Help with starting own website?

Question

I am in the UK and have decided that after my baby is born in December i would like to stay at home for a couple of years to see my baby growing up. I was thinking of starting a website and charging people either a membership for my services (i was thinking tutoring) or a fee for a set number of questions. I havent figured out the exact details but i want to use what i am good at to make money from home. The thing is i havent got the first idea how to set up a website or any of the things that i want to do and i could really do with some instruction or advice so does anyone know how i would go about starting this??

Answer 1

If you want to set up a membership site or one that collects money and don't have a clue about building a website, you need to hire someone. All you need is for someone's private information or credit card information to escape your site and you'll learn the true meaning of lawsuit.

Answer 2

Hi, i am 18 years old and i am currently starting my own internet business, which will be called littleartyhands.co.uk (not yet operating).

First of all, there are a variety of things you must consider:

What marketing will you do? Who is your target audience (What is there income? Males/ female -both-)

What will your USP be?( Unique Selling point)

How will you compete (assuming there is already competition)?

You must analyse the competition completely- what is their strengths/ weaknesses?

Do you have sufficient start up funds? Do you have the funds to keep your business running, until you at least break-even? If not, how will you obtain this finance?

Can you really put the necessary time in, l once your baby is born?

Also, look at other alternatives that potential customers may use- for instance, what is the costs of private tutoring ( on a one-to- one basis and group classes?)

Do you have the skills necessary to sort the brand/image of your website yourself? or will you have to pay someone to advice you on this?

Also, if your business will cater for school age people- you need to collect research on who (parents or pupil) would go looking for tuition?

After-all, if parents mostly going looking for tutors,your marketing may be different, in comparison to pupils looking for tuition?

Perhaps, you could try and get interview(s) in newspapers/ magazines/ websites by talking about the poor state of the education system! If i was you, i would contact lots of newspaper/mags once your website is up to get media attention. Also, if for instance you saw an article in a newspaper/mags/ website once your website is up, you could contact reporter and offer your opinion. You should also, contact media organisation & say to them, if in the near future you are going to run an article on education, then contact me (this way your website could get mentioned in the article).

First of all, plan how you are going to answer all the necessary , 'what-ifs?' Then, once you are confident, buy a domain name (there are plenty of websites which sell domain names) & get lots of quotes from website designers. The more quotes you get, the better.

My advice would be to have a really good go at your idea. As, i read on the bbc website that the amount spent on private tuition , is expected to double over the next few years. The booming private tuition market, coupled with an increasing dissatisfaction with the education system; means you could be on to a winner!

Answer 3

You did not define what you wanted or are interested in. You can set up an auction site where people sell their items on and you charge per item to sell or charge per year or month per member.

Yahoo or Google search  'auctions scripts' and buy one.  Once done advertise it on free sites offered to you;

http://www.sellit-right.com [free for Businesses & products]

http://www.classifieds.com

http://1planet-mart1.com/classifieds/

Create a blog and allow comments too.

Answer 4

For what you seemed to be after, you'd need a pretty extensive website so unless you're a programmer, I'd recommend finding a local web developer to help you out. Problem there is that it can get expensive, so it depends on how serious you are.

Unless there's some cheaper premade sort of things out there in internet world? anyone?