Website for small business - DIY?

[clockworks]

I work from home, repairing clocks. Business has grown by 10% to 20% each year over the past 8 years. I advertise in Yellow Pages, have an entry on Google Maps, but no website. About half of my work comes direct to me, the rest via trade contacts.
I'm not looking for a big increase in work, as I'm already working 50 or 60 hours most weeks. More a case of keeping the steady growth going with the demise of Yellow Pages.

I bought a domain name a few months ago (via GoDaddy), with the intention of putting together a website. Someone was supposed to be helping me, but that never happened. This morning a chap from Yell.com phoned me, and tried to sell me a website. Setup cost is £360, then £42 a month. Hard to justify spending that much.

How should I go about setting up a website, as I've never done this before? DIY, pay someone? I don't need to take payments or sell things, just let customers know what I do and where I am.

[FukeLreeman]

Why not use a facebook page?

[bristolbaron]

Relatively simple and inexpensive via weebly, however the Facebook suggestion is a good one.

As it’s a similar line of work, take a look at the website I created for my stepdad through weebly:

www.watchworks.co.uk

[Leithen]

Squarespace.

[clockworks]

That website looks like what I need. I'll look into Weebly. Roughly how long would it take a first time user to create something like that?

Also handy to have another contact who does their own repairs. I get quite a few people asking if I do watches - I don't, as my eyesight isn't up to it.

[bristolbaron]

clockworks said:

That website looks like what I need. I'll look into Weebly. Roughly how long would it take a first time user to create something like that?

Also handy to have another contact who does their own repairs. I get quite a few people asking if I do watches - I don't, as my eyesight isn't up to it.

It depends how handy you are with a PC, a good few hours, but should be done in less than a day. Once you get used to where to put stuff it’s straight forward.

[Hoofy]

Wix is another one for a basic website.

Wouldn't consider the likes of WordPress unless you pay someone to do it (and if you do, it will cost less than Yellow Pages have offered).

[HantsRat]

Hi

Drop me a message via my profile. I design websites for small businesses like your. Happy to help.

WIX/Weebly is good for small sites but you're then locked to the one provider and then can't take the site elsewhere.

[clockworks]

Thanks for the info so far, and the offers of help to create a website.

This raises more questions:

I understand that if I use the creation app from a hosting service that I will probably be stuck using that host. The costs are fairly transparent though, so I know how much it will cost me, at least in the short term. If I use a third party to create the website, do all hosting services allow me to just upload it? How do the costs compare?

Does anybody bother with self-hosting these days? How does it work? I have a couple of servers at home, one for CCTV, the other for media. Is self-hosting asking to be hacked?

[Brother D]

Firstly don't ever hand over you domain to a web designer or company so "they can manage it for you"
Secondly don't ever hand over you domain to a web designer or company so "they can manage it for you".

WIX and Squarespace are OK if you don't have a day spare.

If you have a day spare then do the following:

https://www.tsohost.com/cpanel-hosting About 3 GBP per month

Download a theme from themeforest - I like avada at $60 one time (with 1 yr support).
https://themeforest.net/item/avada-responsive-mult...

Install theme on your tso webserver

Configure it with your text and images and contact details

Point your domain to the new website, and then register it on google/FB/Linkedin/Bing/Instagram/Twitter

I'd also recommend using Cloudflare (free) https://dash.cloudflare.com/login to front your website and they offer HTTPS for free which will improve rankings.

Lastly don't ever hand over you domain to a web designer or company so "they can manage it for you".

[Bikerjon]

You could consider doing it all through Wordpress.com rather than the hassle of self-hosting.

https://wordpress.com

[RobDickinson]

Squarespace works really well.

[Derek Smith]

My hosting service will post a clean installation of WP with a choice of themes, leaving you to populate it. I would assume most hosts would do this?

Have a go at localhosting. It's a little fiddly at first go, but it clarifies the system.

It is also great fun.

[anonymous-user]

Another vote for squarespace for simple websites. Don’t bother with Wordpress as anything you do yourself will be nowhere near as good as what you can get from squarespace for a small monthly fee. Plus it will be poorly written, crap code, that google will just dismiss in the first spider. Not worth it.

[LocoBlade]

clockworks said:

Thanks for the info so far, and the offers of help to create a website.

This raises more questions:

I understand that if I use the creation app from a hosting service that I will probably be stuck using that host. The costs are fairly transparent though, so I know how much it will cost me, at least in the short term. If I use a third party to create the website, do all hosting services allow me to just upload it? How do the costs compare?

Does anybody bother with self-hosting these days? How does it work? I have a couple of servers at home, one for CCTV, the other for media. Is self-hosting asking to be hacked?

Yeh a lot of the site creation apps will tie you to that provider but some might be portable, e.g. CPanel is a platform a lot of hosts like TSOhost use which include web builder apps so if you moved to another host using CPanel you could probably migrate the site across.

Self hosting isn't usually that simple, you're unlikely to have a static IP address on your home broadband and the server will sit behind the router's firewall so although it can be done, pointing a proper domain address at a webserver at home then making it reliable and secure isn't a 5 minute task and also risks compromising the rest of your data on those servers. Basic web hosting is pennies per month anyway so really not worth the hassle of DIYing it unless you have a specific interest in doing it that way.

Personally though if it's business growth an finding new customers that you're looking for, I'd start with the Facebook business page route as that will probably end up giving you more exposure than a static website, especially where word of mouth and recommendations probably make up a decent percentage of your business. Static webpages with little traffic usually sit so far down search engine rankings that the only people visiting the site will be ones that probably know about you already. https://www.facebook.com/business/pages/set-up

[RobDickinson]

Derek Smith said:

My hosting service will post a clean installation of WP

The OP doesnt (afik) have a hosting service

I have my own web host/server. I currently host several wordpress sites, an opencart site and a Chevereto image library site.
I build software as a day job (including websites).

I chose to host my workshop site with squarespace because its clean and easy and no maintenance www.heroworkshops.com

Sometimes doing things the easy way is the right way!

[RobDickinson]

I would certainly create a facebook page (its free) but dont expect to get much traffic , facebook have murdered business pages unless you spend a lot.