Bad news, advice sought.

[Gaz]

Hi again deserter, I hope your plannings going well, you have some golden advice here, I would scroll through this thread and take some notes, write a to do list as long as your arm and get cracking, I really would recommend getting invoice2go (free version, if you have an apple device) as with anyone else reading this thread, if paperwork worries you it's well worth it, saved me hundreds of pounds in time

 

[morfa]

As for domain registration, yes you can use 123-reg (I did for a while) but I would strongly advise you pay a couple more quid and go for these guys:
http://www.gandi.net/domain

123-reg (and even worse 1&1) are the B&Q of the domain registration world. If you ever get a web developer in to do you a website then they'll thank you for not having to deal with 123-reg.

I only use 123reg for buying the domains, I do not use any of their hosting/ email services at all. As a domain purchase place 123reg is about as good as they get!

The advantage with 123reg is they are cheap for domains and you have FULL control of everything to do with them from the control panel.. dns/ advanced dns/ nameservers and everything where with many other domain buying/ hosting companies you are limited in what you can do - most notably on many it is not possible to change dns or nameservers, some you have to request these changes, with 123reg you just log in and do it yaself.

<snippy>

I really cannot see any reason why a web developer would have any issue with domains bought through 123reg unless you are confusing domain name registration with hosting?

Ok, going totally off topic now. Sorry.

Nope, definitely not confusing them with hosting. Never used them for hosting (cause they've always seemed rather expensive) so can't comment on that. To be fair the web interface is better than it used to be. But you still can't do bulk actions on domains. Which is annoying when you've got 30+ domains and you need to make the same change on all of them. The old web interface made me want to cry. It was that bad. They have no API. IPv6 support was totally non-existent till quite recently. They don't seem to do glue records (still!!!), tho I think there is a way of bodging them. I think you can change the TTLs on your domain now, which is an improvement. And they still seem to charge you for subdomains, which is a bit cheeky really.

Basically you can get better elsewhere for the same amount of money. Gandi give you full access to your zonefile if you want it, which is pretty nice. That is full control. Anything else isn't. Another company that's pretty good with domains is portfast - https://www.portfast.co.uk/

I will admit however, that if you don't deal with large websites (or large numbers of domains), run your own web/email/dns servers, then a lot of the above isn't going to be relevant to you. I do, so it's important to me. For personal use or just one or two domains I'm sure you'll get along just fine with it. I would think that most professional web developers would be of the same opinion (certainly all the guys that I work with and have worked with over the years, are all of the same opinion). YMMV.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Ah, well yes all of that is fairly irrelevant to me, I have about a dozen domains and half as many sites

I thought the subdomain charge was a bit cheeky too, but I just change the nameservers to my host and create sub domains there.

From a "I wanna chuck a website online and barely have the time to do that let alone deal with hundreds of the damn things" viewpoint 123reg is fine because all I do is log in and change nameservers then that's pretty much the end of it as far as 123reg goes. From what you say I can see it would be rather annoying for you though.

 

[Togalosh]

As for getting a website I went through 123.reg & I got all the help I needed - just nowhere near as easily as I'd've wished. Then I purchased Webeasy & got going & made this:

http://www.heathanfurniture.co.uk/index.html

It's not perfect but I am still learning..it's getting found by search engines that's tricky & will take time - but no need to spend lots of money doing it.

How are you getting on?

 

[Louise-Paisley]

As for getting a website I went through 123.reg & I got all the help I needed - just nowhere near as easily as I'd've wished. Then I purchased Webeasy & got going & made this:

http://www.heathanfurniture.co.uk/index.html

It's not perfect but I am still learning..it's getting found by search engines that's tricky & will take time - but no need to spend lots of money doing it.

How are you getting on?

Looks good, clean cut. Not sure if I like the rotating slideshows in the gallery, jury is still out on that one.

I would look into getting a mailbox on your domain name though rather than a generic email, just looks more polished

 

[Togalosh]

As for getting a website I went through 123.reg & I got all the help I needed - just nowhere near as easily as I'd've wished. Then I purchased Webeasy & got going & made this:

http://www.heathanfurniture.co.uk/index.html

It's not perfect but I am still learning..it's getting found by search engines that's tricky & will take time - but no need to spend lots of money doing it.

How are you getting on?

Looks good, clean cut. Not sure if I like the rotating slideshows in the gallery, jury is still out on that one.

I would look into getting a mailbox on your domain name though rather than a generic email, just looks more polished

Thanks ! I'll take that as a compliment - as it was my first web site.

I'm not sure about the gallery style either but my head was soo fuzzed up by the time I'd got that far I just went with it..I'm annoyed by the poor spacing some browsers inflict on it when it's perfect in webeasy.

I should be adding a few pics of my latest creation soon so I'll get back into it again then...I'll also see what mailbox is. I have 3 websites in all .. but all on 1.. domain/hosting thing (??) & have a proper email address on the main 1 but not sure if I could have emails for all of them. Computers are not easy for my befuddled brain.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

I have several websites on my host package, with mine I can create pop3 & smtp email on any of the domains. I think it just looks more polished with an email matching the website domain, I have seen vans and even lorries with hotmail and freeserve email addresses on them and the first thing that springs to mind when I see it is "ergh, how lame is that plastering hotmail on your van" - maybe I am just an internet snob though

 

[Lord Kitchener]

If a person is unemployed and skint then there is no harm at all in trying for handyman work etc. The thing is that it's quite easy to do, not much needed in the way of start-up money or skills, so there is obviously going to be competition, and that is going to drive down the hourly rates that can be charged. And even if there wasn't any competition from other people, one will always be competing against 'Mr Dowereallyneedtodothisnow?', and ordinary working people, and pensioners, will be horrified when they hear the sort of hourly rates needed to keep a business going.

Much better, if at all possible, to be selling something that has an actual price, such as a product or a service which can be quoted, such as £X,XXX for fitting a kitchen. And unless you get fun out of making them, and don't need the money, then I would avoid making anything that can be made at home or in a garden shed, again, far too much competition. Avoiding making things that can be made in China is another good idea.

That's why I make kitchens. I know they can be made in factories here and abroad, but not everybody wants that sort of thing, and there is a market for fitted furniture of all sorts, such as bedrooms and studies. If you can offer decent stuff, and keep the costs and the prices down, then you can make money.

 

[devonwoody]

Me, I'm back in , One hour to change a light bulb for Mrs. Jones, 78 years old, lives three miles away, £40, I dont think so.

She needs it immediately.

 

[morfa]

Togalosh - For a first website it's good. Getting your website to look consistently good across browsers is something that can take hardened professionals days and days of work to perfect. So don't be disheartened that you've not got it quite right. If you ever fancy redesigning it, it's worth looking into using wordpress.com or tumblr.com. You need to look at the 'email redirect' and 'mailboxes' that your package gives you, most give you lots, so it should be possible to set it up.

Louise - Yes, you can use 123-reg, but gandi.net or portfast.net are just as easy to use and in the long run you'll find them much better. So any beginners, thinking of setting up a website, don't use 123-reg, trust me on this, I've been running websites for half of the time the www has been going, I know what I'm doing (sorta!).

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Louise - Yes, you can use 123-reg, but gandi.net or portfast.net are just as easy to use and in the long run you'll find them much better. So any beginners, thinking of setting up a website, don't use 123-reg, trust me on this, I've been running websites for half of the time the www has been going, I know what I'm doing (sorta!).

It's not really a problem for me as I only have a couple of websites, I just buy the domain on 123reg, change nameservers to my host and that's it finished as far as 123reg goes. Everything else is done on my host.

 

[Dibs-h]

Louise - Yes, you can use 123-reg, but gandi.net or portfast.net are just as easy to use and in the long run you'll find them much better. So any beginners, thinking of setting up a website, don't use 123-reg, trust me on this, I've been running websites for half of the time the www has been going, I know what I'm doing (sorta!).

For pure domain registrations - no hosting of any kind - what does gandi.net or portafast.net offer over say 123-reg? I'm talking about A, MX, etc type record changes that you would have to make if your hosting was somewhere else. What "extra" do you get? Bulk changes - not interested, as I'm not interested in registering 100's of domains in the hope that 1 day, 1 of them might sell. :wink:

Dibs

 

[Lord Kitchener]

Anyone else getting bored with posts about websites etc?

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Anyone else getting bored with posts about websites etc?

I would guess if they are they would jog on and read something else and if not they would post

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Louise - Yes, you can use 123-reg, but gandi.net or portfast.net are just as easy to use and in the long run you'll find them much better. So any beginners, thinking of setting up a website, don't use 123-reg, trust me on this, I've been running websites for half of the time the www has been going, I know what I'm doing (sorta!).

For pure domain registrations - no hosting of any kind - what does gandi.net or portafast.net offer over say 123-reg? I'm talking about A, MX, etc type record changes that you would have to make if your hosting was somewhere else. What "extra" do you get? Bulk changes - not interested, as I'm not interested in registering 100's of domains in the hope that 1 day, 1 of them might sell. :wink:

Dibs

Nothing that I am aware of to be honest, as I said above my total involvement with 123reg is buy the domain and change the nameservers which is exactly what I would do if bought from the other mentioned sellers so for me the only thing to really consider is the cost of buying/ renewal which is lowest on 123reg (or was last time I looked)

I can see bulk domain changes etc is useful for a web developer who has hundreds to deal with but for most people here they would only be interested in one or maybe two websites so little to gain as far as I can see

 

[Lord Kitchener]

Anyone else getting bored with posts about websites etc?

I would guess if they are they would jog on and read something else and if not they would post

Or alternatively they might draw attention to the fact that this thread is being driven off-topic by people who perhaps should ****** off and start a thread of their own if they find their off-topic conversation so fascinating.

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Is it off topic?

I thought the thread was about setting up a business, a website being an almost essential part of that process, would that not make the issue of where to buy a domain and host the website relevant?

It would seem there are quite a few people contributing useful information on this thread regarding the pro's & cons of one place vs another which seem to think so and one person who does not.

 

[Lord Kitchener]

Is it off topic?

I thought the thread was about setting up a business, a website being an almost essential part of that process, would that not make the issue of where to buy a domain and host the website relevant?

It would seem there are quite a few people contributing useful information on this thread regarding the pro's & cons of one place vs another which seem to think so and one person who does not.

Yes, it is off topic. Of course a website is important but then so would be a vehicle, and this would not be the place to discuss different makes of tyre either. I daresay if the conversation drifted that way then a number of people would chip in with comments about which tyres they liked, but that doesn't mean that the topic is tyres, and people should try to remember that the central point of this thread is rather more important than 'which is the best website host?' etc.

There is a section of this forum for the conversation you are having
general-chat-off-topic.html

 

[Louise-Paisley]

Lets agree to differ then, otherwise the thread is even more off topic discussing what constitutes on/off topic which is ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with the original post rather than websites which is to a point

See how easy it is

 

[Losos]

The problems I face is knowing where to sell things and how best to go about getting furniture orders.

Well many books have been written on the subject and thousands of courses but 'marketing' is a complex subject. The one thing I would urge you to avoid is paying for any sort of advertising, in your situation this will be a total waste and be careful 'cos advertising sales people can be very persuasive.

As many will tell you the best way to get customers is from personal referals of existing customers and there's the problem when you are just starting out you self evidently don't have any existing customers.

Until you do get some real live clients I would suggest a card in your local post office window offering to do odd jobs, gardening, painting, and such like. This will get you in front of people and give you the opportunity to talk about the kind of cabinet work and lathe turning business that you want to start. I think you will find that most people admire someone who is trying to start up a business and will talk to their freinds and soon youmight be getting people ringing you.

But please PLEASE do NOT pay cash for advertisements in the local paper or wherever.