Very Simple, But Professional, One Or Two Page Website Needed

[torrenova]

I'm in the process of selling a business which has no internet presence but once the sale is completed, I will need a one or two page website directing people to email a certain address (or more than one) should they want to contact the business. That email will to something like [email protected]. That email should then flow through to Gmail and Gmail should be able to answer that email from the [email protected] email address.

So, from my layman's point of view, I need to purchase a domain, have it hosted somewhere and have the email operational. I will want to put some graphics on the front page and would prefer to be able to play around with it myself, whilst keeping a father and grandfather as backups, to reload, should I make a complete hash of my "playing" !

It is only a courtesy thing so I don't want to spend any more than I have to on it.

Any ideas ?

[AyG]

If you send an email from a regular, free Gmail account, it will be sent from Gmail. It's simply not possible for it to come from your own domain. However, there is a paid-for version of Gmail which lets you send and receive messages using Gmail, but on your own domain. See http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/business/gmail.html

You might want to reconsider your approach. Rather than expecting someone to copy the email address, start their email application, create a new email and send it, why not simply add a form to the webpage so they can type any message directly?

Normally you don't directly edit a website. You work on a local copy on your computer, and only when you're happy with it do you upload it - usually by FTP.

[elcent]

you can use your regular gmail account and send letters as if it's from your domain. Of course after it's verified. Takes about a minute to set up.

When you register your domain with Godaddy.com you can use their page builder for a quick website, with form creator, which is a kind of courtesy hosting for basic sites. It's all included in domain purchase, no additional hosting needed. Later on you can always upgrade.

Edited December 30, 2009 by elcent

[torrenova]

Is there anything I can use without a recurring charge ?

Also, I don't want a 5 or 10 page plan.

I need to be able to set the page number.

Do I need a program to build it as I'm not sure these templates can be adapted to suit.

[djk]

For a domain I recommend namecheap.com

Use coupon code: WINTERWIND

For Hosting I recommend hostgator, it's cheap and reliable. Going here you can get your 1st month for 1 cent

For the site I recommend using wordpress, it's free, very customizable and can be installed with 1 click using fantastico inside the hosting cpanel. Adding pages, posts and graphics is very simple with wordpress.

Following this you could have your site set up within 30 minutes.

[Crushdepth]

Suggest you register your domain name via Google Apps (the free standard edition). Cost (for the domain) is $10 per year. You get:

* Your domain with free private registration of your personal info.

* Gmail with 50 accounts using your own domain.

* Google docs and calendar also set up under your own domain name (eg. docs.yourdomain.com etc.).

* Apparently its also bundled with Google sites, so you might be able to put a couple of pages there under your own domain (I haven't messed with that).

All configured automatically. Pretty good deal.

Edited January 6, 2010 by Crushdepth

[MikeWill]

As Crushdepth suggested, Google Apps is indeed the way to go.

[torrenova]

OK, so Google Apps handles the email from a Gmail account.

How do I get what is basically an A4 page of ideas I've written to the home (and only) web page ? A selection of templates could be used. I would prefer that option because I am terrible at graphics.

I see I can register the domain for $10 per annum through Google Apps but that doesn't give me anything akin to a web page. Have I missed something out ?

[MrHammer]

Hey

Don't do this stuff yourself.

Buy a domain from Namecheap (as already mentioned). Hostgator has hosting for $6 a month and they are reliable but you can find much cheaper if that's what you want.

Then go to Elance (http://www.elance.com), sign up and then post a job under webdesign. Write what you need and your approximate budget. You'll get plenty of offers. These things are cheap when outsourced to India or the Philippines. Just take your time to choose the right provider.

Also, set up a pop3 server with your domain. You get unlimited emails when you buy a domain and use hostgator. Looks much more professional than a gmail.

Edited January 7, 2010 by MrHammer

[torrenova]

Hey

Don't do this stuff yourself.

Buy a domain from Namecheap (as already mentioned). Hostgator has hosting for $6 a month and they are reliable but you can find much cheaper if that's what you want.

Then go to Elance (http://www.elance.com), sign up and then post a job under webdesign. Write what you need and your approximate budget. You'll get plenty of offers. These things are cheap when outsourced to India or the Philippines. Just take your time to choose the right provider.

Also, set up a pop3 server with your domain. You get unlimited emails when you buy a domain and use hostgator. Looks much more professional than a gmail.

But it won't be Gmail will it ? it will be [email protected] That Gmail or whatever is managing the email is immaterial. You could do it with hotmail. Doing it with @gmail or @ hotmail is what I wanted to avoid and we've done that I think.

I'm not outsourcing it as there is nothing to do really. I understand what you are implying though and will keep the details for future reference.

Can no-one just point me in the direction of a simple one off (perhaps annual) payment (not recurring) to set up a 1 page website ? I want nothing more complicated than that, no special this or that, nothing at all.

I want to buy the domain, set a template I can add to or manipulate as the home and only webpage and use gmail to handle [email protected] email enquiries. I don't want to spend $$$$$$ on this, as little as possible.

If someone knows how to do this from start to finish, can they please shout up. Thanks.

[Crushdepth]

I just had a look at the Google Sites facility. It comes with quite a lot of templates, you just pick which one you want, what colours and the site is created with dummy text and graphics etc. Then you just click to edit the text. Looks quite good for a free/instant page. Downside - the page URL will be like: https://sites.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/yoursite/

You can probably set a reference in your domain control panel so that www.yourdomain.com will redirect to this page, but when they get there the URL will be as above. But if you don't want to learn HTML or buy webhosting separately (starting from another $10 or so per year) it's a pretty good option.

[torrenova]

I just had a look at the Google Sites facility. It comes with quite a lot of templates, you just pick which one you want, what colours and the site is created with dummy text and graphics etc. Then you just click to edit the text. Looks quite good for a free/instant page. Downside - the page URL will be like: https://sites.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/yoursite/

You can probably set a reference in your domain control panel so that www.yourdomain.com will redirect to this page, but when they get there the URL will be as above. But if you don't want to learn HTML or buy webhosting separately (starting from another $10 or so per year) it's a pretty good option.

I have an old setup like that and it isn't professional enough for this job, though thanks. URL has to be www.mycompanyname.com

The add text and drop in photos etc. is what I want though, just linked to the right web address.

[Crushdepth]

You could try Square Space, a hosted website construction business. 2 week free trial and $12 a month with your own domain name. Otherwise you are heading towards renting space from a web hosting company and building it yourself (if you are looking for a rapid out, don't do that).

[torrenova]

Maybe I made a mistake because I thought this would be at near zero cost. Buy the domain for say $10 and host one page for $10/20 a year or something. I don't really want to have to spend hundreds of dollars for a year but even worse, I don't want to waste money on things I don't need or cannot use together.

I know I'm pushing you guys for help but seriously, in 2010, isn't there just a one stop solution for minimal cost ?

[Crushdepth]

$10 *is* minimal cost. You are getting an *amazing* amount of stuff for that. If you don't want to pay more I suggest living with the Google sites URL, or setting up the free trial in Square Space and asking the new owner to pick up the bill when the freebie runs out. Otherwise you will need to find some free service crawling with horrendous flashing ads that you can't turn off.

Presumably you make money out this business - Internet people need to eat too. Jeez!!!

Edited January 8, 2010 by Crushdepth

[filingaccount]

OP is asking for the best of the best, for free or minimal cost.

This is quite likely not going to happen.

You can setup your online presence for free, just as many have suggested, however the results will reflect the cost. If it was free, it will look... well... free. You have myspace, several wordpress sites, even social networking sites all for "free". Most solutions will allow you at most a subdomain (eg. yoursite.theirsite.com). You can setup a domain redirect. Eg. People type yourdomain.com and it automatically redirects to myspace.com/yoursite.

You can spend a moderate amount and use semi-professional, newbie solutions like squarespace or equivalent, for a fairly easy and quite intuitive step-by-step process. However, they charge you quite high monthly for the hosting part as this is where they make their money. They allow your own domain as well as "free" subdomains.

You can also setup your own server, OS, software, apps and control panel, but this requires you to know what you are doing and only then can you start pushing down the cash amount (although you will spend a lot of time doing it). The server can even be connected to your own home connection if you expect extremely light traffic.

The last solution is to ask a decent company to help you with your setup. Again, price here normally will reflect skill level, but not always. Web design is a lot like artistry nowadays, and tastes differ. Sample work is a good indication which style a design company has chosen. Very rarely will they be able to deviate much from their set styles. Anyone claiming to be good/great in any/all styles is most likely blowing smoke up your tubes.

Google apps for your domain is easy to setup as soon as you have your own URL. This is not tied to any hosting company or website. You can register your own domain, set the MX records to google and setup your emails @yourdomain.com without having a website setup.

If you want any more suggestions or advice, feel free to PM me.

[torrenova]

..........Internet people need to eat too. Jeez!!!

And I should have to pay for it ?

Just in the past I've bought stuff and it never worked or I couldn't get it to work. Wasted cash and still never got the job done.

I know they have to eat. I just object to making them fat

[torrenova]

OK, what do you think about this as a solution to my problem.

I use godaddy and buy the .com domain for $10.69 per year and then an economy site builder at either $4.99 a month for 3 months or $4.49 a month for 12 months.

http://www.godaddy.com/hosting/website-builder.aspx?

Looks like a total cost of $64.57 for the year.

It says I would have 1 email account and 50 email forwards. What does that mean in reality ?

Can I then link this up with Gmail either through Godaddy or through Google Apps ?

thanks

[Crushdepth]

Forwards are like redirects to other email accounts.

If you register the domain through Google Apps you can choose GoDaddy as your domain registrar if you want to (there is a choice of either GoDaddy or eNom under a link called 'more information' when you are buying the domain). So yeah you can link them up. But you should check if you can buy the site builder package seperately, quite often the domain price is subsidised by the hosting price in combined packages (so they might want to charge you more for hosting if you order the domain separately, I don't know).

You would need to add DNS entries in your domain control panel to point it at the GoDaddy hosting location though (no big deal).

I know they have to eat. I just object to making them fat

Skinflint!!

[torrenova]

Forwards are like redirects to other email accounts.

If you register the domain through Google Apps you can choose GoDaddy as your domain registrar if you want to (there is a choice of either GoDaddy or eNom under a link called 'more information' when you are buying the domain). So yeah you can link them up. But you should check if you can buy the site builder package seperately, quite often the domain price is subsidised by the hosting price in combined packages (so they might want to charge you more for hosting if you order the domain separately, I don't know).

You would need to add DNS entries in your domain control panel to point it at the GoDaddy hosting location though (no big deal).

I know they have to eat. I just object to making them fat

Skinflint!!

OK, I want to get on with this but can I run this past you.

I go to GoDaddy and register the name with them and take their site builder package. I can find some discount codes from the web to reduce prices I think. I then prattle around, building whatever I can cobble together from their templates and my add ons etc. So far so good. I think I can manage it thus far.

So I put a contact email on one of the pages. [email protected]

Joe Public comes along and sends an email to this address. It will go nowhere I suspect or get bounced back. I will set up an email account at [email protected] which I want to receive emails and also to be able to send them back to Joe Public and have Joe Public see them as [email protected]. How exactly do I do that.

I'm sorry but I have no idea what you are talking about here

You would need to add DNS entries in your domain control panel to point it at the GoDaddy hosting location though (no big deal).

[Crushdepth]

Ok if you register your domain at GoDaddy, you said they will give you one email account. You can use this to send and receive email under your own domain name no problem. You can also set up a rule in that account to automatically forward messages to your Gmail. You can also set the 'reply-to' address in your Gmail to match your domain name so your replies will look like they came from your own domain.

The downside to doing it this way is that some spam filters don't like it when they see email sent from a different address. Less importantly, anyone that cares to look at the message header will see that the reply came from your Gmail account and not your real domain.

The DNS thing - when you get a domain you need to tell it where your website is located. Basically its just a kind of control panel you can log into, and you need to enter the IP address of your webserver and mailserver in a box (GoDaddy may or may not set this up for you automatically if you buy everything there at once, not sure).

Still think you're doing it the hard way. Google Apps, way of the future!!!

[torrenova]

OK, I've got to sort this email out. What you are saying it will look like is unacceptable. I have Office 2007 Enterprise Edition so I suspect there is something like Outlook in that. Can I use that to manage email from this domain so that it really will come from [email protected] ?

You say I am doing this the hard way. How ? I need a template which I see under godaddy but which I don't see (are they there ?) under Google Apps ?

How do I get a page from my head to the internet that you can see using Google Apps ?

[Crushdepth]

Yes you can connect to you GoDaddy email directly with Outlook and it will come from your domain. But what I suggest is buy your domain through Google Apps (selecting GoDaddy as your registrar) and buy the site builder package separately through GoDaddy if that's what you prefer. That should get you everything you have asked for.

I have no idea how the Site Builder works, but I presume it just gives you a page you can edit online, paste bits of text into it and select images from their collection. They have some online demos on their website.

[torrenova]

OK, why ? why buy the domain from Google Apps and then site builder elsewhere ?

Separation issues ? I'd guess the hosting / site builder thing locks me into GD until such time as I build a stand alone site ?

No problem to it with GA and maybe better - just don't know why

Credit card is out and at the ready !

[Crushdepth]

1. Slightly cheaper, free private registration, vastly superior email service with good spam filtering and 50 accounts instead of 1, free access to Google docs, calendar. And this is just a personal thing but I cannot stand GoDaddy's hard sell attitude - their control panel is so festooned with advertising crap it gives me a headache.

2. Shouldn't be any separation issues, so long as GoDaddy lets you use use domains registered elsewhere (they should and they used to, but I haven't looked at them lately).

3. Any kind of automated site build will lock you in because they are all proprietary. But if you only have a couple of pages you should be able to cut and paste into something else later.

[djk]

For a domain I recommend namecheap.com

Use coupon code: WINTERWIND

For Hosting I recommend hostgator, it's cheap and reliable. Going here you can get your 1st month for 1 cent

For the site I recommend using wordpress, it's free, very customizable and can be installed with 1 click using fantastico inside the hosting cpanel. Adding pages, posts and graphics is very simple with wordpress.

Following this you could have your site set up within 30 minutes.

Hey

Don't do this stuff yourself.

Buy a domain from Namecheap (as already mentioned). Hostgator has hosting for $6 a month and they are reliable but you can find much cheaper if that's what you want.

Then go to Elance (http://www.elance.com), sign up and then post a job under webdesign. Write what you need and your approximate budget. You'll get plenty of offers. These things are cheap when outsourced to India or the Philippines. Just take your time to choose the right provider.

Also, set up a pop3 server with your domain. You get unlimited emails when you buy a domain and use hostgator. Looks much more professional than a gmail.

But it won't be Gmail will it ? it will be [email protected] That Gmail or whatever is managing the email is immaterial. You could do it with hotmail. Doing it with @gmail or @ hotmail is what I wanted to avoid and we've done that I think.

I'm not outsourcing it as there is nothing to do really. I understand what you are implying though and will keep the details for future reference.

Can no-one just point me in the direction of a simple one off (perhaps annual) payment (not recurring) to set up a 1 page website ? I want nothing more complicated than that, no special this or that, nothing at all.

I want to buy the domain, set a template I can add to or manipulate as the home and only webpage and use gmail to handle [email protected] email enquiries. I don't want to spend $$$ on this, as little as possible.

If someone knows how to do this from start to finish, can they please shout up. Thanks.

Yes it can be gmail but with your domain, Google apps is free and can be added to any domain regardless of where you buy it. I've added it to 6 of my sites for gmail purposes and none of the domains were purchased through google.

Edited January 12, 2010 by djk

[torrenova]

1. Slightly cheaper, free private registration, vastly superior email service with good spam filtering and 50 accounts instead of 1, free access to Google docs, calendar. And this is just a personal thing but I cannot stand GoDaddy's hard sell attitude - their control panel is so festooned with advertising crap it gives me a headache.

2. Shouldn't be any separation issues, so long as GoDaddy lets you use use domains registered elsewhere (they should and they used to, but I haven't looked at them lately).

3. Any kind of automated site build will lock you in because they are all proprietary. But if you only have a couple of pages you should be able to cut and paste into something else later.

You confirm what I thought I had worked out. The more you look at GD, the more it infuriates you and tries to baffle you with a thousand different prices and then they have a thousand different offers. The KISS principle in reverse.

Looks like we're off and running ! (as long as I can see how it would link the site builder to the domain).