DIY Website, Domain Name, Hosting, SEO & Blog - £22.97 - LJN Blog Posts

I'm very happy!And the reason for my happiness? I'll tell you later.I thought I would share with you my experience of building our website in the hope that it will help and assist any of you who want to do this and save you loads of wonga.This is how I created our website Jan's Gardening and the tools I used. And all for £22.97When I was setting up the business I had to make sure the name we chose was available as a domain name and I needed somewhere to host it. I chose Heart Internet as they had good reviews and they were doing a introductory offer registering your domain name for £2.49 and two years hosting for £2.49. Lovely.Next I purchased a Haynes Manual "Build Your Own Website" (yes!, it's a Haynes manual). This is a step-by-step beginners guide to creating a website or blog. ISBN 978 1 84425 658 7. Cost - £17.99So that was all the money I actually spent - £22.97Website software I used was NetObjects Essentials, a free download from NetObjects which is the software used in the Haynes manual. I created our website with just enough pages and info on what we offer so we had somewhere on-line to point people to. I had always planned to revamp it once I had more time. Little did I know I'd have more free time than I wanted!Last year I attended a free Search Engine Optimisation Workshop through Business Link. This was absolutely fantastic and well worth the whole days attendance. My notes and the hand-out have been invaluable. It was only in January 2010 (cos of the snow) that I got round to revamping and "optimising" our website. It took me quite a few days to do this and I am very proud of what I have achieved.I have also registered with sitemeter a tool to better understand who is visiting our site, where they are coming from and what they are viewing within our site, plus a load of other useful info.I watched Elspeth's great video on blogging and although I have never wanted to blog, MSN, My Space, Facebook etc etc I did realise that I needed to embrace this if I wanted to build a presence for Jan's Gardening on the web. So after a bit of research I chose Blogger as it seemed to be very easy to use and again it was free.So there you have it. I'm still working on building Jan;s Gardening as a web presence and unbelivably I have found that I an enjoying blogging, which I never thought I would. Please note that Heart Internet and NetObjects offer paid versions of the software/services for those of you with larger businesses.I don't consider our website to be the best anyone is ever likely to visit but it serves its purpose and every bit of it was designed by me.Oh, and why am I so happy?Cos today if I do a Google search on "garden maintenance essex" we are at number 3 on page 1, "hedge trimming essex" search number 2 page 1 and "lawn mowing essex" search number 2 page 1 of Google!I realise that to keep us here will be an ongoing process and I have still to work out what that entails but I'll let you know in due course. And I did not pay for any advertising Ad-Words etc.RegardsPaul

Thanks Paul for outlining the way you've built your site, I'm sure it will prove helpful to people.

Bringing together a static website alongside an often updated blog is a simple way of ensuring people will find you online.

And for more on search engine optimisation take a look over Google's SEO Starter Guide.

@Katrina Took a quick look over your website and think some of your best content, 'the brief, the solution and testimonial' is hidden from both readers and search engines because it's wrapped up in a pop-up.

I did a search on 'design draws on Moroccan influences and seeks to create a well laid out space' and notice the text comes up on Facebook but not your own website.

I'd suggest you try and get each example of your work on to its own individual page, so that readers and search engines have something to get their teeth into.

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I have a Gleditsia myself, (my…"

Comments

Rachel Mathews SGD January 28, 2010 at 10:19pm

I'm very impressed Paul - it's no easy task doing a website from scratch. I've found using a blogging platform like Wordpress is a lot easier than using some web design software. Funnily enough I wrote a page on my blog about it last week if anyone is wants to know about using free wordpress for their website (doesn't have to be used as a blog) read this
Paul Rogers January 28, 2010 at 11:30pm

Thanks Rachel. I checked out Wordpress and I was impressed with what it offered but I felt I wanted something a lot simpler and as Blogger is owned by Google as well I chose them. You are right you can operate a blog as a website but I wanted to just have a very simple looking blog and one that, for me, was very straightforward to set up.
Rachel Mathews SGD January 29, 2010 at 12:17pm

I know what you mean, sometimes Wordpress isn't as intuitive as I would like but have got used to it now! I was swayed by the number of free themes you can get for it to make it look more professional than I'm capable of doing!
Katrina Kieffer- Wells January 30, 2010 at 10:36am

I am just about to start writing my blog today - the whole SEO thing is a very difficult science - our web-site www.earthdesigns.co.uk has been going for 7 years and I still think there is loads of room for improvement - Any experts out there? - all advice welcome.
PRO

Craig McGinty January 30, 2010 at 11:07am

Thanks Paul for outlining the way you've built your site, I'm sure it will prove helpful to people.

Bringing together a static website alongside an often updated blog is a simple way of ensuring people will find you online.

And for more on search engine optimisation take a look over Google's SEO Starter Guide.

@Katrina Took a quick look over your website and think some of your best content, 'the brief, the solution and testimonial' is hidden from both readers and search engines because it's wrapped up in a pop-up.

I did a search on 'design draws on Moroccan influences and seeks to create a well laid out space' and notice the text comes up on Facebook but not your own website.

I'd suggest you try and get each example of your work on to its own individual page, so that readers and search engines have something to get their teeth into.
Felicity Waters January 30, 2010 at 11:26am

paul -well done - whats the url to your website?
Steve Snedeker January 30, 2010 at 1:37pm

Very nice, Paul. Did you do a blog as well? I think that's what Felicity was wondering. Me too.
PRO

Craig McGinty January 30, 2010 at 3:59pm

Here is Paul's blog: http://www.jansgardening.co.uk/html/married%20gardeners.html
Steve Snedeker January 30, 2010 at 4:18pm

LOL, it gave me a great idea. I'm going for "Twice-Divorced Gardeners"! Hmmmmmm. Maybe not.
Roy Bretton February 11, 2010 at 12:37pm

I am very impressed with your website Paul, especially the cost, I think you have done really well, especially setting a website up from scratch. Did it take you very long? It is good to see that you are getting on the first page of Google.