Updating the business website.

[w1llyg]

Hey guys,

I've been working for my Dad for the last 3 years and updating the business website has been on my list of things to do for too long.

It was originally made in the early 2000s in which the government paid my Dad a grant to create one. It hasnt been touched since then so 13 years later here i am.

Anyway, I've visited the company that created the website in which a year they wanted £8,000 to remake it. I think this is far too expensive for a little family business.

Anyway I want to update it but my coding skills are very basic. Is it possible to use wordpress to update it?

Here's the website;
www.jewellery-repairs.com

 

[fez]

What kind of updating do you want to do? If its anything akin to the current site then you shouldn't be paying over £1000 for it really. You could get a wordpress template and modify that slightly yourself and that would be that. It looks like a small family business so your website just needs to be functional and neat. It doesn't need any bells and whistles.

You can get wordpress plugins to handle forms and their submission and the rest of it is super simple.

 

[w1llyg]

Thanks for your input fez, really appreciate it.

Well yeah, the whole thing just needs redesigning, it's showing it's age massively. I want to show that we make bespoke jewellery but thats just adding a web page. The only different thing is, I want to add an EBay shop onto the website. I thought about actually selling jewellery on the website. I feel that is far too out of my depth so using ebay as my selling tool would be easier.

How do I go about using WordPress? When I use their website it tells me to use one of their domains, which is stupid when i already have one.

 

[fez]

If you have absolutely no experience of web dev you are going to struggle with this but its quite simple. What is your experience? Do you just go into the backend and change a few things around occasionally.

How much work are you willing to put in to make it work?

 

[Paul11]

wordpress is perfect for redoing that site..

you can get a nice template and pay someone a very little money to help you configure it

welcome to message me if you want some help setting up wordpress

 

[w1llyg]

I made a very simple website as part of my Science dissertation at University. I coded it all from scratch using youtube videos and internet guides. I've never logged on and altered anything. I've only just received the email giving me the password for the website today. So the website hasnt been touched/altered in the past 10+ years.

I'm willing to put in effort. I'll class it as my project. (+if it's going to save the business £8,000, maybe I'll get a £800 bonus ^^ )

 

[fez]

Haha, you should be fine then. As long as you are willing to put a little effort in and learn a bit you should be fine. Honestly the trickiest thing is setting up the local development environment to build it all.

General steps would be:

Download MAMP/WAMP (mac/windows version of a webserver and mysql database)
Download wordpress from wordpress.org
Find theme you like, add to wordpress and modify theme
Upload site to your ftp server of old site
Profit

There are loads of guides about how to do this that will do a much better and more comprehensive job than any of us on here will manage.

http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-install-wordpress-on-your-windows-computer-using-wamp/

That should give you an idea how easy it is to do all that.

Once you are ready to upload to the live site, either come back here for advice or just google how you upload a website to a server.

Who manages all your domain and hosting related stuff?

 

[w1llyg]

Cheers Paul expect a couple of messages coming your way.

Fez, I owe you a pint haha.

All I know is that Go Daddy own the domain, and TAMBA host the website i believe. (We pay £60 a year for hosting i think)

 

[Paul11]

it can be even easier than that..

a lot of hosting that has cpanel now has a wordpress install option that does it all for you

 

[unwashed potato!]

you can save yourself a bit of money on the hosting too by the looks of it.

https://www.vidahost.com/cloud-web-hosting

starter package no doubt will be more than good enough for you. vidahost are a well respected hosting company around here and the owners used to be members here.

edit: they may actually still be members i don't just see them as often as they used to be when first starting up.

 

[Paul11]

highly recommend Vidahost

and there hosting has an automatic wordpress intall setup at the click of a button

 

[unwashed potato!]

^^^ Perhaps it's an unfair comment, but i don't trust websites so much that a) have a web address like the above, and 2) have very poor spelling/grammar/sentences on their website.

"WebHost.UK.Net lunched our new division in February"

"Having no intentions of selling the company anytime in near future, we are one of the fastest growing UK company"

"We specialize in"

I suspect Webhostuk is actually a fairly small business (and is the above posters business which he is trying to sneakily promote) which is trying to sound bigger than it is. Fair play to them I do the same, but I think they need to do a bit more work to improve the professional image they are going for.

 

[w1llyg]

*UPDATE*

I've read all your comments, really appreciate it.

I've managed to get wordpress to work through WAMP. I'm now considering buying a template wordpress that has a shopping cart all included in the design. I can pick up a nice one for $58.

I've found a domain that I like off Go Daddy which includes hosting for a bargain of £7.

Now I need to find out how to get a logo designed.

 

[Neodite]

For your logo depending on your budget fiverr.com could be a half decent place for a cheap logo.

You could go freelance but my partner does that and it's a bit more exspensive (For example she charges between 30-60 for a logo)

And as for godaddy for hosting, not sure if they are still bad but used to hear a lot of horry storys about them. I use vidahost and they are fantastic with amazing customer support.