Easy Do it yourself Website

[Dan]

OK, I know this has been discussed here and there in the past, but I'm wondering if anyone has come across any new sites.

 

A good friend owns a small business and wants/needs a website. I can easily build one for her, but I want something real easy to maintain, because ideally I'll turn it over to her to maintain once the initial layout is up. She's not very computer savy at all! So, it needs to be one of these super easy to update and maintain type thinigs (that I hate but that's a different topic)). She won't be taking any orders through the site; just posting basic information (mostly static), maybe a blog as well.

 

I'm not sure of her budget; but, being a young, small business... the more free the better, if you know what I mean.

 

In the past I've used Weebly and it's pretty good. But, was just wondering what others may suggest.

[Just Jack]

I use 1&1, you can get a basic package, and as your needs grow, buy more features. So if eventually she wants to take orders, she can add that on. They have a basic editor also if she wants to update it on her own.

 

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Home;jses...e=1277512996241

[Dan]

I use 1&1, you can get a basic package, and as your needs grow, buy more features. So if eventually she wants to take orders, she can add that on. They have a basic editor also if she wants to update it on her own.

 

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Home;jses...e=1277512996241

Thanks. I'll check it out. I haven't seen that site yet

[In-A-Gadda-Levitre]

I use 1&1, you can get a basic package, and as your needs grow, buy more features. So if eventually she wants to take orders, she can add that on. They have a basic editor also if she wants to update it on her own.

 

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/Home;jses...e=1277512996241

I've used 1&1 for a few years, really low prices and good support. I used their sitebuilder at 1st, it's really easy. Strongly recommend.

[The Dean]

Do 1&1 sites made with their sitebuilder support SEO optimization?

 

What about Weebly?

 

Thanks in advance.

[In-A-Gadda-Levitre]

Do 1&1 sites made with their sitebuilder support SEO optimization?

 

What about Weebly?

 

Thanks in advance.

I don't know the exact answers to your questions. I can ask if you want.

 

In general, 1&1 gives you a lot of free stuff, but it's not highly customizable or full featured using Website Builder. You can't easily make changes to sitebuilder pages via html and other tools unless you spend the $99 to get Website Builder Plus, etc. They offer a lot of free trials of SEO types of features, but usually tied to some fee-based upgrade.

 

there's a process to use a 1&1 domain with a Weebly site, but I doubt if you can integrate Weebly with 1&1's sitebuilder

[Dan]

Do 1&1 sites made with their sitebuilder support SEO optimization?

 

What about Weebly?

 

Thanks in advance.

Weebly says it does... but the quality can be highly variable. Essentially, I think if you register your own domain and upgrade to the Pro package, you'll get thte best results.

 

Last year I created 3 sites:

 

One registered through Go Daddy. It's a simple site, so I wrote the code myself - no website builder thing.

 

One through Weebly with a registered domain and using all their site builder tools.

 

One through Weebly, using all their sitebuilder tools. Granted, this group wanted to go cheap; so they haven't even registered their own unique domain. So, again, I really think if they would get their own domain and upgrade to Pro, the results might be different.

 

Go to google, type in "Teton Mosquito" and it's the 2nd site linked. Not bad - granted there's not alot out there for Teton Mosquito, so I'm not that good. But, still. The site.

 

Go to google, type in "Apple Ridge" and you'll see the site 8th on the list. Not bad. This fella registered his own domain (I don't think through weebly) but doesn't appear to have upgraded to Pro. The site.

 

Go to google, type in "Idaho Mosquito and Vector Control" and you won't find the site through the first 10 pages. So, it's essentially not in google. But, I did turn on SEO terms and such. The site.

 

 

Of course, the big advantage to weebly is it's idiot proof and all files are on the net. So, it's easy for me to build something and then turn it over, effectively washing my hands of it. Which is what I'd like for this next project again.

[The Dean]

I don't know the exact answers to your questions. I can ask if you want.

 

In general, 1&1 gives you a lot of free stuff, but it's not highly customizable or full featured using Website Builder. You can't easily make changes to sitebuilder pages via html and other tools unless you spend the $99 to get Website Builder Plus, etc. They offer a lot of free trials of SEO types of features, but usually tied to some fee-based upgrade.

 

there's a process to use a 1&1 domain with a Weebly site, but I doubt if you can integrate Weebly with 1&1's sitebuilder

 

 

Weebly says it does... but the quality can be highly variable. Essentially, I think if you register your own domain and upgrade to the Pro package, you'll get thte best results.

 

Last year I created 3 sites:

 

One registered through Go Daddy. It's a simple site, so I wrote the code myself - no website builder thing.

 

One through Weebly with a registered domain and using all their site builder tools.

 

One through Weebly, using all their sitebuilder tools. Granted, this group wanted to go cheap; so they haven't even registered their own unique domain. So, again, I really think if they would get their own domain and upgrade to Pro, the results might be different.

 

Go to google, type in "Teton Mosquito" and it's the 2nd site linked. Not bad - granted there's not alot out there for Teton Mosquito, so I'm not that good. But, still. The site.

 

Go to google, type in "Apple Ridge" and you'll see the site 8th on the list. Not bad. This fella registered his own domain (I don't think through weebly) but doesn't appear to have upgraded to Pro. The site.

 

Go to google, type in "Idaho Mosquito and Vector Control" and you won't find the site through the first 10 pages. So, it's essentially not in google. But, I did turn on SEO terms and such. The site.

 

 

Of course, the big advantage to weebly is it's idiot proof and all files are on the net. So, it's easy for me to build something and then turn it over, effectively washing my hands of it. Which is what I'd like for this next project again.

 

 

Thanks. I appreciate the info.

 

"teton mosquito" I can only assume, refers to mosquitoes with big breasts. Very odd fetish site...I think I will steer clear.

 

And I doubt the last site (which is at weebly.com) will ever make much of a search engine impression. I'm not saying it is impossible, but I think it's difficult to make much progress without a real url.

[Dan]

Thanks. I appreciate the info.

 

"teton mosquito" I can only assume, refers to mosquitoes with big breasts. Very odd fetish site...I think I will steer clear.

 

And I doubt the last site (which is at weebly.com) will ever make much of a search engine impression. I'm not saying it is impossible, but I think it's difficult to make much progress without a real url.

The sense of perversion goes ary once you're inside the rabbit hole! Click at your own risk.

 

Yeah, I agree. That's what I attribute that last site to. Without a unique domain, all the SEO in the world probably has very limited success.

 

But, of course, using "apple ridge" to represent true SEO isn't a great example, as Apple Ridge is in the website domain. True SEO would get the site highly ranked if you typed in "organic fam" or some other type of slightly related term.

[Dan]

Anyone with experince using Google Sites? Apparently she's registered for a google site, to get a unique email address. But, in quickly checking it out (while be distracted by the US losing to Ghana), it seems kidna screwy.

 

It wants to set up various pages and sites within the site and add all these google apps. I just want to set up a website, though.

[boyst]

Does using specific sites help build traffic through search hits? I mean, in the farming industry there are sites coming up every day and no matter the series of words you put it is the same farms. It has made me wonder if I should get a site or not - I just want faith that my site would be easy to google/yahoo search/bing... any input?

[Chilly]

I'm not sure about 1&1's webhosting, but their email hosting services suck. If you get their webhosting package, I'd highly suggest hosting email elsewhere.

 

As far as easy to use webpages go, Concrete5 is pretty awesome. I have an installation of it running on a slice (http://www.slicehost.com) that I have, and a family member who is completely computer illiterate can still make and maintain the web page. It's really slick.

 

They offer hosting packages if you don't want to have to maintain the installation yourself. Check it out:

 

http://www.concrete5.org/services/hosting

[Dan]

Does using specific sites help build traffic through search hits? I mean, in the farming industry there are sites coming up every day and no matter the series of words you put it is the same farms. It has made me wonder if I should get a site or not - I just want faith that my site would be easy to google/yahoo search/bing... any input?

Yep, it's called SEO or Search Engine Optimization. There's actually people that, that's all they do. They get paid to sit around all day and find ways to get your website to be at the top of google. I know a little about it, but I'm by no means an expert. But, you do it through the use of meta tags on your site and listing certain key words throughout your site.

 

Then it get's complicated... you set up a facebook and twitter and such to link to your site. You blog regularly. All using the right keywords that are on your site. That makes your site look popular, which moves it up in google.

 

Then you buy words. Essentially, you pay to put adds on sites using google addsense. So, that drives more traffic. This one gets confusing to me.

 

So, that's it in a nutshell. But, yeah, the big companies will spend alot of money to get all these key words linked to their site so that when someone types in "apple" Apple Computer pops up first in google. That's the genious of google, imo.

 

Of course, if you have a less popular type site, there's less competition for your words; hence, its easier to get at the top of google. But, like in the sites I listed above... my buddies site is Apple Ridge Farms. Well, it's esy enough to get it high ini google if you type in Apple Ridge. But, to get it high in google just by typing "Apple" or "Organic Farm"... it'll take tons of tiem and some money because those are common words that have already been bought.

[Dan]

I'm not sure about 1&1's webhosting, but their email hosting services suck. If you get their webhosting package, I'd highly suggest hosting email elsewhere.

 

As far as easy to use webpages go, Concrete5 is pretty awesome. I have an installation of it running on a slice (http://www.slicehost.com) that I have, and a family member who is completely computer illiterate can still make and maintain the web page. It's really slick.

 

They offer hosting packages if you don't want to have to maintain the installation yourself. Check it out:

 

http://www.concrete5.org/services/hosting

Thanks. I'm checking it out now.

[The Dean]

I'm not sure about 1&1's webhosting, but their email hosting services suck. If you get their webhosting package, I'd highly suggest hosting email elsewhere.

 

As far as easy to use webpages go, Concrete5 is pretty awesome. I have an installation of it running on a slice (http://www.slicehost.com) that I have, and a family member who is completely computer illiterate can still make and maintain the web page. It's really slick.

 

They offer hosting packages if you don't want to have to maintain the installation yourself. Check it out:

 

http://www.concrete5.org/services/hosting

 

 

Thanks. Like Dan, I am also going to look into this.