Hi there , Im not a tech person . I own a Painting and Decorating Business , have decided to just stick to local work , not city work, because Im not known in suburbs close to home as all my work for a very long time has just been handed to me by builders , Im thinking I'd like a very basic website I can send people to , so can view my work , references , qualifications etc , something I can edit , add pics etc , I dont work all the time now and all work is word of mouth , I dont need an elaborate website , is there such thing as free ? with no monthly ongoing costs ? as I dont want to pay work comes in anyway its just a tool in case someone inquires who doesnt know my work history etc.. thanks :)

daz1968 - 2021-06-07 16:44:00

I use a facebook business page. It's not perfect, but it is free and readily accessible. I think I have only had 2 or 3 people say that they don't do facebook.

kateley - 2021-06-07 17:08:00

You can get a domain from google for around $30 per year and use their free site builder.

superdave0_13 - 2021-06-07 17:21:00

superdave0_13 wrote:

You can get a domain from google for around $30 per year and use their free site builder.

hi Dave where would I look that up please ? and is it like a template and you build your site from that ? thanks this is all useful info

daz1968 - 2021-06-07 18:37:00

kateley wrote:

I use a facebook business page. It's not perfect, but it is free and readily accessible. I think I have only had 2 or 3 people say that they don't do facebook.

This is so much better than a webpage, targetted to your audience, advertise on your local buy/sell group. More people go on facebook than will ever find your dinky webpage, via google.

bitsnpieces2020 - 2021-06-07 19:01:00

bitsnpieces2020 wrote:

This is so much better than a webpage, targetted to your audience, advertise on your local buy/sell group. More people go on facebook than will ever find your dinky webpage, via google.

I get far more contacts via my website then I do through FB.

mrfxit - 2021-06-07 20:21:00

Website name (domain name) for around $20 to $30 per year
Your own website hosting for around $125 per year
What it costs to build your own website .. .. . .can be from free to $30k.
A simple static website (basic readable information & photo's) is a great start.
Full on E-commerce/ payments etc is where it gets expansive.
Basic SEO (specific keyword placement on your site for Google to find you), really doesn't need to be flash or expensive.
In fact, I have heard it a few times now that Google Search hates websites heavily loaded with SEO keywords etc.

But, a free website builder will get you noticed to start with, just remember it will have adverts/ the information can be used by your "free" host owner & some sites are a sod to shift your site away from them to another host.
Some simply won't let you move anything because they own the website & effectively just loan it to you.

mrfxit - 2021-06-07 20:30:00

A Wordpress based website, is a well respected backend (thats what the runs the site but the public can't see it) & is generally pretty easy to use most days.

mrfxit - 2021-06-07 20:32:00

daz1968 wrote:

. I own a Painting and Decorating Business , have decided to just stick to local work Im thinking I'd like a very basic website )

Then why not just put ads in the local papers? Websites aren't magic....also an ad on NoCowboys or Builderscrack..or both, otr even services on Trademe.

No free.....you need to pay for a domain name...about $25 a year.....and hosting, well you could go weebly or wiz I guess, if you don't mind weebly.com/Businessname as the site name, it's free but yuk....

lythande1 - 2021-06-08 15:08:00

daz1968 wrote:

is there such thing as free ? with no monthly ongoing costs ? as I dont want to pay.....

So you are running a business but want someone else to develop and host your website at their own expense?

May I ask which school of business did you learn that trick at?

tegretol - 2021-06-08 16:49:00

tegretol wrote:

So you are running a business but want someone else to develop and host your website at their own expense?

I worked for NZs biggest hosting company....and actually things like Wix, Weebly and the others are common.
One of the biggest ripoffs is companies who "manage your website" for you. Some do, well, most haven't many clues and use bog standard php builders that you could DIY, and we were often left to sort it when the s*** hit the fan.

lythande1 - 2021-06-09 08:43:00

bitsnpieces2020 wrote:

This is so much better than a webpage, targetted to your audience, advertise on your local buy/sell group. More people go on facebook than will ever find your dinky webpage, via google.

This just isn't true. Almost two thirds of the population don't use Facebook, so if you don't have a website you're limiting your audience massively.

videomonkey - 2021-06-09 09:28:00

Weebly is a good free site.

reelingmaze - 2021-06-09 12:01:00

Hi Daz, I do a bit of this in my free time and am happy to help you out - perhaps if I do a website for you maybe you could do some painting and decorating for me one day?

joys_teddy - 2021-06-10 15:14:00

If you are paying for it as a business website, you can directly claim it against your income and then you don't have to pay tax.

tygertung - 2021-06-10 16:02:00

One thing to remember if you get yourself a web site... you MUST maintain it, keep it up to date... if you have an enquiry link make sure it links to something that you are constantly checking or better still it push the enquiry to you..
Nothing say amateur / cowboy more than an out of date web site.
I recently accessed a website of a potential supplier that was still listing specials etc under the heading "Xmas specials - 2019" !!! I took my several hundreds of dollars else where...

onl_148 - 2021-06-10 16:32:00

onl_148 wrote:

One thing to remember if you get yourself a web site... you MUST maintain it, keep it up to date... if you have an enquiry link make sure it links to something that you are constantly checking or better still it push the enquiry to you..
Nothing say amateur / cowboy more than an out of date web site.
I recently accessed a website of a potential supplier that was still listing specials etc under the heading "Xmas specials - 2019" !!! I took my several hundreds of dollars else where...

Out of date & outdated are two very different things.
A specific web design can only really be called outdated when it's no longer doing what you need of it.

Out of date is a whole different story & fully agree with your example

mrfxit - 2021-06-10 20:30:00

lythande1 wrote:

Then why not just put ads in the local papers? Websites aren't magic....also an ad on NoCowboys or Builderscrack..or both, otr even services on Trademe.

No free.....you need to pay for a domain name...about $25 a year.....and hosting, well you could go weebly or wiz I guess, if you don't mind weebly.com/Businessname as the site name, it's free but yuk....

yes I do plan to advertise , the website is for once initial contact is made they can look me up and see my work history , qualifications etc etc references.

daz1968 - 2021-06-12 08:32:00

joys_teddy wrote:

Hi Daz, I do a bit of this in my free time and am happy to help you out - perhaps if I do a website for you maybe you could do some painting and decorating for me one day?

hi yes thats a definate possibility , how is the best way to make contact ? I see we are both in the wgtn region so thats pretty straight forward

daz1968 - 2021-06-12 08:35:00

videomonkey wrote:

This just isn't true. Almost two thirds of the population don't use Facebook, so if you don't have a website you're limiting your audience massively.

I'd say your own freebie amateur website is going to get less than a 1000 (human) views a year.
So even if you only get 1/3rd of NZ looking at facebook thats still 1000x more than a website.

bitsnpieces2020 - 2021-06-12 15:12:00

daz1968 wrote:

hi yes thats a definate possibility , how is the best way to make contact ? I see we are both in the wgtn region so thats pretty straight forward

Contact me - ask a question via one of my auctions

joys_teddy - 2021-06-14 08:59:00

somone said you can host your own website on your phone today. i want to explore that not on phone but on my own pc.

intrade - 2021-06-14 11:33:00

Google sites are free, and no cost to link your own domain name which only costs about $20 a year.

tygertung - 2021-06-14 12:36:00

https://sites.google.com/new

tygertung - 2021-06-14 20:31:00

intrade wrote:

somone said you can host your own website on your phone today. i want to explore that not on phone but on my own pc.

Always have been able to, use something like xampp ( https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html ) to set up a webserver.

maccas77 - 2021-06-16 07:18:00

maccas77 wrote:

Always have been able to, use something like xampp ( https://www.apachefriends.org/download.html ) to set up a webserver.

Then be prepared to explain to your telco why you are using massive amounts of data on a personal plan

mrfxit - 2021-06-17 08:30:00

mrfxit wrote:

Then be prepared to explain to your telco why you are using massive amounts of data on a personal plan

I've been running a webserver for years on my home broadband. I can't imagine it's going to be any more data than households streaming netflix on a daily basis, relatively speaking the amount of data used by modest websites is quite insignificant...

Edited by king1 at 9:09 am, Thu 17 Jun

king1 - 2021-06-17 09:07:00

Yes, if you build a basic website, it should only be a few megabytes.

tygertung - 2021-06-17 09:41:00