Who does your website?

[Forest Cobbler]

Hi

We've had several phone calls from companies wanting to poach our website from where it is, and as we know that we're paying too much, we're weighing up the pros and cons of a few of them.

 

It would be interesting to know who you use and how happy you are with them.

 

Thanks, Valerie

[Paul_]

My 2 sites are done by a company called Sokp media in Swindon.

Both cheap and cheerful to make and not very complicated (that's what I asked for)

 

Both cost £8.40 per month to host , which I know I can get cheaper but I'm very happy with their customer service and happy to pay a bit more for them to host it.

[Mick Friend]

I pay 3 years upfront to someone and host 5 sites on the one package- chuffed with the service if I could only remember the names.

BUT

be wary they may take over your hosting and if they also'renew' your domain name and add theirs they then own it-

I used to have a URL

Lockdoktor when I had my shop - bought a site and when I wanted to switch I lost the domain name as they 'owned' it I didn't have the funds to fight them.

[Mike at Vauxhall]

I use 1to 1. Never thought of it as pricey at 39 a month,( until now! ) Probably won't change though. Very happy with them, I have complete control over what is on my website, can update as and when I want to. My website Is purely for information and to raise my profile, I do not do any e commerce on it.

[MarkD]

What are you guys paying for? My website hosting is £2.99 per month (Currently two different sites but more if I wanted), if you are paying much more than that then I hope you are getting SEO, website design or some other benefits otherwise you are paying far too much for hosting alone.

[Mike at Vauxhall]

£2.99 & £8.40 a month.

F*** me.

Still not changing. Might review middle of next year when contract comes to end.

I guess it was the ease, flexibility and simplicity of the package that appealed to me. I am not very computer savvy, but was still able to

Set up a website from scratch.

[Forest Cobbler]

Thanks for this. I knew we were paying over the odds, but hadn't realised by just how much.

 

Yes we do have SEO, and we have full control to make instant changes to the website, and it's mobile friendly too.

 

We're now seriously looking at doing it ourselves rather than pay anyone else. Just got to make sure that we can get our domain name back, it should be ok.

 

Thanks, Valerie

[mrkeys]

We have 2 sites our key website is built with open cart and is hosted on go daddy think its about £50 per year for the hosting the meta tags and content is something we have done ourselves but neglected it somewhat over the years - Its a fully functioning e-commerce site but we have not really worked on it in years as the business direction of our key cutting keeps changing. The domain name is normal under a tenner every couple of years

 

Our engraving site is through big commerce it costs about £50-£100 per month depending on how much we sell (Although they do lesser packages) but it has all the bells and whistles with special unique coding on most pages with a preview engraving section, full seo, abandoned cart recovery, integration with ebay, amazon, all shopping channels, yahoo, google shopping and Adwords, there's also the social element of course, email marketing, you name it we have it, far too much stuff for me to ever use. but absolute security in knowing I have more features than I will ever need. (There's much more stuff I haven't even scratched the surface of) To get the features I have installed individually would cost thousands on a yearly basis because if you don't pay for automation you have to pay an individual to do the same job, you cant simply set it all up click it live and leave it alone.

It is a lot of money but well worth it for the support and security of knowing it will never go down for more than a minute at a time - we are talking servers as secure as they get, in the past we have had cheap servers go down for days at a time hence until we changed things

 

Both sites we fully edit ourselves

 

Personally I hate how companies paint a picture that having a fully functioning e-commerce site is easy to set up and run, they even preach its cheap to run as well - nothing could be further from the truth - seo, link building, advertising in many different forms all cost an arm and a leg and if you don't do it you don't get paying customers - and don't even get me started on how long a task good content writing can take

 

All I want these days is a busier retail shop and none of the stress that comes from trading online, beginning to lose faith in it very quickly

[Mick Friend]

I own and run 3 sites - That is I can edit them if I feel the need, But I am so busy with running my businesses I have little time to ponce about with them. It is a better use of my money and time to get a professional to deal with it, make changes, get graphics done and manage the general content. Yes it costs me each month. I pay the hosting myself and purchase a mega package and 5 sites are run under the one hosting. I own and pay the domain names myself and I can change the DNS as I feel. SO I am not open to ransom. I also own domain names such as .co.uk - .com - .uk etc and with slight variations to the name - that prevents some of the risks of passing off.

 

I don't do commerce in any huge amount - so I cannot comment.

 

In the locksmiths trade we are lucky to have a lady who's husband has a business so she understands, she now has staff and I cannot complain- in the event of problems a quick skype text and its sorted - not that we have many.

 

I also have a presence in social media but I have to admit to being too busy to do it any justice

have a look at Kate

http://www.reallygoodmarketing.co.uk/