this, but the small business owner has not time to work out Wordpress let alone use a staging or development platform.

It is in my opinion that Wordpress is not a one size fits all solution and IMHO should only be used by those who have some background in Web Design / Development as these are the people who can get the best out of it.

If the small business owner cannot afford a "web professional"* to create them a web presence This is more a reflection on inadequate financial planing and a bad marketing strategy more than anything else), then until they can why should they not use the likes of Wix, Weebly or Squarespace? As someone said above, something is better than nothing, no?

Of course, proper discussion with a "web professional"* will determine what direction the small business owner should be looking at going down, but to collect emails for a mailing list, or for a simple static page explaining the company, these cheap website builders do have their place.

* I use the phrase "web professional" above and refer to those who can clearly see that Wordpress is not a blanket response to someone wanting a website. It is merely one tool in a collection of tools that may be able to provide a solution to the clients problem.

 

[Mirecart]

I started this brand, http://www.servicedwebsites.co.uk/ due to a growing number of requests from small businesses who just want a simple web presence. They only ever need to change a page every now and then so don't really need or want to have to access to the site itself. They just want to request a change and know that it will happen, and not cost them extra.

 

[james_firmsites]

I see it all over the web, this necessity to throw Wordpress at each and every request for Website help and to be honest, its embarrassing.

In the right hands, Wordpress can be an amazing tool. For the general user or DIY'er, it can and usually is a complete nightmare.

Could not agree more, my business provides wordpress based managed websites for a monthy fee, instead of charging people upfront, and the number of times I have people question "why? wordpress is free". It's not, it takes time and experience to set it up correctly and ensure it is kept running smoothly. The auto-update feature of plugins is great but it increases risks that eventually something is going to change and break or worse people will just not update and leave big security holes.

People need to, like anything in business, perform proper cost benefit analysis and determine the right solution. The 'free' site builders normally just involve large amounts of wasted hours for unprofessional results. The old adage about choosing only two between cost, quality and speed comes to mind.

Wordpress is a fantastic tool, but it is by no means the silver bullet people believe it to be. Consider the opportunity cost of having a bad website and invest in something that will drive sales for your business.

 

[webhostuk]

Yes very true, infact for the same reason we have to keep updating all our Wordpress customer that new secured version of WP is available and it good to update, hardly few customer will comeback asking for update help. In such cases for website and server security we are forced to perform update if we don't get any response.
If you are using wordpress you need to make sure its updated secured and that really costs you money.

 

[fisicx]

If you are using wordpress you need to make sure its updated secured and that really costs you money.

How does it cost money? Takes me a couple of minutes each week to update my site and I can do that in the background.

 

[webhostuk]

Its not just the update I am talking about, if you wish to secure the site, update some good plugins our other security modules they all are paid. And if we are looking at high end usability that will surely cost money.

 

[fisicx]

I...if you wish to secure the site, update some good plugins our other security modules they all are paid..

No they aren't. You can fully secure a wordpress site without paying a penny. Most wordpress security breaches happen because people install poorly built themes and rely on plugins for everything. A properly configured WP site needs very little security.

 

[Alan]

Takes me a couple of minutes each week to update my site and I can do that in the background.

But you don't charge yourself. A few minutes each week, assuming no issues and you are an accountant at a typical fee rate of £2/minute, has got to be worth £20 a month. Factor in when something goes wrong ( this afternoon one of my upgrades for some reason failed so had to restore from backup ) and that cost time too. So assuming that you pay someone to manage your WordPress, then it costs money.

WordPress is pretty secure as long as you don't use any plugins or themes, but that is the joy of WordPress. Securing WordPress is not free, even if some good plugins ( including my excellent one ) have free options. It takes time to read the Codex if you are going to manually harden, and if you are not techy then there is the time to understand it. Then do it. Or indeed, the time to research the security plugins, then the time to understand them, and what parts are valuable and what configuration is needed. All takes time, either the accountant at £2/minute spends 1 day learning & researching, or they pay an expert.

It is second nature to you and I that live WP day in and out, but it certainly isn't free.

 

[pbdesigns]

Be wary of assuming that because you have a service that that means you're not "selling online".

You've mentioned that you'll be using telemarketing and direct email to generate business. It's unlikely the email or phone call will directly generate business. It's more than likely the first step in your sales process.

If the email/phone call sparks an interest in your service, this is where your website comes in. It should showcase your expertise in the service you deliver, and position yourself as the right company to do business worth.

Don't forget, in many cases, the email/phone call you make might spark an interest in the service you offer, but that potential customer may then go off elsewhere to look for other quotes for the same service. So you did the hard work, and then lost the sale!

A website is much more than design (sadly too many designers still focus on the design aspect).

The copy itself on the website is vitally important to ensure it sells your company properly.

Don't think of a website as a cost. Instead, consider how much it will cost you in lost business that you didn't convert because your website didn't sell for you.

Treat your website as if it were an employee - it should be your best performing sales person. And I doubt you'd go for the cheapest sales person to represent your business?

 

[Petr Gogolin]

There are many reasons for not chosing self-building platform for a website, but if you know all the pros and cons, why not. I can recommend webnode com aside all those already mentioned here.

 

[Vigilion]

If you are looking for a user-friendly site builder Squarespace is pretty good and easy to use.