Creating and maintaining a website

[Parts]

How hard is this to do for a small business  and how much does it cost?  I have been considering it lately and wondering about it.  Felt for sure someone here would know about it.

[jman]

depends on what you want do and what you are trying to sell. You can make money off making a blog and putting ads all over it but that's a really saturated market. Allso avoid anything that is a "home-based-business" most of those are scams..


What kind of product or service do you want to sell?

[Parts]

I sell home weatherizing and insulation to homeowners and contractors.  Installing insulation in new and retrofitting older homes.  With oil at $4.00 + a gallon many people are interested in getting this done.  I just want a piece of the pie.  It would be very simple as for now I have an add in the Greater New Haven Yellow pages but you like more

[Icequeen]

Check your plan with your ISP and see if it includes any free web space, alot do, some of them even have set-ups that basically allow you to pick a template and tailor your page to your needs changing or adding text & photos.

Had a couple of free sites over the years, set up a couple of forums, no time for much of either anymore. Nothing real professional but it was fun doing.

 

[omega]

If you only want to simply present your company and one static page will be enough. A simple HTML page, and a HTML editor to manage it, will do.

If you want more. Dynamic content and multiple pages, maybe some news pages or a blog. I would use a CMS (Content management system).

If you want to sell things online professionally you can use one of the available open source cart systems. Like Zen Cart or Magentocommerce (newcomer, but very promising). Depending on your needs and skills this may take quite some time to set up and customize to your needs though.


For the simple static HTML page free hosting/webspace will do. For a content management system I would not advise to use free webspace, and for the cart system you really need a good host which will cost something. It does not have to expensive though. I think I pay about 500 dollar a year for a virtual dedicated server, but for about a 100 dollar a year (very rough estimation) you must be able to find a good host that offers shared hosting without overcrowding the servers (free and very cheap hosting companies usually put to many domains/user on one server, which is not a good idea for professional websites).

The costs to set things up totally depend on what you want and how much you are able and willing to do yourself. If you want an advanced system nut do a little as possible yourself to set up, customize an configure it, I think you will probably easily spend a couple of thousands to set it up + a monthly/yearly amount for updates and such. If you you a able and prepared to do it all yourself it does not have to cost any money, but heaps of time...

[Mr Smith]

You can get free hosting for static pages.

If you want a domain name, that will usually cost you.

[Parts]

I think I could maintain it myself and run things if it not too complicated.   I don't think it wold change much it just a place to get leads

[Tesla]

I think I could maintain it myself and run things if it not too complicated.   I don't think it wold change much it just a place to get leads

I for one really like business that have websites.  You can check out their work, you can put up customer referrals, explain all the work you can offer.  I think it's really important, and shows that they give a damn.

Just my opinion. 

[omega]

Exactly Tesla

@parts:
In that case would register a domain at a host that offers inexpensive hosting and use a simple CMS, like http://www.cmsimple.com/ for example. It does not even require a database, is very easy to install and use, and it includes the most basic stuff like a page editor and a contact form and such. And it's free :-)

It's just an example, there are so many solutions available these days which makes it difficult to choose....

[Parts]

I will look into it and post the results here for review

[odeon]

Our host (Hostgator) is a good one, and offers cheap hosting, timely support, and practically no downtime. You can also buy a domain name through them, and a we page or a CMS is very easy to set up once you have an acocunt--there are tools to help you do both, I think.

[Parts]

Our host (Hostgator) is a good one, and offers cheap hosting, timely support, and practically no downtime. You can also buy a domain name through them, and a we page or a CMS is very easy to set up once you have an acocunt--there are tools to help you do both, I think.

Thanks looking into it

[odeon]

And, of course, if you need help, PM me.