What are some things to consider when obtaining a website?

Question

I am starting to market my small business of Hospitality consulting and recruiting. I have made some strategic alliances which allow me to offer more services under one roof and I have ambitions to grow those services even further. My question is as I move forward with a website design what should I look for in a designer, host etc.?

Also, I want the site to be capable of hosting a member log in and some member access services. Can that be accomplished through say Yahoo hosting? Or am I looking at needing a professional designer? What can I expect a pro to charge for mid range site? I cater to companies that have 1 to 20 units.

Thanks for reading and any responses that may be offered. B

Answer 1

Do what you do best and then hire others to do the rest.  Find yourself a reputable company and pay them to do all the back-end web programming.  I had a small website that grew very large over the course of the years and found myself stuck with my original mickey-mouse design.  

I finally smartened up and hired a company to do a complete professional overhaul.  Having to shut down and transfer my old site to the new design cost me much more in lost revenue than the cost of the redesign and could have been avoided if I had only preplanned.  The cost for me was $75.00 an hour total cost for 12,000 pages was around $6,000.00  (Simple transfer once the design was complete)

Whoever you choose should be able to handle all of the items you listed and should be open to your input and suggestions.  You should also get an upfront estimate on hourly cost and total expected time to completion in writing.

Answer 2

If you are looking for a good hosting service, I use LunarPages= http://www.lunarpages.com/id/allth19 for my website.  I have used them for years, the prices are reasonable, and they have great customer service.

Answer 3

Firstly the site must be well written and coded. This will stand you in good stead as you progress. There are add-ins you can get for member log-ins and command modules where you can edit the site on-line. Have a look at http://www.ds32.com in particular 'our work' then 'Childrens epilepsy group'. The info on this site has been gained from our experience of developing http://www.shareworld.co.uk with the intention of sharing our knowledge (and in the process learning more). It does take time and the first priority is gaining presence and visitors. You should avoid programs that purport to do the work for you as this will end in disaster. You need good foundations and then build on that slowly and properly (no quick fixes or instant success). Hopefully the DS32 site will give you a reasonable insight. Contact us if you need any help.