Looking for a logo and website

[annejackson287]

I'm setting up a new home business and need a website and logo. I've looked at the different options, like squarespace and Wix, but are they actually any good. I'm not really knowledgeable in this area so any help appreciated. I do have a marketing budget set aside but feel a little overwhelmed.

I love Squarespace. It's easy to make into your own with reasonable monthly rates.

You can set up a shop for goods or services, set it up to collect email addresses etc.

It's really easy to customise too, but perhaps easy to get overwhelmed.

Map out your own site and decide if you want each page to be a main page or whether you want 'contact' pages to fall under 'about' for example.

Set aside a good few hours to set up one or two pages, then you can do the others.once you're a bit more familiar with it.

No coding needed!

Thanks LeslieYep, much appreciated. I've looked at Squarespace but think I just wanted some reassurance. I don't want to put loads of time and effort into building a website then realise it won't fulfil my requirements.

You need to define your requirements first, maybe. So Squarespace is great if you want a low cost, no hassle site. We decided we wanted more creativity and flexibility so built our own site on WordPress. This was cheap, but the process is definitely not for everyone so it also depends on how techy you are. I have no back end coding knowledge at all, but had a very clear idea of what I wanted the site to look like

I used fiverr for a logo. Cheap and good.

Sorrybposted too soon. I also use word press. I'm no computer genius but I don't find it too difficult to move things around.

If you are using a custom domain for your website, then SSL is a must, otherwise Google will mark the site as not-secure to your visitors. Wix, WordPress and Squarespare offer SSL in their paid offerings.

If you do not need a custom domain, then things are a lot simpler. You probably can use the free Wix/Wordpress offerings using their sub-domain (with SSL).

For logo, Fiverr or Logojoy
logojoy.com/explore

Hi annejackson287, as you've mentioned above, you'd be right to be cautious of using the basic drag and drop platforms as the design features can be limited and Google doesn't rank these sites very well which means people would struggle to find you organically.

I would always recommend going straight to Wordpress, I've had numerous small business, I've tried the lot, Wix, Squarespace, Strikingly till I eventually took the time to learn Wordpress and I've never looked back since.

I now actually build Wordpress sites for Mums who don't have the time or would prefer to not have the hassle so if you need my help just send me a private message and we can chat :) Kim

Hubby does websites / ecommerce setups / website hosting etc.

"I want a website" is too vague , a website that does what ? - sell goods / services , runs a forum , runs a blog , uploads files , register users information , booking system etc etc.

Usually Wordpress will be a good place to start, although there are plenty of other options.
If you want your website to rank in Search Engines - then you need to do some Search Engine Optimisation work. You need Keyword Research - ie who types what into Google, how many searches and how many competing webpages there are for that search phrase.

1000 searches a month for 'blue widgets' when there are only 50 competing web pages compared to 'red widgets' which also gets 1000 searches per month but has 5,000 competing webpages - should tell you where you need to concentrate on - that is 'blue widgets'

Onsite SEO - now optimise a page for 'blue widgets' - ie H1 headers, page titles, text , video, markup language tags etc.
Offsite SEO - your competitors will have links from all over the internet - you need the same links and then some more.

I could go on and on - but if you want to know more PM me and I'll pass you over to hubby.
Eitherway to get you started :-

1. Ecommerce - www.ecwids.co.uk - easy , no coding required - AND you can sell directly from a facebook page and any number of websites at the same time - so FB users never have to leave their FB session (FB #1 ecommerce app)

1. Keyword Research / Website Audit / Competitor links - www.link-assistant.co.uk

1. Social Media Monitoring - www.awario.co.uk

There are free versions of the above - or you can pay someone to do it for you (hubby charges).
Wordpress is free - but some plugins need to be purchased
Logo - Ive used Fiverr in the past - you are look around $40 for a HD logo

hope that helps some

I should have added - your need to be secure ie the padlock sign on the browser. You can do this using cloudflare and this also gives extra protection against any nasty attacks etc