Websites?!

[jotommo]

hey i notice a few of you have mentioned having a website,
where did you get it?
how much is it?
is it a good source of advert?
can you see how many peolpe look at it??
thanks alot
jo xxxxxxxx

 

[laura16]

Hi my is free atm from webs.com its not great but it will do whilst I get time to make a real one. Its nailsbylaurahickey.webs.com if you want to have a look. I'm workin on a couple of bits so that why its a bit unfinished. hth x

 

[loubylou]

Ruth Mills on here made mine for me and it is working great,
i have had lots of enquiries from it already and it has only been up and running a few weeks,
very reasonably priced,
a great source of advertising, i wish i had done it 2 years ago,
im not great with technology so wouldn't know how to see how people have looked at it, hth

 

[Ruth Mills]

Ruth Mills on here made mine for me and it is working great,
i have had lots of enquiries from it already and it has only been up and running a few weeks,
very reasonably priced,
a great source of advertising, i wish i had done it 2 years ago,
im not great with technology so wouldn't know how to see how people have looked at it, hth

Thanks Lou

Oh, if you want to see how many people have looked at your site, go to Usage Statistics for www.essentialbeauty.org.uk - Last 12 Months - Webalizer web statistics - they get updated every morning at around 4am...

 

[jotommo]

WOW thanks guys
laura16 very impressed with yours. so was it free??
how much are we looking at for one of them sites any ideas?? sorry to so rude asking about money x

 

[laura16]

mine was totally free but u have to do it all yourself, although saying that there is a template and it is easy to work out, theres also a thing to tell you how many people have visited your website as well x

 

[jotommo]

i can only find a american one at webs.com and am not really up for giving my credit details to them if i can't cancel?? is that who your with?? sorry for being a pain xx

 

[Ruth Mills]

WOW thanks guys
laura16 very impressed with yours. so was it free??
how much are we looking at for one of them sites any ideas?? sorry to so rude asking about money x

Yes, the basic Freewebs service is free, but they do add banner advertising or Google AdWords adverts at the top of each page, which detracts from the overall look of the web page.

Freewebs also do a paid for service, where there is no banner advertising and you get a proper domain name (e.g. your own .co.uk domain name rather than one that ends in webs.com) - Calla on here has had success with their paid service, so would be a good person to speak to if you wanted more information about that.

One disadvantage of Freewebs is that there are a limited number of templates to choose from - so you may well find that your site looks similar to someone else's site that uses the same template.

The Freewebs templates are also prone to HTML validation errors - there is a free website validation tool at The W3C Markup Validation Service that checks the underlying HTML code of web pages - compare the Freewebs website, http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=h...(detect+automatically)&doctype=Inline&group=0 (30 errors, 3 warnings) with Loubylou's site, [Valid] Markup Validation of http://www.essentialbeauty.org.uk/ - W3C Markup Validator (successfully checked as XHTML 1.0 Strict) - HTML validation errors can potentially cause issues with search engines being able to index the site, and may also cause problems with certain web browsers being able to display the site properly.

 

[laura16]

i can only find a american one at webs.com and am not really up for giving my credit details to them if i can't cancel?? is that who your with?? sorry for being a pain xx

Its just webs.com i dint give my credit card details but like ruth said there is the advert across the top which you cant get rid of without paying for it, just depends what your budget is x

 

[user 28883]

I use microsoft office small business one and there is no adds on it, infact u can also hide the bit at the bottom which states free website. I am top on google search engine for mobile hairdressers in my area and I get most of my work from the site.

 

[loubylou]

Thanks Lou

Oh, if you want to see how many people have looked at your site, go to Usage Statistics for www.essentialbeauty.org.uk - Last 12 Months - Webalizer web statistics - they get updated every morning at around 4am...

Thanks Ruth,
wow its had more visits than i had realised (cool) :hug:

 

[Ruth Mills]

Thanks Ruth,
wow its had more visits than i had realised (cool) :hug:

Although just under 20% of last month's hits was me testing!!!

 

[poshpinks]

HI I had mine proffesionally done be a gently man called geoff Boulthe is a freelance web designer .He was great and I love my website ,I have had some fab comments about the site and its been a real help getting business and letting people see some of my work.I would defo see about getting on.

 

[Ruth Mills]

HI I had mine proffesionally done be a gently man called geoff Boulthe is a freelance web designer .He was great and I love my website ,I have had some fab comments about the site and its been a real help getting business and letting people see some of my work.I would defo see about getting on.

Geoff would get my thumbs up too - the site he created for poshpinks had proper valid HTML (like I mentioned earlier - compared with many "free" template driven sites that are littered with errors), and his graphic design work on that site was excellent.
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[Verve Designs]

Sorry to hijack this thread with what some of you might find as boring techie speak, but I thought I might add that for "our" purposes (i.e. smaller business who need a nice attractive and functioning website) WC3 Validation isnt THAT important. I say this as a salon owner and not a graphic designer.

Validation issues are primarily a concern for us in terms of us getting found and indexed correctly by search engines, and as long as the code your site is using isn't an entire shambles then it's likely (again for our purposes) that you'll be found IF you're not on a "free" site service.

Ruth has (impressively!) high standards in terms of techie coding, and is absolutely correct, however, dont think that if your site doesnt cut mustard with a validator that its "worthless"- in the end theres more than one way to skin a cat, and at the end of the day, I assume we all want an attracive (especially in the business we're in) and functioning site that'll do well in terms of SEO.

Sorry, I was REALLY boring then eh?

 

[TIPTOP]

hey i notice a few of you have mentioned having a website,
where did you get it?
how much is it?
is it a good source of advert?
can you see how many peolpe look at it??
thanks alot
jo xxxxxxxx

Hi Jo

I contacted Carl from Verveprint (AKA Exyensionize) he has website/design packages for all kinds of budgets, yes its a good source of advertisement as my clients have noticed the difference in my site already, I used to have a free one, my new site is nearly finished and I am very excited about it.:green:

hth
Sue x

 

[Ruth Mills]

Sorry to hijack this thread with what some of you might find as boring techie speak, but I thought I might add that for "our" purposes (i.e. smaller business who need a nice attractive and functioning website) WC3 Validation isnt THAT important. I say this as a salon owner and not a graphic designer.

Validation issues are primarily a concern for us in terms of us getting found and indexed correctly by search engines, and as long as the code your site is using isn't an entire shambles then it's likely (again for our purposes) that you'll be found IF you're not on a "free" site service.

Ruth has (impressively!) high standards in terms of techie coding, and is absolutely correct, however, dont think that if your site doesnt cut mustard with a validator that its "worthless"- in the end theres more than one way to skin a cat, and at the end of the day, I assume we all want an attracive (especially in the business we're in) and functioning site that'll do well in terms of SEO.

Sorry, I was REALLY boring then eh?

Carl, you're the undisputed king of graphic design, and your web sites rock!

 

[Verve Designs]

Why thank you! Yours aren't so bad either!

To be honest, without sounded patronising because even someone in the game like me doesnt understand EVERYTHING (Ruth- for example is far more technically adept than me), I can understand why websites can be a minefield for people.

For example, I had a fellow Geek talking to me yesterday about someone hassling her, claiming to be able to get her website on the first page of google. In my opinion, those types of companies are rip-off merchants and snake-oil salesman and you ought to avoid them like the plague.

My best advice would be to primarily find a solution that fits your budget (theres essentially nothing wrong with the free sites, they clearly just have certain limitations)- and then use a site in a "joined up" way- have the URL on ALL your marketing literature (dont rely on search engines to promote the site, they can take a while to show up and its too un-exact a science to rely on) , use it as a touching post as a means to keep in touch with existing clients as well as new ones- dont forget a site is fantastically useful as a tool for retaining clients as it is for gaining new business.

 

[brownt62]

Hi geeks

Sorry but need to jump in here as I am also looking to have a website set up (mobile spray tanning) but really have not a clue about setting up correctly... I have checked vistaprint etc. regarding free/cheap websites but not happy about giving my credit card details to take x amount every month (read some scary reviews!!)... and the templates mean that your website would be very similar to others (what's the point??!!). To kick off I have decided I would like a professional job done (but as reasonably priced as possible) - just basic to start and work from there.... Only thing is I am based in Southern Ireland so cost would have to be in euros... Is anyone willing to help me out with this please? Carl maybe.....

Thanks
Jan

 

[Ruth Mills]

Why thank you! Yours aren't so bad either!

To be honest, without sounded patronising because even someone in the game like me doesnt understand EVERYTHING (Ruth- for example is far more technically adept than me), I can understand why websites can be a minefield for people.

For example, I had a fellow Geek talking to me yesterday about someone hassling her, claiming to be able to get her website on the first page of google. In my opinion, those types of companies are rip-off merchants and snake-oil salesman and you ought to avoid them like the plague.

My best advice would be to primarily find a solution that fits your budget (theres essentially nothing wrong with the free sites, they clearly just have certain limitations)- and then use a site in a "joined up" way- have the URL on ALL your marketing literature (dont rely on search engines to promote the site, they can take a while to show up and its too un-exact a science to rely on) , use it as a touching post as a means to keep in touch with existing clients as well as new ones- dont forget a site is fantastically useful as a tool for retaining clients as it is for gaining new business.

Well said, Carl, and thanks for the heads up! I know what you mean about SEO being a minefield - it is certainly not an exact science; I've found running web statistics scripts like the Webalizer useful though, as these will record the search terms that people have entered in search engines to come to your site.

e.g. I saw that someone had been searching for "beauty salon Bradford" on one of the sites I had done, so I added text to the home page to say that the salon was also in travelling distance of Leeds, Halifax and some other towns in the area - so that someone doing a search for "beauty salon Leeds" etc would also get to see her site on Google. So sometimes simple things like that can make a big difference to how easy people can find your site on search engines.
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