I found someone to build the basic site, using wordpress, and now maintain the content myself, as far as I can. I just couldn't be bothered figuring out how to build the free ones.
Take a look... www.foxaccountancyservices.co.uk
Thank you Michelle!
If it is not much to ask, how much approx. did that initial web design work cost you?
I assume you are happy to recommend the web designer? Thanks
-- Edited by JulieS on Sunday 12th of May 2013 10:30:42 PM
Let me ask you a question Julie. What advice would you give to someone who said to you "I've just finished my first year in business and want to do my self assessment, I'm a complete beginner at this type of stuff"?
Kris
Are you trying to say that I have asked a silly question? I would not dispute if you think I did. This is why I said that I am a beginner.
If someone have asked for my help even with a very basic question, I would just explain what I know instead of trying to mock them.
Thank you for your response though.
Ok Julie,
Firstly calm down and take a breath. Nowhere did I say it was a silly question did I? As one of the longest serving members of this forum I try to be as helpful as I can with every member, old and new. I have never mocked anyone (except maybe Bob).
I asked a reasonable question. I hope the answer would be that you'd tell them to seek out a professional, and that's the advice I'd give to a beginner thinking that they can design their own site with no experience. I said this on the AAT forum and put a few noses out of joint, but stand by it. Your website is your window to the world. If it is amateurish that how people will see your business. If it is messy and disorganised, that's how people will see your business.
I see you have now looked towards Michelle to provide designer details but that's not how your first post comes across.
Kris
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Sunday 12th of May 2013 10:56:20 PM
Let me ask you a question Julie. What advice would you give to someone who said to you "I've just finished my first year in business and want to do my self assessment, I'm a complete beginner at this type of stuff"?
I found someone to build the basic site, using wordpress, and now maintain the content myself, as far as I can. I just couldn't be bothered figuring out how to build the free ones.
Let me ask you a question Julie. What advice would you give to someone who said to you "I've just finished my first year in business and want to do my self assessment, I'm a complete beginner at this type of stuff"?
Kris
Are you trying to say that I have asked a silly question? I would not dispute if you think I did. This is why I said that I am a beginner.
If someone have asked for my help even with a very basic question, I would just explain what I know instead of trying to mock them.
I'd suggest looking at other people's to get an idea of what you do and don't like. If you are going to do a free one yourself, keep it simple eg one or two similar fonts, as it will be easier to read and look more attractive. If you are going to pay someone to do it, decide what you want so that you don't change your mind part way through, which will keep down your costs. Lots of people shell out for a lovely website without considering the ongoing maintenance: not only can it be expensive to get it updated, but some website designers have limited after sales service. Be clear what happens if you want to pass maintenance/redesign on to another designer in the future, do you own your domain name etc.
I'd suggest looking at other people's to get an idea of what you do and don't like. If you are going to do a free one yourself, keep it simple eg one or two similar fonts, as it will be easier to read and look more attractive. If you are going to pay someone to do it, decide what you want so that you don't change your mind part way through, which will keep down your costs. Lots of people shell out for a lovely website without considering the ongoing maintenance: not only can it be expensive to get it updated, but some website designers have limited after sales service. Be clear what happens if you want to pass maintenance/redesign on to another designer in the future, do you own your domain name etc.
This is great advice. Being clear to the designer will save lots of time and thus fees, and looking around will get you understanding what you want, and you can point the designer to the site, so they can get a better understanding of the concept in your head.
I chose wordpress because I could update it myself. My designer gave me a little lesson too, after she built it.
I am not going to point anyone to a particular designer, not even the one who did mine, but I do have a number of contacts to approach for quotes. Plus I don't think its fair to give out my designer's price online.
I used Fasthosts to set up a domain and email, and then the designer just logged into that. I found all the content for the site, as I am a control freak.. she just set up the best part of it, and then told me how to tinker with it. You can also get add-ons to develop the site..
There are other theme providers not just wordpress. I cant tell you any names though, sorry
As indicated above hiring a professional whilst expensive can save an awful lot of time and they know how to optimise your site... That said, there are some "professionals" out there offering web building services who probably know less about it than you do so you really need to be careful who you take on to help you.
Wise advice in any field Shaun, bookkeeping springs to mind too. My posts on websites are probably not too popular but I really cant see, if you are serious about your business, why you would risk it all on knocking something up (unless you know what you're doing) just to save a few pounds. It's the same cringe I get when I hear of people printing their own business cards or leaflets, really?! I accept that often people start on a shoestring budget, I did myself. A printer was the first person I made friends with.
A reasonable website can be built for a pretty modest cost. Custom to you, and SEO friendly for about £150-£200. Often designers will let you pay this monthly. lets use the argument we use with small businesses when we are trying to sell our services. How long do you think your site will take you to build? 10 hours maybe? Probably more than that actually, you'll get something and wont be happy and try to change it, then everything on the page will move. it's probably going to be a good bit more than that. Whats your time worth? Surely it's better spent on the strategic work than doing something you're neither skilled or confident in?
We've all had many chats here about people trying to save some money doing their own books and getting in a terrible mess. It normally costs twice as much to put it right, yet give someone a piece of software and they think they're a web designer. I once had a lecturer back when I did computing who said "if you dont know dos you've no business using windows", the idea much like bookkeeping was unless you know whats happening behind the nice screens you don't really understand it. I don't really believe that, but when I build a website I use nothing fancier than notepad.
Regarding off site SEO, unless you get your on site stuff right there's no point doing any. Even when you do get it right though, SEO can take time. There are people out there in SEO world who will charge a fortune for services, but actually this is the part of web development you can do yourself, and I believe should. I hope she doesn't mind me saying, but I built a website for Amanda last year and now she's on the first half of page one of google for her search terms. Other than the build costs it's not cost her a penny for SEO.
Kris
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Monday 13th of May 2013 10:16:47 AM
I just read my last post and wanted to clarify a bit. I'm not saying that no one should build their own websites, nor am I saying all the tools out there to build sites are guff. What I am saying is if you don't know what your doing does it really make business sense to go through what is a steep learning curve in something you'll use once, maybe twice?
There are a few people here who have built their own sites here and they can be good, equally there are a load of people who build what they think is a great site, but you can be too close. These are the people who often go on to wonder why they get no clients from the site. Is it really worth the risk?
-- Edited by kjmcculloch83 on Monday 13th of May 2013 10:31:19 AM
My sites having an overhaul at the moment so no good to look at but it is possible to build quick )thats fast access, not quick to build) and professional looking sites using it.
Mistake that I made was buying the name and then buying the sitemaker package where the sitemaker package came with a name. (doh).
When I called them up though they were really freindly and professional and sorted out the money as though I had never made a mistake.
The package does take a bit of getting used to if you want to seriously overhaul the example sites (in my case although I started with an example site it might as well have been a blank canvas for the amount of it that I kept).
I think that Peasie also uses Namesco.
Don't forget that when you have buuilt the site you will still need to tell Google about it (which is free) and also Norton so that it does not come up with browser warnings (also free).
SEO work to get you up the rankings is something completely different and for that ssomeone like Kris would be your best freind in giving advice to help get your site noticed as thats one of his areas of expertise.
Personally I'm not currently looking for my site to be found (although that may be about to change), it's currently meant as a reference point for those who have my card and want to know more.
One thing that I will say about building a website is that no matter how long you think that it will take, multiply that by your shoe size.
As indicated above hiring a professional whilst expensive can save an awful lot of time and they know how to optimise your site... That said, there are some "professionals" out there offering web building services who probably know less about it than you do so you really need to be careful who you take on to help you.
Hope that helps a little,
kindest regards,
Shaun.
p.s. knowing Kris from many, many chats both on and off line I think that I read his original post as it was intended rather than as it could be read. Trust me Julie there was honestly no malice in his intent.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
If you are just starting out I guess you can't afford a professional. I certainly couldn't when I started and still probably can't! I used Webnode. It is one of the free ones, I paid for a premium template and have replaced their awful pictures with my logo. I bought a book on SEO (Outsmarting Google) and it told me where I needed to put keywords etc. Webnode's templates are so easy to use, you don't have to use any code, it's all user friendly. I think I paid £20 for my URL which they link to your website for you which also includes 8 email addresses. I have forwarded my emails to my outlook and it's all hunky dory. I think the premium template is £40 a year or something but I'm pretty sure you can customise the free ones as well with your own images. Having read the SEO book I moved up from page 10 in the search results to page 1 within a few months (google always holds you back for a few months) and I would say the website is my third best marketing tool).
You can produce something pretty decent for very little cost.
And on a linked note to add to bookkeeping and website building I'll add Excel as well. The number of Excel "experts" that I have interviewed in the past Kris that turned out to be no more than proficient end users.
I remember the Dos thing. There was even a book called "real men use DOS". I think that Windows makes people lazy but that said the operating system has now moved on so far that it is almost divorced from its roots.
On the risk factor associated with doing it yourself I think that with websites there are two distinct forms. Those who want the website to find them work and those who use a website as a support mechanism (such as myself). For the former group (which I would imagine would be most posters on here) there is a very, very strong arguement that do it yourself is a false economy.
For the other group, provided that the website is fast loading and looks the part then tinkerers such as myself still have our little web sandbox to play in. But, I am under no illusions that my site is anything other than a scratch pad of things that don't fit on my business cards and networking / word of mouth is my prime means of gaining clients.
Have you thought of offering your web building skills through the site Kris? Would you have the time to take on the extra work? Sure that for a long term contributor such as yourself Steve would turn a blind eye to a link in your signature.
All the best,
Shaun.
__________________
Shaun
Responses are not meant as a substitute for professional advice. Answers are intended as outline only the advice of a qualified professional with access to all relevant information should be sought before acting on any response given.
There are also some web designers out there who can design craking websites, but who know sweet FA about SEO, or even cant design a simple logo. Dont get stung by this, I have!
Used a graphic designer to design logo and website, and they assured me that the SEO was good and written into the site. The site doesn't work on iOS devices well, and the SEO rankings a nill as they didn't include a simple line of code at the start of the page, a 'robot' line or something... (I used a SEO optomisation service to find this out...)
Gary - Many SEO 'experts' know nothing about SEO and the sting is that they still charge eye watering amounts of money. It's as Shaun says, you need to be careful with any 'professional'. I would avoid anyone who guarantees to get you top of google. They'll normally use a term that no one searches for, so you will be top, but no one will see it. The best way to build your ranking is to update your website often with information your visitors will find useful. This is one of the reasons people add blogs to their site. They should come with a health warning though, a blog not updated is worse than no blog at all.
Shaun - I did think about it, but I don't really have the time at the moment. I've offered it to a few clients and Amanda but other than that I've not pushed it. I may diversify later, but it takes a lot of time to get inspiration for a site unless you use stock templates which I dislike. Talking about diversifying I paid your site a visit a minute ago and see you're doing something a bit different yourself.
I was in your position about 8 months ago, I presume you have limited budget or you would just get the professionals in!
I used Joomla, which is a great tool, however, has an extremely steep learning curve. But you can make pretty good websites with it if you have the know how.
I also went around looking at other peoples websites for "inspiration" as to content and design. You can find that there are a LOT of bookkeepers sites which are obviously homemade & look pretty rubbish, then there are some that are completely over the top & unnecessary.
My biggest tip is to start out simple, write down what you want to say & the image you want to put across. Try to think who your client is you are aiming at & create a "brand" that appeals. Maybe pop down to local library and look at some good marketing/brand identity/consumer behaviour books, as they will really open you eyes to what these marketing people are doing to you! Websites are not just about tech & a lot about image. Watch the apprentice & ignore any type of marketing/advertising they do, it is laughable! - well all previous series have been.
I used godaddy (I was very naive) as they are big and cheap, paid no more than £40 for website name for 3 years and hosting for a year. I did have a lot of problem with the site randomly going down & being really slow to load up. I spent weeks trying to see if it was something to do with my coding/site, then a few months ago I got an email from Goddaddy saying they have moved my site to a different server & instantly it went from about 90-95% uptime (when you can log on) to 99.99999%, and speeded up from about 3-5 seconds load to 0.4 seconds. I use pingdom tools which is free to sign up & will give you reports about uptime/speed, which can be very handy for reliability checks.
As Kris has mentioned he did mine and its really good. There was no way I would spend my time doing it, ( I didn't have a clue as what to do), so I went with Kris's suggestions and looked at other sites and got a pretty good idea of what I wanted, sent Kris all the info about what I wanted etc and then he built it for me. I am really pleased with it and I am on page 1 of Google in my area without paying for a SEO. I do Tweet alot which I assume helps with getting you to the top with Google. I didn't buy any adwords in the end as I just never got round to doing it.
If it was me there are so many people put there that can build websites why bother doing it yourself! If you want the satisfaction of doing it yourself and have plenty of time on your hands then have a go, if you are like me and haven't a clue where to start nor the time to do it, pay someone and get a good job.
This is just my opinion, Kris did mine in a quick time as I had an advert going in a local business mag and wanted the new website on it as well.
Google Adwords can be money well spent. Don't be scared of it. In actual fact I found that running an Adwords campaign pushed my site up the listings quicker than it would have happened organically. Advertising and SEO are all part of one big happy family.
The main aim is to get the right people to visit your site and to have a clear instruction for them when they get there. With my previous KM Bookkeeping site it was to get them to take a quote thereby giving me their information to follow up. With my new site it's to get them to accept a guide, but still giving me details to chase up. Bookkeeping and accountancy sites often have no call to action so people find the site but don't know what you want them to do when they arrive. Most people are not ready to sign up or even pick up the phone there and then, they need encouraged.
If you run an Adwords campaign it's important to be clear about your target audience and clear about your message to them. Miss these points and it's money down the drain. I also use facebook advertising which can be much more targeted.
Yeah i watched a programe on facebook advertising, you go through lists of options to target your market; (estimated figures) Norfolk: 6 million people male or female: Female 3.2 miillion between ages of 20 and 45: 60,000 are self employed: 12,000
Now your advert wil ONLY show up on self employed women between the ages of 20-45 that live in norfolk facebook pages!!!!. Its a GREAT tool, but I would be scared to hit go and advertise incase it costed too much. I know you can build in failsafes and click limits but im still dubious about it! lol
If your fairly good at it all Kris, could you pop over and take a look at mine see what i can do to improve it ( i have a meeting with the designer this Friday to talk about the next year's progression) Just PM, or email yours thoughts if you could spare the time ;)
The great thing about FaceBook, Gary, is that you can set a daily limit. So you could say I don't want to pay more than £2 a day. You can also pause it whenever you need to. I started a service just for driving instructors, so used FaceBook to target anyone in the UK who had an interest in "ADI". It's a fantastic tool.
I've actually been having a look at websites as this conversation has progressed. I'll drop you an email later.
.
