Bonnie Posted June 22, 2008 Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 I have let my old website expire....never really had it up and running anyway and found it was a PITA to operate...so am looking for something easier and user friendly. I don\'t have the time as may be once to spend time in front of the computer.... I know this question has been asked in the past and I for the life of me can\'t seem to remember who or when it was to find it. Go Daddy....I believe several stated that they use it. Is it user friendly....and not a hard fix should something need to be updated. I will be using a Windows program of some sort I have both Publisher 2007 or Front Page 2003....and does this web server take either or both of these. I can get another program....that\'s not a problem, also it would need to be something stupid friendly...I don\'t have time to learn a new software, nor do I want to become a program writer. Thanks in advance for your help.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sewlinzi Posted June 22, 2008 Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 I admire you for having a go, Bonnie but I have just paid a wonderful web mistress to do me a fantastic website. It is almost ready to launch. We discussed everything via email and had one phone call. It is PERFECT! I\'m going to check it again tonight and if it looks complete I\'ll post it. All I can say - it was worth every penny getting it done by a pro!! LINZI x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donna Posted June 22, 2008 Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 Hi - I am a professional web site developer, when I\'m not playing with Rosalind, my new lenni For me to put my money someplace, I have to feel good about the company and product. Personally, I do not care for the advertizing that Go Daddy does: the themes are skimpily clad bathing beauty type girls doing something to attract men in a very body-centric way. I put my money and my clients on BlueHost.com. Very inexpensive yet still good service. And I just checked: they do have a "Page Wizard" site builder. And loads of other free add-ons, like a shopping cart and email lists and... and... Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted June 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 Thank you Donna...that is the kind of information I was looking for....I too have to agree with what you said....their ads didn\'t appeal to me, but wasn\'t aware of any other place to go that was CHEAP...and now I have something else to work with. Thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Mitchell Posted June 22, 2008 Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 We have used IX webhosting see: http://www.ixwebhosting.com/index.php/v2/pages.dspmain for many years with good success and reasonable rate. they have a program called Site Studio that helps you develop your site. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted June 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 Thank you John...so far that looks like the best offer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yeoldeforest Posted June 22, 2008 Report Share Posted June 22, 2008 Homestead has a self-service feature also..you pay for services you want and it\'s free for a month to test drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary Beth Posted June 23, 2008 Report Share Posted June 23, 2008 My brother has his own small company and uses readyhosting.com. He has been with them for like 7 years and is totally satisfied. I have looked at them, but I will check out the one John suggested too. I need to take the plunge, but I too have tried this before they did the easy formatted pages and it was terrible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chickenscratch Posted June 23, 2008 Report Share Posted June 23, 2008 Does anybody actually gain business as a result of having a website? Mine has brought absolutely no business. I\'m seriously considering getting rid of it and saving myself 9 bucks a month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted June 23, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 23, 2008 Teresa I hear your pain, and I have to agree with you...I had a website in Reno for over 10 years and NOT ONE person ever called me from getting me from a website. But now I\'m have something to sell and need a place for people to use their PayPal...or at least that\'s what I\'m thinking. Maybe everyone would rather not use it....maybe I should take that poll as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yeoldeforest Posted June 23, 2008 Report Share Posted June 23, 2008 I get about 20% of my business from my website...maybe more but that is a quick estimate. I think I do get a lot of repeat business from having the website that doesn\'t show in this percentage. I\'ll go look at last years numbers too. I think for the longarm quilting side of the business posting pics of customer quilts is a real plus. People can see examples of your work. For setting up a store and taking paypal, it is expensive. You can take credit card payments over the phone without a website. Quick Books has a merchant service center that won\'t break the bank. You can log your credit card payments via the internet. $9.99 per month plus a small percentage fee for each sale. If you just want to bill customers via paypal, you can create an invoice on paypal and send to the customer\'s email...no extra cost at all except for paypal\'s percentage charges. Doing a survey of what types of tools generates business would be a great idea! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Crafty Unicorn Posted June 23, 2008 Report Share Posted June 23, 2008 For what it\'s worth... I don\'t think I have gotten much (if any) business directly from my website. I tend to think of it more as an online brochure. I can direct people there through other advertising and they can get much of the information they need. Then they can ask specific. I do need to be more diligent in updating the site. I use the Register.com templates and it isn\'t difficult, just really slow when you are still on pre-historic dial-up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
donna Posted June 24, 2008 Report Share Posted June 24, 2008 Folks - You can see how much traffic your website is getting by looking at the statistics that your web hosting company provides online. (Getting there might be a technical challenge, depending on the hosting site.) So before you cancel your website due to "no business from it" check out how much traffic it gets. That said, just having a website isn\'t enough - you need to have the internals which draw people there - and that is programming/computer code. The "build your own" sites don\'t do the SEO (couldn\'t resist another acronym for this forum - that is Search Engine Optimization) for you: you or your designer have to do it. And the search engines keep track of how recently a site is updated, and that factors into how close to the top of the first page of results your site is placed when someone types in "quilting service" or some such phrase. back to my LA practicing... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnnHenry Posted June 24, 2008 Report Share Posted June 24, 2008 Bonnie: In answer to your question - yes, GoDaddy accepts FrontPage. I took a class in FP and the consensus of the teacher and a few of the students who knew about such things was that GoDaddy was a good place to start. Among its strong points were its stability and the fact that is an established entity. She warned us about shopping only by price because there are so many other factors to consider. You might want to talk to the computer teacher at a nearby college if one is available or adult school or high school for suggestions. One woman took the class because it was costing her so much money having someone else manage it and every time she wanted to update it. And if you want your listing to appear close to the top of a Google search, you need to update it regularly, otherwise it will fall to the bottom of countless other websites. I haven\'t finished my website yet to publish it, so I was unaware of Godaddy\'s scantily clad babes hawking their wares . . . In this technological era, it strikes me that every business person would want to have a website. I don\'t necessarily expect to get business from it, but I plan to publish all my customer\'s quilts, and I have the fantasy that my customers will have all their friends access my website in order to see their quilts, etc., and that my fame will spread in that way. When someone gives me a business card without a website, I get the impression they are not very business-oriented. IMHO (I should add that to my abbreviation list). In a year I will be able to offer an opinion on GoDaddy, Bonnie, but you probably don\'t want to wait that long! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonnie Posted June 24, 2008 Author Report Share Posted June 24, 2008 Thank you Ann....That\'s the imput I needed as well as the options for other sites. I have been cruising around the last few days, and I have to say I really haven\'t made up my mind which one I will choose. The last website I had was with Tripod....which was a free domain name and such, but I had to pay a ton of money to have it launched to all the major servers, and another ton to have the stupid banners removed. They had banners popping up on top of my web as people were looking at it as flash ads...to stop that you had to pay money...which I did and it was a good investment at the time, I did let it go about 4 years ago....so this will be a totally new look and style... Thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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