SooperJake Report post Posted March 11, 2014 Have any of you used web.com to build your website? If so, how is it working out? I just dumped my GoDaddy account after a year of dismal results (read: no results), and am looking for an alternative rather than giving up entirely. Jake Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SooperJake Report post Posted March 11, 2014 I may have just answered my own question. I found a page of 30 reviews and the large majority of them are negative. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DoubleC Report post Posted March 11, 2014 That's too bad Jake. I need to build a new site too so I'll be following this thread. Have you checked out squarespace and, oh there's another one I've seen advertised. I haven't yet but I know they have web templates you can use instead of trying to build one from scratch. Cheryl Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
El Zipster Report post Posted March 11, 2014 Try HostGator. I'm currently building a website using Wordpress and have got my domain and hosting from them. Good prices and a very helpful customer service dept. Cheers Zip Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Johanna Report post Posted March 13, 2014 Hostgator comes with a zillion templates to use too. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DoubleC Report post Posted March 13, 2014 (edited) Jake, someone recommended hostgator to me too, i just forgot until it was mentioned here. Cheryl Edited March 13, 2014 by DoubleC Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
needles Report post Posted March 13, 2014 i built my business website on yola, not the best site out but it generates the majority of my work, first two years costs totalled £17.00. waited till last minute before i renewed and they offered a lower renewal price. lots of templates to use, worth looking at al its here www.lincsrepair.co.uk Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SooperJake Report post Posted March 15, 2014 Thanks for the input, everyone. My biggest problem with Go Daddy was getting any exposure on the web. Every time I'd call them for help, all they wanted to do was sell me something. That seems to be their central focus. I don't need bells and whistles, I need exposure and traffic. I can build the website easily enough from any of the template-type companies out there. But how does one get people to find it? Jake Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Johanna Report post Posted March 15, 2014 It's not the webhost's job to promote the website. Some companies sell SEO services, but that's separate from hosting. (SEO= search engine optimization) Google has "webmaster tools" which is probably the most effective free SEO out there. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
needles Report post Posted March 15, 2014 you need to build a site, then get it added to as many free advertising websites you can find, there are hundreds of them some good some not so, but your after getting as many clicks as possible. but definitely as Johanna says, need to learn the use of google analytics, etc, there are tons of different ways of improving your sites visibility takes ages to pick em up, took me a year to finally get on to first page on searches. so probably easier and quicker to pay a guy guy to do it, if you can afford it, I couldn't so had to spend two years playing. all you need is on the web, just takes time to find and do. good luck, nearly drove me insane......... Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
DoubleC Report post Posted March 15, 2014 Jake another thing is you have to add meta tags to your heading so the search engines can find you. I used to have a tutorial on how to do that but have lost it over time but I think you should be able to find plenty some on the net. They have to be coded a certain way but the tags are easy, like for you they would be holsters, belts, leather etc. which makes you site pop up when people look for those things. Never mind I found another one someone gave me LOL. And you can find this info at http://www.htmlgoodies.com this is an example for what one would look like. This goes between the <head> and <head> tags. <head> <meta name="keywords" content="riding gear, tack, horse tack, conchos, made in USA, hand crafted, bridles, reins" /> </head> Sylvia found this for me last year when I was working on mine. and also recommended this..... It's a good idea to put a few misspelled keywords too. A lot of people these days are clueless when it comes to spelling. They may use rains, reigns, raynes, ranes halters, haulters, holters ... etc. In fact that's how I found so many diamonds online way back when. I saw. Dimons,Dymond, Daimond, Diamon, all misspelled. Ebay fixes the mistakes for you now... but back then they didn't Hope this helps because without these tags people can't find you. Cheryl Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
stelmackr Report post Posted March 17, 2014 I found that without all the tricks, meta words, SEO, etc. that naming the the domain for what you make gets you quite high on the search engines. (And with the tricks, meta words, SEO, etc it even get better results.) An example, would be if you make leather traveling sketchbooks, then the domain might be: leathertravelingsketchbooks.com ....or.... If you make left handed cross draw holsters, then the domain might be: lefthandedcrossdrawholsters.com Since no one (almost no one) types in the URL for the destination, the length of the domain name is mostly irrelevant and most people just click on links from searches. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kwelna Report post Posted March 19, 2014 I am in the beginning of creating my web site as well, Check out host gator and also do a search on You Tube for tutorials on building a web site and using wordpress\worpress themes, it makes life a lot easier. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
cgleathercraft Report post Posted March 19, 2014 I went with Squarespace and haven't had any major issues. I recommend it to anyone looking to make a website. especially if they have no coding experience. SEO takes time and there are a lot of factors. Google has some good documentation on it. It will take way more time getting the website noticed than building it. 2 biggest suggestions: Patience & Research Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
corter Report post Posted March 24, 2014 Would you blame a landlord if you rented a retail shop and got no customers? This is essentially what you are doing by dumping Go Daddy. Folks seem to think that since they're making an online business, the details of a regular business do not apply. They think there's a magic button or html code you get and boom... sales. Sure, there are some little tricks to SEO and your website name that may result in a few extra hits to start, but their results will pale in comparison to the results you'll get from actually building your brand. Unfortunately most people have it backwards. The "easy way" to making sales is not using SEO to get on top of Google searches, or meta-tagging things. The easy way is creating a unique product, something that is better/faster/cheaper than anything else or fills a void in a market. The HARD way is using SEO, because we are not SEO experts- we are leather smiths. We want to be making things, we don't want to be internet marketers. You do need to tell people about your product, but it is not the web host's responsibility just as it is not the landlord's responsibility to buy billboards to advertise his/her tenants. My suggestion is to find online communities that may benefit from what you make and integrate yourself via social media- forums and message boards. You can buy advertising space, or you can learn what blogs are most relevant and talk to those bloggers about collaborating through posts and reviews. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
