I need advice. I'm starting a home business and need help setting up a business web page.

[mellondust]

I'm starting a home drafting business and I want to have a website that people can go to to get more info about my services. I've been looking around at places to host my site and have some questions hopefully some of you can answer. I am just going to list them and if you have any good ideas on it just quote the question with your answer or advice in your post. I don't know anything about this so some of these might seem very basic to some of you.

About my business so you can see my needs.

I am only targeting local people in my area. I draft house plans so I want people to see some of the plans and pictures of houses. They may get my site name from the phone book or local advertising. My site will have the ussual text and pictures that people can blow up, and possibly some type of streaming video of house walk throughs if it is not to hard to do. I would like to spend less that $10 a month.

Questions:

1) Should I register my domain name separatly or do an all in one package that has hosting and domain registration?

2) Do I need to buy a web design software package to design my page or do these hosting places have all the tools I need. I want it to look good, not like some cheap free web page site?

3) Can I save the whole site to my computer or is everything kept on the web hosting site?

4) If I want to switch my web hosting site do I need to create a new site or can I transfer everything from my old site to my new one?

5) Should I go with a local provider or are the ones I see advertised all over the net just as safe and reliable?

6) What are some good web hosting services"

7) How do I know the look of the web pages the site has to offer. Is there different templates you can use depending on look or function of you site?

8) Is it better to do monthly, yearly, or two year contract? This is a side job I do in my spare time so I won't be going out of business anytime soon but I don't know how long of a committment I want to a particular company.

9) After looking at alot of sites, I am thinking the basic business plan of any site would be fine for me. I do want a business plan don't I? I think I could get away with a personal site because of the simplicity of what I want to do.

10) If a business plan is the way to go, is there any advantage to upgrading to the next level? I would it be of any use to me to have all the extra e-mails, space, or bandwidth?

11) Anything else I should be aware of or great how to sites?

Thanks for any and all advice.

 

[xanis]

1) Up to you, see where the deals are at and then make a decisioN
2) If you don't mind using a template, then yes, most sites include some type of site builder
3) The media content you will need to keep on your hard drive, but you upload it to the site and store it there to use it
4) If the host is decent, they should probably let you transfer at least some stuff
5) There are good big-name providers, Google web hosting or go to WebHostingTalk.com
6) Can't personally give any reccomendations here, sorry
7) Yes, there are a lot of different templates usually, but remember that you get what you pay for... costlier service might have better templates
8) Again, look at where the deals are at. If you're going long-term, make sure that the host is really good
9) Depends on how much traffic you plan on getting... you might be able to get away with a personal site if you won't draw too much traffic
10) If your site and buisness takes off and you need more space, bandwith or features, then it might be beneficial to upgrade, yes
11) Nope

I have some advice for you as far as web design is concerned. I know a lot of people who have degrees in Interactive Design and Graphic Design and I'm telling you that it would probably be good if you could get someone to design a site for you. I bet that there are a few people on ATOT who would be glad to help you out for a discounted price.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

1) Should I register my domain name separatly or do an all in one package that has hosting and domain registration?

Yes, register with Namecheap - http://www.namecheap.com

2) Do I need to buy a web design software package to design my page or do these hosting places have all the tools I need. I want it to look good, not like some cheap free web page site?

What's your budget? Either pick one from http://www.oswd.org, templatemonster.com, or have one designed. If you want one designed, $200 or even $250 is a good budget.

3) Can I save the whole site to my computer or is everything kept on the web hosting site?

You can keep copies on both, however it will *need* to be on the server your site is hosted on.

4) If I want to switch my web hosting site do I need to create a new site or can I transfer everything from my old site to my new one?

You want to change the domain (mysite.com) or the hosting provider?

Domain - no issue, contact your webhost
Hosting Provider - Contact the new one for information on how to do this and if they can help at all

5) Should I go with a local provider or are the ones I see advertised all over the net just as safe and reliable?

Contact them, setup a phone call, and get it setup properly once. Don't mess around with multiple companies, pick a good one once and you'll be happy with that in the future.

7) How do I know the look of the web pages the site has to offer. Is there different templates you can use depending on look or function of you site?

I didn't really understand what you meant, you can use templates (free or paid) or hire a designer to make one custom for your site.

8) Is it better to do monthly, yearly, or two year contract? This is a side job I do in my spare time so I won't be going out of business anytime soon but I don't know how long of a committment I want to a particular company.

Start out monthly or a low end yearly plan to get a feel for things.

9) After looking at alot of sites, I am thinking the basic business plan of any site would be fine for me. I do want a business plan don't I? I think I could get away with a personal site because of the simplicity of what I want to do.

Business plan on the site? What is the goal of the website? To target potential clients or business development interest?

10) If a business plan is the way to go, is there any advantage to upgrading to the next level? I would it be of any use to me to have all the extra e-mails, space, or bandwidth?

Ah, business plan as in hosting. Start out with the lowest and upgrade from there or maybe one level above the lowest. Upgrading should be an easy task and not require any downtime at all.

11) Anything else I should be aware of or great how to sites?

Plan it out and don't hesitate to PM me, I'll be glad to give advice on any of this.

 

[RossMAN]

1) Should I register my domain name separatly or do an all in one package that has hosting and domain registration?

I would recommend using an actual domain registrar such as GoDaddy.com or NameCheap.com

You can use any web host and change web hosts as many times as you want, it's easy and no big deal.

2) Do I need to buy a web design software package to design my page or do these hosting places have all the tools I need. I want it to look good, not like some cheap free web page site?

You can either code it yourself using HTML and Notepad or with the assistance of an HTML editor which costs $.

Or you can hire someone to design your web site.

Or you can find a web host which offers a "site builder" which I think is a good option. These are free you just pay for the cost of web hosting and that software is included with your services. If you'd like I can create a test account for you and you can play around with it, the site will be live.

3) Can I save the whole site to my computer or is everything kept on the web hosting site?

Yes you can and that's a very good idea. You can either download your entire web site (including email, pictures, etc.) via backup or just the HTML code itself. What if your web host's server hard drive dies and their backups are corrupted? Unless you backed up your data, you're SOL.

4) If I want to switch my web hosting site do I need to create a new site or can I transfer everything from my old site to my new one?

Yes you can switch and it's easiest if the web hosts use the same control panel. The most popular are cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, Ensim and H Sphere. I would recommend cPanel or DirectAdmin.

5) Should I go with a local provider or are the ones I see advertised all over the net just as safe and reliable?

Even if your provider is "local" chances are their server is located in NY, TX, GA, FL or CA. I would search around, read reviews and contact the web hosts's pre-sales department. One important rule is if it sounds to good to be true, then it is.

6) What are some good web hosting services"

There are way to many to list, literally thousands.

What's your budget?

7) How do I know the look of the web pages the site has to offer. Is there different templates you can use depending on look or function of you site?

Yep there are templates or you can use a site builder.

8) Is it better to do monthly, yearly, or two year contract? This is a side job I do in my spare time so I won't be going out of business anytime soon but I don't know how long of a committment I want to a particular company.

Month to month unless the web host has been in business for 3+ years and offer a substantial discount for annual payment. It's still a risk though. What if they go out of business in 4 months and can't offer you a pro-rated refund or decide to change their terms and conditions down the road? Web hosting starts at $30/yr, so don't go crazy and pre-pay for 5 years.

9) After looking at alot of sites, I am thinking the basic business plan of any site would be fine for me. I do want a business plan don't I? I think I could get away with a personal site because of the simplicity of what I want to do.

Your web host doesn't care what kind of web site it is. Obviously if you're hosting a business web site, speed, reliability, support and uptime should be critical. Your web host doesn't care if it's family pictures, a hobby site or you're gift baskets.

10) If a business plan is the way to go, is there any advantage to upgrading to the next level? I would it be of any use to me to have all the extra e-mails, space, or bandwidth?

Other than more resources (disk/bandwidth)? No. You may want to consider a resellers web hosting account which allows you to host multiple web sites using one control panel login. Don't worry you don't have to "resell" anything. With a resellers account you get a pie, how you slice it up and use your resources is up to you. You could host one site, 5 sites or 20 sites. As your site grows, most web host providers will be more than happy to upgrade your plan.

11) Anything else I should be aware of or great how to sites?

Spend some time browsing WebHostingTalk.com and you'll learn a lot.

 

[DrPizza]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the two members here who have been offering free sites for a while.

Devioustrap has had an offer out for quite a while for AT members (and you've been here for 5 years); I don't know how much room he has left.
this thread

 

[Zugzwang152]

if you're starting out, I would recommend getting hooked up with Telnap or Cernax, as they are run by AT'ers. Personalized assistance is invaluable when starting off in anything really, and you will most likely get some kind of AT discount, or even, as DrPizza mentions, a free starter account.

 

[cleverhandle]

I would highly recommend hiring a designer for this job rather than doing it yourself. Not only is it for business, but your business is inherently visual - you want a site that shows off your work and convinces people to make the next step of contacting you, and that requires some design expertise and sensitivity to a good interface. It's not like you're just going to be posting your contact info, a brief bio, and a couple pictures for flavor. That sort of thing is perfectly fine for a lot of small businesses that just need a simple web presence for people to Google, but I don't think it fits your needs very well.