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Thread: Website Builder/Hosting options?

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Suffolk County, Long Island NY
    Posts
    1,150

    Website Builder/Hosting options?

    Hello all! , I'm exploring building a website, possibly with the capability to purchase items, and was wondering if the site builders like Squarespace, Wix, and Go Daddy are a decent alternative to finding a local web person (I know 2 personally, but also know they don't do charity work) Has anyone out there used them? I do have a reference from a coworker for Go Daddy as a pretty reliable host, but no info on their web builder service. Thanks for any help! -Pete

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Mtl, Canada
    Posts
    2,379
    There are some programs that can be purchased that will allow the user to build a website fairly painlessly. I use Simply Hosting for my personal site. Its inexpensive, at least for my needs, and very proactive to problems etc. As for the website building programs just do a google search for this.

  3. #3
    Godaddy is horrible to deal with - but cheap upfront. Had many sites with them.
    Bluehost - is what I use for many sites.

    Weebly is a good "all in one".. pay for some of the add-ons is well worth it. What I liked about Weebly vs Wix is you can change your template.

    If I was going to open a small store with not a ton of items, I'd use Weebly and pay for some of the add-ons. It's just super easy!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2006
    Location
    Minneapolis, MN
    Posts
    5,427
    Most of the local web guys don't actually host your website these days. They will probably get one of the big outfits to host your website. There is more money to be made in designing websites than hosting them.

    I would ask one of the local guys who they recommend to host your website and then hire them to do the design of the site. You could probably use a template from one of the web hosts to save money, but then your website looks generic and looks like every other business that chose that template. You certainly don't want to hire someone to build your own e-commerce software as that costs big, big bucks. Just use whatever e-commerce software the web host supplies. Only the really big websites build their own e-commerce software.

  5. #5
    I have a friend who uses Wix for one of her business sites. She was able to build a very simple web site on her own, but it does not look very professional now matter how hard she tried to set it up. She has had me work on it for her and I have found it very cumbersome and limited. I couldn't even change the size of the font for her menu!

    Godaddy is notorious for downtime and other problems. They are cheap, but they should stick with what they do best - sell domains.

    One thing to factor in when building a web site is how many products do you intend to sell and do those products need customizing? If you are only selling a few items, it is much easier to get by with a simple program tied into Yahoo stores, PayPal buttons or WordPress plugins, but if you are selling many items, you should look into more sophisticated shopping carts such as Magento, Opencart, Zencart, etc.

    Searching for a web host can be daunting. Many of the "web host review" sites online are fakes made to steer someone towards 1 site and away from another. Typically the cheaper the hosting plan, the lower the quality of uptime, spam-blocking, over-selling storage space and customer service.

    While many people will recommend one host over another, I have seen far too many times the recommendations were made by well-intentioned people who do not know how to monitor their log files, spam filtering and uptime statistics of their web sites to truly know how often their sites have gone down on a regular basis! (Just because a web host claims their uptime is 99.9% does not mean it is true. Show me an active link to a web site monitor and then I may believe it!)

    While not to discount Peter's recommendation above, I know several businesses that host thru Bluehost and their sites regularly have issues with their email being blocked because the server is flagged yet again as a spammer and their sites are down on a regular basis.

    Just remember. You get what you pay for. If you are paying less then $5 a month for a web host, don't expect much.
    I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and I think, "Well, that’s not going to happen."

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2003
    Location
    Mtl, Canada
    Posts
    2,379
    I reiterate Simply Hosting as a place to setup your website. Great support and helpful when problems are encountered.

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