Website building

Boats&Outboards · 21 January 2012, 08:09

it's about time we got a dedicated website. Before, stock has never stayed long enough for us to bother but my thinking is it will offer more than just a sales platform.

My question is as I'm not able to build one myself (not sure where to begin) can anybody offer any advice as to who to use, the likely costs, hosting etc.

If any of you on here is in the "trade", please feel free to PM or email me if your able to offer assistance.

Thanks in advance

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Poly · 21 January 2012, 09:20

Peter, you will get wildly varying prices for this. Make sure you define exactly what you want from a site (not what they want to sell you). Make sure you understand if this is locking you into using their hosting editing services going forward.

I would say you can easily make a simple site yourself in Wordpress or something similar (i have recently been experimenting with concrete5 and it may be even better for total newbies). Free templates are probably fine for a 2nd hand boat site, but a customized design should be no more than 500 if you have done everything else.

If you have enough stock that it needs to integrate with some sort of database or be easier to post advert to than rib.net then you will either need a developer or to find an off the shelf tool for doing that. Likewise if the system needs to integrate with your other it, e.g. accounting... but for a simple brochureware site with ads that you post and edit much like here its a simple DIY job if you are proficient with Google to find how to do things you want to turn on or off.

I assume you aren't looking to take payments or actual orders on line?

Personally I use cloudnext for my hosting (iirc less than 30 a year). It comes with both Wordpress and concrete5 reinstated on the server, as well as other alternative and useful tools.

thomas · 21 January 2012, 09:29

I use a chap who charges £20 ph and takes a day to put a decent site together, I'll pm you some details if you want them

Boats&Outboards · 21 January 2012, 09:34

Yes please Thomas, add your website if you would be so kind.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Boats&Outboards · 21 January 2012, 10:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Polwart

Peter, you will get wildly varying prices for this. Make sure you define exactly what you want from a site (not what they want to sell you). Make sure you understand if this is locking you into using their hosting editing services going forward.

I would say you can easily make a simple site yourself in Wordpress or something similar (i have recently been experimenting with concrete5 and it may be even better for total newbies). Free templates are probably fine for a 2nd hand boat site, but a customized design should be no more than 500 if you have done everything else.

If you have enough stock that it needs to integrate with some sort of database or be easier to post advert to than rib.net then you will either need a developer or to find an off the shelf tool for doing that. Likewise if the system needs to integrate with your other it, e.g. accounting... but for a simple brochureware site with ads that you post and edit much like here its a simple DIY job if you are proficient with Google to find how to do things you want to turn on or off.

I assume you aren't looking to take payments or actual orders on line?

Personally I use cloudnext for my hosting (iirc less than 30 a year). It comes with both Wordpress and concrete5 reinstated on the server, as well as other alternative and useful tools.

My thinking is if I'm going to get one I may as well do it proper and not a simple DIY one. It will be used to sell smaller value items with maybe PayPal/card payments.

I am also going to be looking at HTML templates for adverts to be listed on eBay and the other main boating outlets.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Alan Priddy · 21 January 2012, 11:17

Contact Laura@green rock.co.uk
You won't be disappointed Lookat www.company85globalchallenge.com for some of her work Alan P

creeg · 21 January 2012, 14:57

Hi,

I can offer linux hosting for £24pa - unlimited bandwidth, mailboxes, space, subdomains, MySQL databases, distribution mailing lists etc. The hosting control panel has lots of apps/tools that can be installed/run with a click e.g. Joomla, Wordpress, Concrete5, CMS Made Simple, phpBB, Drupal... or if you wish you can upload your own.

Don't know if you already own the domain name you are planning on using, I can offer domain registration through our reseller account but I must admit that I personally use and recommend to my clients that they use 123reg for purchasing domains (it's cheaper and I prefer to keep the hosting and registration with separate companies). One other bit of advice around domain registration make sure you purchase the domain; I saw one nasty case where a client asked us to redesign a site and they were basically held to ransom by the previous company because they had registered the domain, if they'd owned the registration and pointed it to the hosting they could have switched without having to get the other company involved (it's the way they are now configured).

My personal life is just too busy at the moment to do any dev work myself but if you're interested the web/ui designer I work with might be available to do designs/logos etc that could be implemented by yourself or another developer.

To give you an idea of our costings, to design and build we would generally charge about £300-500 for a small brochure site built in the Joomla content management system (cost depended on the amount of design work needed). Integrating functionality e.g. shopping carts and payment providers into the site would see the costs rise to about £1500.

Hope this helps, if any of it is of interest let me know.

Graham

treerat · 21 January 2012, 17:01

I built the dive club web site using front page (old but very simple) and hosted on my free webs. We then transfered it to Dot Nuke when we moved servers. A simple system that I keep updated, although very few changes to be fair.If you're just using it for overview, mailing, contact and a few pics it's easy to do your own.

DCCS looked after our lifeguard club one and is great bloke to work with - could do worse than to ask him for a quote, (even if just for comparason) he can do design, build and host and tell him you came from me

DCCS Limited

Boats&Outboards · 21 January 2012, 20:10

Many thanks guys. Much to ponder. I've already hit one stumbling block in the fact somebody else has taken the trouble of registering "my" preferred domain names. A fellow trader of outboards too but he's not using them

so that poses a slight hiccup. I could ask his price but I'm not going down that road! I guess I'll be using something else then

Thanks again.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Bigmuz7 · 21 January 2012, 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Boats&Outboards

Many thanks guys. Much to ponder. I've already hit one stumbling block in the fact somebody else has taken the trouble of registering "my" preferred domain names. A fellow trader of outboards too but he's not using them

so that poses a slight hiccup. I could ask his price but I'm not going down that road! I guess I'll be using something else then

Thanks again.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Yes Domain names are a bit of a cnut

.. some times I find a cheap host and register a bunch of similar ones to my competitors, and then point them to my site

..

As for site building .. its a doddle buy a wysiwig style editor like serif x5

review here

It really isnt that hard, just takes a bit of patience

SPR · 21 January 2012, 20:33

I only own around 120 domains lol...I have up a bunch a few years back...

Lateral thinking needs to be done sometimes...think giving it out over the phone....

I have a nice 3 letter domain I bought in 1996/7 - SPR.co.uk surprising enough !

regards

C2 RIBS · 21 January 2012, 20:34

Pm me I may have a possible option

SIBer · 21 January 2012, 20:46

Your are correct in that the web is the first port of call nowadays. Long gone are the yellow pages and ads in the trade press

Decade what you want.

Building a simple site is straightforward. Maintaining and updating it is what is needed here and is more time consuming. Many places will give you a good price to build a site but I image that your site will need updating daily/weekly and that is where the costs rack up unless you are doing it yourself.

Its easier to have a static information website and sell via ebay/apollo etc to start with. Running an online shop is easy if you are selling multiples of the same unit but I guess that you sales are constantly changing.
£20ph sounds expensive for a webmaster. I run a couple of websites and charge a lot less than that. If I could get £20ph all day everyday and work from home I'd stop the day job!

I went to night college 5 years ago and did a 6 month course in website design so if you want the DIY route thats what I would suggest.

Ruari 29 · 21 January 2012, 21:01

I built mine with a free online builder weebly.com
It talks you through everything and you can build the website get it working on there host site before connecting to a domain.

I built www.castlecharter.co.uk
At the bottom it says built with weebly, to get that removed you pay $48

Alot of my friends have built small online shops with it, and remember its free.

Ruari

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S using Rib.net

SPR · 21 January 2012, 21:12

£20 per hour, is very cheap most designers I used in past for different projects could cost up £65 per hour or more.

You get what you pay for, you may be tempted to use a student to do the website but at the end of day you find they lose interest.

Your best way is to get a CMS system , either free or pay for design

Boats&Outboards · 21 January 2012, 21:31

Thanks guys.

I've bought some domains which will do the job. Not sure which I'm going to use right now.

Here are my initial thoughts.

www.boatsandoutboards4sale.net

www.boatandoutboard4sale.co.uk - without the 's but may get confusing ?

www.bao4s.co.uk - Kind of catchy and SHORT which may be easier to advise and or print than full name anyway

www.bo4s.co.uk - seems a better fit than "bao4s" both of which as I'm sure you can work out are "Boatsandoutboards4sale" initials, kind of

Be honest. Lame ? It's not like they are going to be driven by search engines anyway, mainly placed at the bottom of individual adverts so joe blogs searching google for boat for sale won't make much difference to any site name I choose

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Ruari 29 · 21 January 2012, 23:34

What about outboards&boats.co.uk my only though is you will be fighting google ranking against boats&outboards?
You might get lost?

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S using Rib.net

Boats&Outboards · 22 January 2012, 08:15

Taken. I also have www.outboardsandboats4sale.co.uk but again could get confusing

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007

Bigmuz7 · 22 January 2012, 14:42

You'll find that if you have an address that contains words about what you do, people searching will find you more easily, and also, search engines will reference you better, which in turn advances my first point.

some are still available such as

boatsandoutboards.uk.net
boats-and-outboards.org

Even though you use hyphens, the search engines will still find you, but its as much to do with the content of your site, in that, if its properly tagged and referenced , you will show up when people enter key words into their browsers ,..and in any event, once a search engine finds your site for a person searching, they just click on a link, and typing in the site name is not relative therefor, so neither is the spelling.

Boats&Outboards · 22 January 2012, 15:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bigmuz7

You'll find that if you have an address that contains words about what you do, people searching will find you more easily, and also, search engines will reference you better, which in turn advances my first point.

some are still available such as

boatsandoutboards.uk.net
boats-and-outboards.org

Even though you use hyphens, the search engines will still find you, but its as much to do with the content of your site, in that, if its properly tagged and referenced , you will show up when people enter key words into their browsers ,..and in any event, once a search engine finds your site for a person searching, they just click on a link, and typing in the site name is not relative therefor, so neither is the spelling.

I get those points, my concern would be if the website took off the owners of the domains I'd prefer could use them either to take business or to damage my name with people thinking its me.

To be honest I fancy my chances of getting the domains back with what I've found out about who actually owns them at the moment. I'm going to contact them shortly and see what they say. If not I'll proceed with what I have.

Peter @ Boatsandoutboards4sale ~ askboatsandoutboards4sale@sky.com ~ 07930 421007