Want create website for my business...where to start?

[Pacfanweb]

Okay, I have a mobile business, primarily doing vendor work for dealerships.

I want to get the name out there so I can pick up some individual customer retail jobs.

So I don't need anything particularly complicated....probably can use a pre-existing layout, add some pics, info, contact #'s, credentials, etc on it.

I won't need an order form for online sales or anything like that...just want people to be able to do a Google or Yahoo search for what I do and have my site come up.

So where should I go for this....should I just use a place like Godaddy, buy my domain and use their hosting, which seems to have layouts and an easy site builder, do it yourself type of thing?

I've checked, and my domain is available, so it's just a matter of finding the best place to go.

A one-site-does-it-all place would be great, too.

Suggestions?

 

[hanoverphist]

www.joomla.org

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

I'm almost certain you'd quickly outgrow a site builder and would want to, at least, use your own Dreamweaver designs or something.

So I'd go register my name at GoDaddy ASAP. Then I'd go pick up a cheap plan at a web host. I use Crystaltech because they're the cheapest ColdFusion + SQL host I could find, but they, for example, have plans starting at $2.95 a month and a decent sized knowledge base as a resource. But there are plenty of these kinds of hosts around.

Pick up an older copy of Dreamweaver off Ebay and build your own site. I once designed and hand-coded a nice professional looking website for a Chiropractor. It was clean, nice, and web-friendly. After sending him a link to the almost completed site, he sent me a bunch of Word and Publisher files that he wanted to use as his site instead. It had everything from inconsistent pseudo navigation to use of copyrighted images and just, overall, looked like Homer Simpson had done it. Just to finish the job I converted them all to HTML and posted the abomination. He sold his business a year later for $1,000,000 profit and retired in his 30's. Son of a bitch. Granted his site had little to do with it, but it must not have hurt.

Anyway, that story just to say, don't worry about your web or design skills because apparently, it matters next to nothing in the overall viability of your website. Worst comes to worst, have your nephew design it for you in exchange for an XBox 360 game or something.

 

[Pacfanweb]

What about Namecheap? It seems to be pretty simple. By "webhosting", that means they are hosting my site and it's up to me to use their layouts or whatever to make it look like I want, right?

I can handle that, but I can't do html. So I need sort of a "pre-built" site.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Okay, I posted about the same time you did. What's Dreamweaver? Is that sitebuilder software?

I'm looking for very simple here. That's why I was wondering if it wouldn't be best to just do it all at one place. Not worried about saving a few dollars by buying a domain one place and hosting somewhere else.

 

[HeroOfPellinor]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
What about Namecheap? It seems to be pretty simple. By "webhosting", that means they are hosting my site and it's up to me to use their layouts or whatever to make it look like I want, right?

I can handle that, but I can't do html. So I need sort of a "pre-built" site.

Dreamweaver and other WYSIWYG editors are drag and drop. They do all the HTML for you in the background.

GoDaddy is a great one stop registrar, so I think you're safe going with one of their site builder plans. It's just that, in my experience, most website owners eventually want more flexibility than site builders tend to offer. So long as you're willing to live with the limitations of what they provide, go for it.

 

[xanis]

Dreamweaver is Adobe's mainstream web design program. Ever heard of Microsoft FrontPage? Dreamweaver is Adobe's equivalent. It's not TOO hard to learn. There are many tutorials out there covering a broad range of topics. You could use a pre-made template if you wanted, but you're probably better off designing your own site from scratch. It'll be worth it in the long run when you want to upgrade it and make changes.

 

[TruePaige]

If you need more than about 5 pages, or you need it to look decent, you probably won't be well served by a site-builder. Many options are out there, things called Content Management Systems take a bit to set up but do all the work for you, and give easy interfaces to add information.

Drupal (My favorite)
Joomla (a good choice)

and more exist.

You could also make a simple site that meets your needs by having someone custom design the site and make a template webpage where you basically just fill in the text and it handles all of the work for you, might work better in the long run.

You have a lot of options though. =)

 

[Pacfanweb]

So the Joomla the first responder mentioned is like Dreamweaver?

And if I chose this route, I'd register a domain, get a host, and use one of these programs to set it up myself?

I might be willing to go for that if the learning curve isn't too steep. My website building experience to this point has been limited to my el-cheeso Tripod site for my kid's pics. Used their site builder for that.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Pacfanweb
So the Joomla the first responder mentioned is like Dreamweaver?

No. Joomla is a content management system that makes it easy to...dumdumdum...manage the content on your website. There are lots of free templates out there for Joomla to make a website with.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Reading up on Joomla and Drupal now.

 

[Nocturnal]

I usually recommend WordPress. It is very simple to set up and very simple to maintain.