Company website

funkey_monkey

Hi,

I've got to setup a website for my contracting company. I've looked into domain names and have narrowed it down to a few I think are acceptable.

My main concern is to design a home page (all I currently require) which looks professional. I'm keen to at least try this myself first before calling in an expert.

Are there any recommended WYSIWYG's for creating websites that are recommended? I know my colour palette from my company logo and the text.

From a quick search wix.com and weebly.com seem to rate highly. I presume one of these are the best to go for and will ensure compliance across all browsers?


Thanks.

mahamageehad

funkey_monkey wrote: »

Hi,

I've got to setup a website for my contracting company. I've looked into domain names and have narrowed it down to a few I think are acceptable.

My main concern is to design a home page (all I currently require) which looks professional. I'm keen to at least try this myself first before calling in an expert.

Are there any recommended WYSIWYG's for creating websites that are recommended? I know my colour palette from my company logo and the text.

From a quick search wix.com and weebly.com seem to rate highly. I presume one of these are the best to go for and will ensure compliance across all browsers?


Thanks.

Whichever way you decide to go, make sure you can get a custom URL in order to look professional. Many of those sites offer only businessname.weebly.com for example, at least on the free service. I'm a big fan of Wordpress but it's potentially more complex than you need right now.

funkey_monkey

Yip - I've got my eye on a <company_name_acronym>.ltd website.

Unfortunately I made a hash of naming the company to which I gave a bland <Surname> <Service Provided> structure which gave me little scope for a url. The full company name would be over 25 characters so I'm trying to figure out an acronym based on it as I think 25 chars is too long.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I could rename the company, but due to the way I work as a contractor the company name etc is not a critical part of my setup, so I'll be keeping it.

I was only going to use them for creating the website and get the domain name from another source.

Graham

Go for the .com or .ie if you can get it. A 25+ character .com/.ie is infinitely preferable to a top level domain that 99.999999999% of the population have never heard of.

funkey_monkey

Okay - I didn't realise that about the preference of the .com domains.

I was looking at something like www.jmcvs.ltd instead of www.jimmymurphycarvaletingservices.com *

* Made up names for used as example

If I register the domain on one of those websites I presume that I can upload my own website to it for a small monthly fee? Initially this will be only a landing page.

I'm also looking to create a company email using the same domain - would the longer name not increase the risk of incorrect entering of email address and 'lost' emails? I could end up with something like jimmy.murphy@jimmymurphycarvaletingservices.com. Is this still preferential to jimmy.murphy@jmcvs.ltd

Thanks for all the replies - useful hints and information

Graham

Nobody will recognise a .ltd domain. Everybody will assume you meant something else or that you were mistaken. I would expect a good chunk of your email to end up being sent to the .com anyway.

To use your example, something like this:

jimmymurphycarvaleting.com or jmcarvaleting.com would be a sensible compromise that would likely find an available domain name.

If you want email to your own domain, understand that wix/weebly/squarespace don't offer it. You will need to pay for an additional service from gmail/outlook etc.

Alternatively, get a shared hosting account from a local ISP (which usually includes web space AND email) and upload a simple html website/page. Given your technical ability you would have no problem customising an html template from themeforest to get a reasonable looking web presence.

Dades

funkey_monkey wrote: »

Unfortunately I made a hash of naming the company to which I gave a bland <Surname> <Service Provided> structure which gave me little scope for a url. The full company name would be over 25 characters so I'm trying to figure out an acronym based on it as I think 25 chars is too long.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I could rename the company, but due to the way I work as a contractor the company name etc is not a critical part of my setup, so I'll be keeping it.

The company name doesn't have to be the name you trade under. It could be completely different. For €20 you can register a business name with the CRO and you would be MyBigLongCompanyName Ltd, trading as XYZ (or whatever).

Most .ie registrars will be flexible too if you request a name that isn't your ltd name, but you can show a link. And really, if you're trading in Ireland a .ie is what you need.