vallumlj

A friend of mine is setting up a business and he does not need a website but would like to have his company name as a email address.

How hard is this to do and how much does it cost?

eg

john@johnsplumbing.co.uk

Thanks

Hysteria1983

It will only take a few minutes, and only cost a few £'s. It looks nice and preffesional too

JackClark

Look at Google Apps Free Edition. $10 a year for email and more with zero setup. Can't be beaten, google it.

PaulJC

iTrader: (1)

Till someone types it in as a web address...

Get the cheapest hosting, just use it for a one page advert

vallumlj

Good point might be worth getting a one page website.

Would somewhere like this be a good place to use for both.

http://www.123-reg.co.uk/

Saxo Boy

Buy the domain johnsplumbing.co.uk.

To be honest though, he should get hosting and set up a basic brochure style website consisting of say, an about page, contact page, examples of work (i.e. basic gallery) or clients testimonials page. It won't cost much at all and the webpage + email will make him appear far more professional.

Also, if you tailor the SEO (search engine optimization) around plumbing in his area then he should start to get traffic to the page from searches. So, for example, if he lives in "dudley" then people searching "plumbing services dudley" or "plumbers in dudley" may well wind up on his site. This could get him business that he otherwise may never have gotten.

For a few hundred pounds to set up a website and circa £60/yr to maintain the URL and pay for hosting it's sort of a no-brainer, especially for a trade based company. Even picking up 2 jobs a year through the website means it would pay for itself and that says nothing for the value added to his professional image by having his own website.

Think about from a client point of view... you need a plumber and stumble across two business cards in the mail drawer. Both are similar design and one is for Pauls Plumbing and the other for Johns Plumbing. Paul has the webpage www.paulsplumbing.co.uk and John has nowt. Pauls email address is paul@paulsplumbing.co.uk and John's is john287@hotmail.com.

....who do you phone?

FWIW, I've recently gone self employed and building basic websites for small businesses is part of my business model. Obviously, I'll be targeting businesses in my local area but I'd love to quote your friend to build him a basic webpage and I'm confident every thing could be handled remotely. I'm so fresh that I've not even got round to setting up the webpage to advertise my services....so I can offer a very competitive price on the basis that I've technically not even started trading in that area of my business!

Hysteria1983

Good point!

WRXBOB

Got mine from WWW.1and1.co.uk cheap as chips.
Found .co.uk domain was cheaper than .com

PaulC72

if you use most places the hosting is included in the first years cost.

try www.one.com

JackClark

Trust me, go with Google.

Setting up email using your new personal address, select Gmail enter your user name and password.

Setting up email using some random provider, port numbers, server addresses, world of pain.

If you go with Google you get a free homepage that's simple to get looking great.

finalzero

I made this for a mate:

http://www.slworrall.co.uk

Setting up just a mail account is not hard. You need to do the following:

1. Find a Domain Registrar like www.godaddy.com and then register domain name (the one you want may be taken so try to find something similar, short names work better)

2. Purchase some basic email service (from godaddy.com or another hosting company), you will get 1 or more email accounts, web mail etc.

3. Setup the mail account through the control panel page, configuring the first email address account.

4. Test it out using Web Mail. There are plenty of guides online on how to configure your email client for the new email hosting account.

Saxo Boy

^^^^ That is exactly the sort of product your mate needs. A simple website and email address makes him look so much more professional. I also note the site is on page 3 for "plumber leighton buzzard" and on page 1 as a sponsored link. It only takes 1-2 jobs a year that were the sole result of having a website to justify the costs.

the hamster

iTrader: (7)

I use Vistaprint for a 3 page website which costs £3 a month then google adwords to link to it. Had great results this way for 5 years but I was lucky with my email address and managed to get AA_Aerials@yahoo.co.uk which again serves me well.

JackClark

$10 a year with Google. Your domain is registered with GoDaddy and everything is set up for you. As I said, can't be beaten, can't work out why anyone would recommend anything else.

JackClark

https://www.google.com/a/cpanel/domain/new

Choose buy a domain, enter what you want and that's it. Thank me later.

Saxo Boy

If all you want is an email, then fine. However, I think it is always better to have an associated website, even if it is only simple with information about the company, a contact sheet, testimonials, simple gallery, etc.

When people see John@johnsplumbing.co.uk they will often go to www.johnsplumbing.co.uk to try and glean additional information about the company. You want to have something for them to see. A webpage is similar to physical premises IMHO and people judge you on it. Take garages for example, you are naturally more drawn to establishments in nice new/clean premises in a modern industrial estate than you are a crumbling shack in the middle of a dead car graveyard. Your image is sooooo important in business.

Btw, I've not checked but I'm assuming when you sign up for a domain through googlemail you only get your email and hosting for it? It would be sick value at $10/yr if you also get hosting for a webpage (which is why I doubt this is the case).

GlesgaKiss

So what are the rough annual costs for something like a simple website with just a few pages of information about the company? Is there anything other than the small annual fee?

I'm a bit clueless with stuff like this.

Saxo Boy

You need to pay to register the domain name every year. That's about £5-8/yr

You need to pay for hosting for your website (effectively hard drive space on a server that is running 24/7). Typically this is around £40+ per year. A small business website usually needs nothing more fancy than £50-60/yr hosting.

With that lot you could have www.glasgakiss.co.uk and associated email addresses. You can build and update the page yourself relatively easily using a content management system such as Wordpress. It's not that hard to figure out how to use it and there are lots of tutorials, etc.

As I said, part of my business plan is to approach small companies and explain this to them - better than I have above lol - and offer to take care of the process for them. For a few £hundred I can set them up with a basic website and leave them to it. After that they need only pay a separate company (such as godaddy) for their domain registration and hosting.

So, for example. If you wanted a basic 3-5 page website at glasgakiss.co.uk you'd be about £250-500 initially and about £60/yr thereafter.

JackClark

You get an extensive homepage capabilities with Google for your $10. Again can't be beaten. All this talk of hundreds of pounds is out of date. $10 a year and a ten year old geek is all you need for small business.

JackClark

http://www.google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview.html

Saxo Boy

Been doing a bit of reading, looks like it is a very limited tool designed mainly for personal use. There are only a few themes and limited/no ability to crack into them and change things around. Ultimately, you'd have very little control over the look/feel of your webpage which is probably a negative for most business applications. Arguably, having a mickey-mouse website is worse than none at all and a lot of these user friendly website packages are exactly that.

I know someone who isn't computer literate who set up her website with yolasite.com. It is lol-bad and contains yolasite in the url.

All that said, I think if you want a domain, email address and one page brochure style webpage that basically says, "this is us...now please phone on...." then Google could be decent value. However, it will never have the power of a proper website.

GlesgaKiss

Thanks for the explanation, that's not too bad cost wise.

Jack, appreciate you taking the time, but as above, is it really something that's going to look like a Google blog page? What I'd be looking for is a professional looking page that only I own (if that makes sense), and with only the company's name in the web address. If I was going for it, I'd definitely get someone who knew what they were doing to design it to make it unique.

Scooby Soon!

cough!

http://www.soperwatergardens.com/

looks ok?

Scooby Soon!

http://www.ashwoodfc.com.au/

Scooby Soon!

and you might want to search for getting British business online it is linked wth google sites I think, they will give you a free domain for 2 years saving you $10, i don't think you will find cheaper than that!

Saxo Boy

They are not bad, but again, it's about control. What if you want a header of a particular width and depth complete with RSS feed, Twitter and Facebook icons in the upper left. Perhaps you want a simple 5 button (about, services, gallery, testimonials, contact) arrangement directly below? Maybe you want no columns or two, or three? With something like wordpress there are thousands of themes and you can hack into the code and modify them further. You can pretty much create any look/feel/functionality you want and can add features as your business grows (maps, blogs, shopping carts, media, you name it).

Despite being fairly simple the site finalzero made (http://www.slworrall.co.uk/) is far more professional looking than either of those google site examples.

Also, I have no idea how the SEO works with googles own sites, but with a good wordpress plug in you can completely customise word for word how a page looks in google rankings. This gives you a lot of control over the marketing. For example, finalzero's site looks like this in google:

S.Worrall - Gas, Plumber, Heating Engineer in Leighton Buzzard ...
www.slworrall.co.uk/
S.Worrall Plumbing & Heating is an independent Gas Safe registered plumbing and heating company based in the Leighton Buzzard area. Domestic Plumbing ...

You can easily modify all of that wording to try and capture relevant traffic and drive it to your website. Can you do that with a google webpage (I don't know btw, perhaps you can?)

JackClark

I've said enough on the subject and seen small businesses by the dozen sink thousands into websites for little return.

Midlife......

iTrader: (2)

Or do it free....... http://www.webs.com/

http://www.k9couture.webs.com/ set up by my 13 year old along with a google e-mail

Shaun

PaulC72

try www.cornishhostingcompany.co.uk based in cornwall owners name is Andy email hiim he will give you a price and his support is second to none.

Full Cpanel hosting just take a look and he will also design a website 5 pages for £250 or single page with contact thingy for £60. take a look.

Saxo Boy

I do agree with this. Many small businesses get duped into believing they need to spend £500+ for initial set up and then £20,30,50+ a month for maintenance and updates. My uncle was paying out silly sums of money for a basic site that was hardly ever updated or changed.

As with all things in life it's about getting a product that suits you needs. I think a lot of web developers hide behind the fact the average person has no clue what is involved in putting their site together and they accept a lot of things at face value. I personally think there is real scope for honest pricing and an approach where the client is educated on exactly what they are spending their money on and why.