Can the STW font of knowledge help me with some opinions.tips on Web-hosting and site building for a small company? I started to read up on various websites and my head was about to explode. My need is for a basic website that outlines the companies background, services and contact information or contact form. I’ll not be selling any products or sharing any documents etc.

STW advice is always useful…

Go with someone like godaddy, or ipage and get a hosting package, register your domain name etc, and then set up a wordpress install. It’s pretty straightforward, and there’s loads of tutorials etc. on the internet.

one.com is pretty good

I looked at the godaddy site before posting this and I was surprised how cheap it seems. (hence my question on here).

I’ve been using TSO Host over the last year or so for my most recent site. Cheap, 100% uptime so far, every techie question answered either over the phone or email.

Re the building side I’ve used WordPress for 10yrs or so now. Preference has always been to use purchased themes from the likes of ThemeForest as the quality/versatility is much better. Depends on what you need to achieve though + how competent you are at building, customising, cross-browser compatibility etc.

FTR, my current site is built using X. Tis an absolutely awesome theme with tonnes of customisation and excellent support. Costs about £60 I think, but you get loads of extras thrown in.

I looked at the godaddy site before posting this and I was surprised how cheap it seems.

I wouldn’t go anywhere near them, personally.

how competent you are at building

I would describe myself between no clue and don’t know where to start. But i’d give it a go once i’m on the right track.

I wouldn’t go anywhere near them, personally.

Whys that cougar?

Well, this lot, for a start.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoDaddy#Controversies

It’s a while since I last looked at them so I may be out of date. But they used to be expensive with ‘real’ prices obfuscated, and convoluted to manage with hamstrung admin tools. Things that should be straight forward to do were difficult or impossible. I’ve half a memory that they used to register domain names in their own name rather than that of the customer making migration an arseache, but I may have made that up.

I know that to an extent they’ve tried to clean up their act in the last couple of years, but they make me nervous and it’s not like there’s a shortage of alternatives.

YMMV, etc.

Further reading,

http://www.whoishostingthis.com/hosting-reviews/go-daddy/

I think it is quite out of date now – they are at least trying to change as a company. I think they have sorted out a lot of the previous issues.

On the OP’s issue – if all you are wanting is a “brochure” site to say you exist and how to contact you, the cheap all in one packages are really good value. Choose one and not worry about it too much. You can always change it later.

Rachel

I think it is quite out of date now

Sure, I don’t doubt it. The reviews on the ‘who hosts’ sites are pretty current though, and are a mixed bag.

thanks for for the advice folks.

Speaking from experience I would definitely recommend 1and1.

I’ve been with them for about 5 years with no problems at all.

I’m on a Mac so I use RapidWeaver to build with. ianwarnes.co.uk

Ian

fwiw I’ve got a few sites on GoDaddy and have had no problems. I’ve had to call support a couple of times and they have always been helpful and effective (although I suspect it helps that I understand this stuff reasonably well). Website response is reasonable and that is on their middle package (around 9eur/month I think). We get around 300 visitors a day and haven’t had any real problems.

If you are going to use WordPress or any of the other common CMSs then you can just press a button and they will do a basic install for you which you then work on.

The only downside that I’ve heard of is that apparently with their shared hosting (which is what the cheap stuff is) then your website may be a bit slow to initially respond until you start to get a bit more traffic – I suspect it may not be fully online all the time. I’ve not had any problems with this so far and the one time our site seemed slow to respond I phoned them and it was fixed in an hour

ymmv of course

I plan to use Virb for my website.

I have registered my domain name with an NZ domain name registrar. Very good.

We’ve had no problems with GoDaddy – help desk always pretty good and there is a London number to call (so free for us).

Not looked into who owns the domain name stuff but hopefully won’t need to so will carry on using them for now…

went with your recommendations spacemonkey. I’m now trying to create a site- learning by mistakes as I go along. 🙂