www.ultimatehandyman.co.uk

hello wondered if anyone could help me im looking to have a website to advertise my work could anyone give me any tips or point me in the right direction i would be grateful for any help cheers jimmy

If you don't want to learn html etc for building a site from scratch, there are plenty of web host/domain name companies that give you the tools to create your own site using templates. You just choose a style you want, add your own text and images and away you go.

A couple of examples of 2 of the better known companies are here and here

office live is fine enough, its been used to make my website
http://smallbusiness.officelive.com/en-GB/
£8 a year for the .co.uk domain name,hosting and online creation software/templetes

Avoid 1&1 like the plague, they are the worst web hosting company on the net and are renowned for ripping people off!

I think RichieP has given a better and appropriate suggestion. You should try free web hosting which is provide you more features to promote your work.

Look for a company that can build you a "cms" website.This is a "content management system" which means you dont need to know any code.You add the content and images etc. Loads of different cms systems and some are free but the free ones do require a bit of learning.

Also before you commit to anything find out which systems are search engine friendly (sef or seo friendly).Some systems are more friendly to google than others which means better results for your efforts.I use joomla but its not everyones cup of tea and does take a bit of learning but its got my site high on google for several search terms and i know nothing about writing code or building websites.Just got a template customised for me and away i went.

If you go on a site called template monster you can compare a lot of templates based on different systems.Recently did my wife a site with a nice paid for template which cost £18 for her baby massage business.Only problem with it at present is the gallery is loading too slow so got to upload smaller image files to make it load quicker.It gets her a lot of enquiries too for such a small outlay.


If its not your thing definately worth paying someone to build you one because it can bring in a lot of work for peanuts.I only have websites now to get my work from.Ditched yp and yell.con etc as this works outs better value.If its slow just do pay per click as and when its needed.

is office live google friendly?

It's no different from other websites.

You need good keywords, relevant page titles and headings, and some inbound links, but not reciprocal links from irrelevant sites. By that I mean don't do crappy link exchanges with websites selling handbags for example.

It can take a bit of tweaking and time spent submitting your site to free listings, but it pays off in the long run.

I have probably made over 50 sites so far.

I have built a few sites using Joomla and I have also made a few using Dreamweaver/frontpage.

I'll steer well clear of Joomla from now on, since I had one of the sites hacked and deleted.

I have a neat way of making websites now using php, If I get chance in the future I will make some demo's and place them on youtube. It'll be a long time off though as my list of videos to make keeps getting longer day by day!

If you are looking for a website that is quick and cheap to set up and that is easy to maintain then I would reccommend Wordpress.

It is free to download and easy to set up and there are loads of really nice templates to use and they are often free.

I would avoid setting up a server etc yourself but buy cheap hosting from for example one.com.

PM me if you would like more advice.

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I agree with esscotti. Wordpress is THE best open source software out there and its very easy to install. It does all the SEO and it is highly rated by Mr google himself - Matt cutts.