Business website setup on the cheap?

[SkeeterUK]

Sister is starting her business up and needs a website she tells me. Whats the cheapest way to go about it that is easy for her to setup and use?

Somit thats

1 cheap to setup and continue to use
2 some sort of integrated shopping cart and stuff so ppl can buy stuff on the site and use paypal linking somehow
3 doesnt pretend to be cheap then u really need "addons" or whatever that bumps the cost up or pay so much per year etc.

 

[Black Dynamite]

Easiest would be to pay somebody to do it, but that will be expensive.

Cheapest would be to install Open Cart and add a theme to it. Buy a ready made theme and apply it to your site along with any plugins you'd like etc.

 

[adam83]

+1 for opencart. Has good Paypal integration too. There are a few free themes, but maybe worth spending a little to get something slightly nicer.

And TSO Host for your domain/server. Can't recommend them guys enough.

 

[Black Dynamite]

+1 for opencart. Has good Paypal integration too. There are a few free themes, but maybe worth spending a little to get something slightly nicer.

And TSO Host for your domain/server. Can't recommend them guys enough.

Should have added either TSO Host or Vidahost for your domain, great support!

 

[adam83]

I've good experience with TSO (spanning around 6 years now, if not longer). The guy's have been great, but I must admit, the price off the reseller packages look great value.

I couldn't say how many accounts I juggle, but it's a lot, may have to take a look at Vida.

Don't fancy moving all the DB's over though!

 

[SkeeterUK]

So TSO as a host (which package?) for the biz site and somehow get opencart on there? So how would one get a website on TSO and then integrate opencart into said website? Must admit im not 100% sure on webhosting and site building as best ive ever done was joomla stuff with a few sites and even then i didnt set it up i just admin it once it was up.

 

[Black Dynamite]

So TSO as a host (which package?) for the biz site and somehow get opencart on there? So how would one get a website on TSO and then integrate opencart into said website? Must admit im not 100% sure on webhosting and site building as best ive ever done was joomla stuff with a few sites and even then i didnt set it up i just admin it once it was up.

Not sure about TSO but on vidahost there is a tool that installs it for you. You setup a hosting account, login to your control panel then at the bottom it gives you the option to install Wordpress, Drupal, Opencart (and anything else you need to get started).

You'll have it installed and ready to go within 5 minutes if you go down that road. Then all you need to do is think about a theme.

I've just had a look at TSO hosting packages and they do one click installations so you shouldn't have a problem installing Opencart on TSO either.

 

[visibleman]

If you get cPanel hosting (majority of what TSO offer is cPanel based) then you'll either have Fantastico or Softaculous (or similar) installed (will be an icon for it within cPanel) which gives you access to a fair few web packages that can be installed within a few clicks.

If you wanted to install it manually then it's just a case of downloading OpenCart (from their site), uploading the contents of the ZIP to your 'public_html' directory, create a MySQL DB (cPanel includes a wizard) and then run the installation script. It's all in the documentation anyway (http://docs.opencart.com/display/opencart/Installation).

Alternatively you could do something with WordPress and one of the shopping cart plugins.

Oh and as others have said - TSOHost or Vidahost for hosting (worth having a quick scout around for voucher codes; use to 50% off ones for TSO); cheaper to go elsewhere for domains though like 123-reg/1&1 (awful control panel and support but they're pretty good on prices)/Namecheap (for US TLDs).