Reply With QuoteI built a site with Squarespace and its been really good and very easy to change. I looked at wix but i thought the templates/style/design weren't as good, but i'll admit wix is cheaper.
Morning all,
Have had a business idea and want to setup a small website to test the waters.
Haven't registered a domain name yet as all of the builders I've seen include this.
My google powers have returned with Wix, square space, weebly & Jimdo.
I would like to have an email address with the domain name and wix offer a G suite email.
Does anyone have any recommendations?
I want to build the site myself so that I can tweak it etc to gauge responses.
Cheers
I built a site with Squarespace and its been really good and very easy to change. I looked at wix but i thought the templates/style/design weren't as good, but i'll admit wix is cheaper.
Buy your domain from the likes of 123-reg.
Host your email with Gmail.
Use Squarespace for your website.
I used wix for mine. Bit clunky to set up but fine once up and running.
using 123-reg myself, all in all easy to set up and 5 email addresses, they have had a couple of 24 hour outages which as a small business is brutal, I would probably change to Wix, if I could be bothered rebuilding the site, but for now I will stay put.
I've done a couple of sites with Wix, getting the domain, email etc from them as well and have found it very easy to get good results and from memory at not much more than £150 per site. If you're having multiple email addresses it may be worth hosting them separately as Wix charge per address I believe, whereas other deals will give you multiples.
That's the experience I have with 123 email hosting, it's unreliable. Gmail hosting is much more stable, and faster.Originally Posted by soundood
Of those you've mentioned, I've only had experience with Weebly.
I've found it very intuitive to design and build a multi-page, responsive website. It's also been completely reliable.
Definitely get the domain name yourself, that way your sure it's registered using your details.
It's always a good idea to have separate providers, that way if you ever want to switch host it's easy and doesn't rely on them releasing the domain name at the same time.
Thanks for all the info so far, much appreciated. Looking at google for the hosting & email aspect.
What's the consensus on the new domain extensions? The site I have in mind has .co.uk and .com unavailable but the new extensions are all available.
I've tried most of the template providers and have found Wix to be the one I prefer the best. However, i'm a designer so that could be because their app gave me the most control using a WYSIWYG interface.
.com or .co.uk are always the best options for a British business.
However, this article will give you an insight into an appropriate extension if these aren't available:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/c...19ude8kfm1h5dv
As above stick with .com or .co.uk. Many of the other tld's are used by spammers also, I know of several companies that have blocked the majority of other tld's due to the amount of spam they were getting.
I’d personally avoid .com and stick to .co.uk
WordPress is easy enough but be careful with the theme you choose as some will make your life hell, especially with compatibility issues with some plugins.
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Another Wix fan here. The editor is superior to squarespace imho.
Have used wix for building a couple of websites, I have to say it’s quite intuitive and once you get your head round it,easy to edit, although be careful which template you choose as your pretty much stuck with it once you start building.
Fantastic stuff.
I guess that Wix is not the best choice for your goals. In terms of design it is not intuitive at all, my opinion. Moreover, it doesn't let embed a number of truly significant functions like unified communication https://voximplant.com/blog/what-is-...-communication. That is a serious drawback!
Last edited by Owren; 7th September 2020 at 19:35. Reason: additional info
I use ipage.com and Weebly but my site is fairly basic, although that’s by choice. I have both the .com and .co.uk domains for my site address, simply to stop anyone else using it.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
Had a look at wix and settled on squarespace, only difference from above is we used Microsoft for mail as we wanted access to the office suite.
Personally I stear clear of businesses that use Google or Yahoo email addresses.
I’ve ran a website for a camera club for many years. Domain is registered with 123-ref and hosted by Hosting24 then created using Wordpress.
Hosting24 gives me SSL and an email addresses, which actually end up in a Gmail account but the sender doesn’t see that.
The camera club in question is a not for profit community based organisation with a very limited budget. The method about costs around £50 per annum.
Shameless plug here...
If you want a proper website done we do lots of different sites brochure/ecom/sales funnel.
Using builders of any sort you will struggle to rank if you decide to start spending money on SEO.
Www.blazemedia.co.uk
If you want to do it yourself and just want a site that people go to from your business card then square space seems the best.
Also do yourself a favour and host your email with gmail. I think the guy above is confused as this doesn’t mean you need to have an @gmail address.
Resurrecting this thread to ask: where's the best place to buy a domain name? I had Yahoo! domain names back in the day that were stolen and Yahoo did nothing to retrieve them. Also I'd like auto renewal to prevent future loss.
I've been looking at Godaddy after their recent advertising blitz.
Many thanks
I use 123-reg for uk domains, and namecheap for .com/.net
Thank you.
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