advice on computer internet stuff needed!

hi,

im sure some of you here will have some answers and advice they can give me

im looking at buying a domain name thingi with a view to setting up a website later on to sell the jewellery and craft stuff i make.... i have no idea what im doing, so far i have checked and the name i want is available...

but, apart from the price being slightly different at each of the companys selling domain names whats the difference? do they all come with the free website and email package?

anyone i should avoid buying from?

please make any advice in laymans terms, i dont really understand computer speak!

thanks

You will get alot of conflicting advice I'm sure.

Most of the time when you buy a domain, that is all you get. No hosting or nothing.

.co.uk 's tend to be about £10 for 2 years - .com 's tend to be about £15


A domain name literally points at some hosting. So you need to configure the domain name's "settings page" to connect it up to the hosting package.

Now some people recommend you buy your domain from one company, and your hosting from another. BUT if your having problems what happens is they blame each other and neither will help you.

I use webhosting.uk.com for all my hosting and domains. They let me host unlimited domain names from the same hosting package. They also have 24/7 online support, which has been second to non, and have fixed all my newbie stupid mistakes when it comes to setting things up.


Right, so lets talk hosting!

If you want to host a web shop you'll want some sort of E-commerce platform installing on your hosting package. Behind the scenes these things use something called an SQL database to store all the product and page data. Webhosting.uk.com include SQL databases for free.

Also to install this E-commerce platform you can either spend days hacking about trying to DIY install it, OR you can use something called "Softaculous" which simply allows you to click "webshops" then the platform you want like "oscommerce" then click "install" and it sets it all up for you. Pretty much idiot proof.

The backend to your hosting package has a "settings" page called "cPanel", this lets you do loads of stuff like create email addresses, install software packages from "Softaculous" including a forum like this which is called "phpbb2".

I started with the minimum hosting package, which was about £2 a month, but now as I host about 25 different sites I'm using the supreme package at £5.50 a month.

People to avoid:-

Your mate "Dave" who is all keen at first but then stops having any interest, but your beholdant to him because you don't have the login details for his account.

123-Reg.co.uk as their support isn't great and their cPannel isn't good either

MrSite.com - Skanking rip off con merchants

Fasthost - their packages don't allow for multiple domain names.


When you start shopping for hosting and stuff, the problem is you don't really know what they are offering you because its all technical jargon - stuff like "sub-domains" "bandwidth" "sql databases"

I've been with webhosting.uk.com now for about 4 years, and I have never had a single billing dispute, or when I've gone to tech support online chat they have sorted me out every time really quickly - any time of the night or day. I pay by paypal for my packages, and I pay it in full at the start of the year for 12 months at a time.

errrr, ok...
so when some of them say comes with a free web page and email forwarding, what does that mean??!

"free web page" is a pretty vague statement.

Email forwarding means you can point an email address to another.

Post a link to the package your looking at.

But keep in mind you mentioned you want a site in the end that markets your jewellery and craft stuff. So your going to need an eCommerce platform of some form.

Even look at the Wordpress platform with the Shopp plugin, for example this has been built on Wordpress/Shopp http://www.stringbeans.net/

Getting a web site that people can come & buy/look at stuff is a 2 part thing.

1) domain name eg www.hijet.com
2) hosting (this is the important bit) to make the domain go online.

some companies DO offer domain & hosting all in one.. id go for one of these as you get 1 bill for both.

Hosting have packages like your Sky/phone etc so pick the one you think suits you.
You dont "need" email forwarding as most people these days already have email addresses.. just design them in to your page once the 1st 2 steps are done.

i use Streamline.net for my web sites & hosting.

designing your web site... now this is another ball game..

right, this is too complicated for me at the moment,
if i register a domain name now to use later, how easy is it to transfer to another company?
fo eg, if i go for the cheepest yearly price i can register for, then when ive done my research and when (if) buisness kicks off and i want to do a website i can then transfer over to whoever does the best package for me

ive googled how to transfer it and all sounds pretty simple except for a bit that says the domain has to be active... does this mean basicly i need to set up the website and use it so dont bother until i know what im doing?!

this all sounds like its going to take so long for me to figure out i wont have any time left to make the stuff im trying to sell!!!

The last few times I've transferred domain names has resulted in me having kittens over email/onlinechat/telephone to various providers. Worst was Mr Site, who basically refused to cooperate.

Another company to avoid is 1and1.co.uk

You have to ask yourself, would anybody really register this domain name your thinking of before your going to want it?! Most of the time, what's a great idea in some ones head, no one else would want that domain name.

yeah, you are most probably right hj, just got a bit excited at the thought of having my own domain!!

think i should concentrate on making more stuff and not get ahead of myself

Some years back I needed to set up a website quickly for a new venture. 1 and 1 were offering good deals, and their 'website builder' meant I could design it fairly quickly. I had experimented with a couple of website design packages and found them very time-consuming to get to grips with.

Since then their prices have gone up quite a lot (though they still offer good deals for 'brand new customers only') but I've had no problem with them. I keep promising myself I'll take the time to re-design the site with a stand-alone program so I can switch but not got there yet.......

So, as usual, it's a question of effort versus cost. I did have one domain name with namesco and it was a hassle transferring it to 1 and 1 but got there in the end.

I would say don't use streamline as Clare had a webshop run hrough them and the supprot was shite to say the least and we found out one day that when you got to a certain number of items in the basket the first items fell off the bottom two years and not a single sale was had she now uses moonfruit and they have a shop builder that you can use to link straight onto facebook and twitter on the facebook you get one of their shops as well it is about a fiver a month for a fifty item shop plus loads of extra space for non shop pages. www.thread-bare.biz for Clares site http://www.moonfruit.com for moon fruit if you don't mind having .mft in the address you can have a free site and I think you can use a paypal cart which is also free.

If you just install os commerce on a hosting package you have no limits and infinite customisation.

All these off the shelf solutions are there to feed on ignorance.

It has never been easier to build professional looking e-commerce sites.

I'd say its almost idiot proof, but it does help if someone just shows you the first few steps.

HighlyJetted wrote:

All these off the shelf solutions are there to feed on ignorance.

True but if you are ignorant they are great it does all depend on how much you want to do for yourself. I do think that a play on a free site and using the free site setup gives you a chance have a mess about with standard layouts and looks so that you can be ready to go the whole hog and build one from scratch.

cheers for the info, rich, I'm gonna have better look tomorrow on the laptop, no flash on the iPad so think I'm missing stuff!
looks like something my card making friend might be interested in so gonna give her the website address too

and im totally ignorant when it comes to this sort of stuff, if i had the time id teach myself a bit more but would rather be making stuff to sell, ill learn it slowly as i go along i guess!

rich the mechanic wrote:build one from scratch.

Don't be scared, these platform like wordpress/shopp and oscommerce have loads of template designs in them and you never have to touch a single bit of coding.

Even my Mum has a wordpress site or two.

I can see your moonfruit shop at the moment doesn't have it's own shopping cart, it's just a paypal add item type setup.

It also operates from a sub domain "http://www.thread-barecardsandgifts.moonfruit.com/" which will seriously downgrade your site ranking wise.

With a proper platform you could use google shop/checkout so your items appear on the shopping bit on a google search.

You could accept various payment means so you can avoid the £1900 paypal annual limit without having to go to a business account.

Cheques and bank transfers are far better to accept as a seller and come with zero commission.

We have very little go through the paypal but there is a shop and cart on there but is seperate to the rest and paypal can take card payment and they are releasing a chip and pin for mobile payments at shows but cash is the main way Clare takes for goods. http://www.thread-bare.biz/#/shop/4575106402 this is the one that does the facebook shop but is limited to 50 items they offer a 1000 item shop but it is a fair bit more money.

This linked shop you sent is of much better format Rich http://www.thread-bare.biz/#/shop/4575106402


Other great plugins for wordpress are:-

WP E-Commerce - builds shops really easy

WP E-Commerce UK Royal Mail Shipping Module - prices stuff on size and weigh with current prices.

WP-Lister :- allows you to list items on ebay with just a couple of clicks straight from your webshop, so you can just list hundreds of your ready built items on ebay in minutes.

Here you go, to show you the power of wordpress and the E-commerce plugin,

I just built this in the amount of time it took me to eat meat balls on waffles.

Keep in mind I have not chosen any pretty templates that make it look all colourful,

And I have only inserted 2 products.

And the payment gateways won't work because I haven't filled in my account details.

http://www.scooterlift.co.uk/products-page/

ok, thanks, not had time to properly look at stuff this week, got some sort of virus which has left me suffering some weird exhaustion thing! its like being drunk without the cost of actualy buying any alcamohol!!
i quite like that the banner at the top keeps changing!

Its just the standard wordpress test theme.

There are some really amazing themes on the themeforest website.