See Also Freewebs.com

[christinaandrews]

Hello everyone, it's been a while I've put anything to paper.

Whilst not wanting to step on anyones toes, I've just read about "Web Star Creations" offer with interest, but I should just say that whilst my husband was looking to build a trial website for his business, he came across a website building tool provided by www.freewebs.com, that has proven to be really useful and it is totally FREE!.

Whilst I'm sure it's nowhere as good as Web Stars, it really has proven to be adequate for his current needs.

Whilst I cannot recommend it, I think anyone looking to get the feel of websites should have a look at this one.

Derek's site is called www.freewebs.com/tradesecret.

We would be interested in getting some feedback on how the site looks anyway!

Christina

[Will]

Hi Christina,

I suppose I should add my 2p worth ;)

The freewebs service certainly looks good value for money ;) and I think you really hit the nail on the head with it really has proven to be adequate for his current needsWhen considering a website for your business, meeting requirements must be the driving force, but I can't help to wonder just what Derek is actually getting from the website and whether or not he could be getting more.

When it comes to business websites, I would always recommend peoples steer clear from 'free' offerings for a number of reasons. Here are a few:

There's no such thing as a free lunch. You are paying in some way, shape or form. In this case, there's irrelevant advertising on each webpage. At best, a visitor will see them and just wonder why they're there. At worst, they'll click on an advert and leave your website.
The amount of free resources is very limited. Once your website becomes popular (you do want it to become popular, dont you? ;)), you're forced to dig into your pockets.
You may miss out on functionality that can deliver real benefits e.g. email accounts (which looks more professional yourbusiness@hotmaiil.com or you@yourbusiness.co.uk?), website statistics (analyze where traffic is coming from, how they're finding you, what's popular on your website), ready-made scripts (start a blog or discussion forum), mailing lists, etc.
In the event of any issues, you have to consider just what level of support a free website provider is going to give. If your website is business critical then you will want the reassurance of a reliable hardware platform, pro-active monitoring and efficient support. Is there a service level agreement?
Prospects may wonder why a business is using a free website service and seemingly unwilling to invest in their own business.
The freewebs hardware is based in the US. Any UK business should appreciate that this can have a detrimental effect on their rankings in relevant searches carried out by people in the UK.
Unless you use your own domain name with this type of service, you not only lose part of your own identity, but any search engine promotion you do will benefit freewebs more than your own website.


Any business that is going to put any reliance on their website as a part of their overall marketing strategy needs to consider the costs involved, but not just the immediate financial costs. And when the cost of a website (own domain, hosted on a commercial server) can be relatively low and still generate thousands of pounds worth of business, isn't it worth doing what you can to ensure you receive the best possible service and performance?

May I ask what Derek's aiming to achieve with the website and how this is being measured up against?

Nice to see you back in the forum and don't worry about stepping on any toes. Any constructive feedback is always welcome :)

[christinaandrews]

Christina pointed this out to me Will. I should just say you are totally right in all respects, but the website was only chosen,because I wasn't sure if I needed a website at all and wanted to see what it might look like when and if I needed one.

You may recall when Christina first joined with her own venture, there was much discussion about whether she needed a site herself.

Anyway, because I'm still not sure I actually NEED a site, I'm just going to stick with this one for now as it gives potential clients a bit of information about what I'm up to.

If things work out well enough I'll get someone (a web designer) to transfer and tidy it up with some bells and whistles.

Thanks for your valuable input once again.


Derek

[Will]

Hi Derek,

If you're only going to use your website as a point of reference with which to refer prospects to then you could skip a step and email that information directly to them. Not only does this minimise the steps between them and your business, but it's also more convenient to have all the information they might need on their own computers.

A website can do much more for your business, especially when it comes to attracting new prospects without you having to refer them to it. A website can also be a great tool for market analysis, building a brand, building a mailing list, testing new offers, the list goes on.

As an example, one of my local clients had a website built by a friend of his who knew enough to get something online, but then decided to seek our help when it didn't turn out as hoped and also didn't do anything to attract new business. Within a few months, his website was not only revamped, but because of a campaign of search engine marketing, also started climbing up the ladder of search engine results. Nowadays, his website dominates his niche in the region such that any searches for the service in the area return it first page or first position!

What that means in real terms is new business enquiries almost everyday for the cost of keeping the website online and all of that new business is coming directly from total strangers carrying out a search on one of the major search engines.

The main reason why I'm saying all this is to suggest that before you come to a conclusion about whether or not a website is worthwhile for your business, you first find out exactly what you could possibly achieve with it. Without considering all of the possibilities, the success of any test you run will be limited.

If you only use your website to refer potential clients to then at the end of your test you might conclude that it was successful at presenting information, but didn't justify further investment and that could mean a lost opportunity.

Alternatively, you could set some quantifiable goals such as:

you want your website to rank highly for relevant searches on the major search engines (Google, MSN and Yahoo) within 6 months,
you want it to generate X number of enquiries a week or £X of new business a month.


Then, a search engine promotion campaign would be carried out and the results analysed after the 6 months is up.

This level of testing would then give you concrete evidence about what was possible with a website at a particular level of investment (given enough time and money almost any website could rank highly for relevant searches).

How much new business do you think you could generate if your website turned up in the first page of search results for the term "how to generate new business leads"? ;)