twix38 Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 (edited) Planning to get a website up and running for business in Pattaya. Want a good quality one, but no website experience, knowledge or contacts. So, any help with the following would be much appreciated.... tech specifications requirements useful ideas/things to check Website Company recommendations (Pattaya) do's/do nots anything to avoid Other Many thanks in advance to anyone able to offer advice/help/ideas Edited June 14, 2011 by twix38 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokay Posted June 14, 2011 Share Posted June 14, 2011 Don't waste your time or money hiring a local company to host it. Host in the USA or EU. While they are not my favorite, you can host at godaddy.com for cheap. You can get a domain name here (www.YourSite.com): NameCheap.com DirectNic.com Wordpress.org is a free system that will allow you to manage your site. The host will install it for you. ThemeForest.net is full of wordpress themes. Get one for $35, change the logo / colors / info. >> http://themeforest.net/category/wordpress Google companies to create your logo if you don't have one. You can get them made cheap. $50 - $100 You don't need to spend a lot of money to make the site. Many of these companies will charge you silly rates to do what I just listed here. Without knowing what kind of site it is, I can't suggest the size of the server, but you can even start on a shared server if you don't use much bandwidth. AVOID: Thai hosting companies Allowing anyone else to control / own your domain name. Paying companies large amounts for SEO or building the site Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awohalitsiktoli Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 (edited) Don't waste your time or money hiring a local company to host it. Host in the USA or EU. While they are not my favorite, you can host at godaddy.com for cheap. You can get a domain name here (www.YourSite.com): NameCheap.com DirectNic.com Wordpress.org is a free system that will allow you to manage your site. The host will install it for you. ThemeForest.net is full of wordpress themes. Get one for $35, change the logo / colors / info. >> http://themeforest.n...egory/wordpress Google companies to create your logo if you don't have one. You can get them made cheap. $50 - $100 You don't need to spend a lot of money to make the site. Many of these companies will charge you silly rates to do what I just listed here. Without knowing what kind of site it is, I can't suggest the size of the server, but you can even start on a shared server if you don't use much bandwidth. AVOID: Thai hosting companies Allowing anyone else to control / own your domain name. Paying companies large amounts for SEO or building the site Why avoid Thai hosting companies like, say, Chaiyohosting? Also, the OP is asking a lot of questions that make me think he is not a computer expert, so what if something goes wrong? I am not sure he can "manage the site" or "make corrections" or "avoid problems." Just curious....... Edited June 15, 2011 by Phil Conners botched quote fixed Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twix38 Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 (edited) Thanks Tokay, Very informative, but it's true I don't know enough to feel comfortable doing it myself when it needs to be a professional job - it's for a Thai. Not my business and no involvement in it. It's for an estate agent - another one ;-) Though my input and involvement in the business is nil, but I am trying to help with some info. Yes, posted on IT thread for the IT experts generally and here for more Pattaya based info, such as company recommendations etc from the locals. So, as owner will employ someone here in Pattaya to do website - any recommendations? Any MUST/MUST NOT do's? TIA Edited June 15, 2011 by twix38 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamluan Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Don't waste your time or money hiring a local company to host it. Host in the USA or EU. While they are not my favorite, you can host at godaddy.com for cheap. You can get a domain name here (www.YourSite.com): NameCheap.com DirectNic.com Wordpress.org is a free system that will allow you to manage your site. The host will install it for you. ThemeForest.net is full of wordpress themes. Get one for $35, change the logo / colors / info. >> http://themeforest.n...egory/wordpress Google companies to create your logo if you don't have one. You can get them made cheap. $50 - $100 You don't need to spend a lot of money to make the site. Many of these companies will charge you silly rates to do what I just listed here. Without knowing what kind of site it is, I can't suggest the size of the server, but you can even start on a shared server if you don't use much bandwidth. AVOID: Thai hosting companies Allowing anyone else to control / own your domain name. Paying companies large amounts for SEO or building the site He's asking info.....and reading his topic you can notice that he do not know anything about having a website online......so... maybey you should first explane what hosting is....???and why he need this,,,,,??? maybey then he understand better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LennyW Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Thanks Tokay, Very informative, but it's true I don't know enough to feel comfortable doing it myself when it needs to be a professional job - it's for a Thai. Not my business and no involvement in it. It's for an estate agent - another one ;-) Though my input and involvement in the business is nil, but I am trying to help with some info. Yes, posted on IT thread for the IT experts generally and here for more Pattaya based info, such as company recommendations etc from the locals. So, as owner will employ someone here in Pattaya to do website - any recommendations? Any MUST/MUST NOT do's? TIA Try www.pattayawebs.com they do some of the real estate agents in Pattaya websites already, prices etc are listed on their website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CHdiver Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 You may contact Entergraph, they work locally and are reliable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokay Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 He's asking info.....and reading his topic you can notice that he do not know anything about having a website online......so... maybey you should first explane what hosting is....???and why he need this,,,,,??? maybey then he understand better. Someone who needs a website will need the following: - A "domain name" - This is your website address on the internet. www.YourSite.com Using Thai Visa as an example, their domain name is ThaiVisa.com. You can buy a domain name from many places, and you pay for the yearly. It's best to pay for a few years in advance so you don't slip and lose the domain name when it comes time to renew. godaddy.com, namecheap.com, directnic.com are all places you can buy them for a few dollars a year. - Website - A series of files / photos / videos connected to each other using a specific code language that will allow others to view it on the internet. Someone who poorly builds a website can make it slow to view, and it may not work on all internet browsers (FireFox, Internet Explorer, Chrome...). - Wordpress - Thank Jesus that a company called Wordpress.org was created where they give you a basic framework to use as your website. It is free to download, easy to install, and you create entries much like you would send an email within gmail or yahoo. It may look overwhelming on Day 1 but it is quite simple if you watch some youtube videos on how it all works. You can create, edit, re-edit, any listing you have there. Most news media sites, entertainment sites and real estate sites are now using Wordpress as a framework. Google also loves Wordpress which can often give you better search engine placement. - Wordpress Theme - This is the dressing on Wordpress. A theme is what makes it look the way it looks. You can use free themes that you can find at Wordpress.org, or you can pay for a premium theme from other companies. themeforest.net and woothemes.com are my favorite. You buy a theme and literally upload it to the site and activate it. Many design companies will use wordpress and a theme, which cost them a few dollars for the theme IF they bought a theme, and charge you 50x - 1000x what they paid for it. - Hosting Company - In order to make all of this work, you need someone to put your website on the internet. Be it Wordpress or a code language, you create your site and upload to this company. Think of them as keep a computer (server) for you at their place with a direct line to the internet. They will maintain the computer for you. On that computer is where your website sits. You can put many websites on this machine. The size of the machine would depend on what type of site you have. If it's just a real estate site, you can probably get away with the smallest hosting package possible. If you are creating the next YouTube.com, you're going to need something much larger. Many hosting companies off domain name / design / hosting packages. The problem is, many will hold your domain hostage, so it's always best to at least get your domain name yourself and never transfer it to anyone else. - FTP - This is how you get your files onto the internet. File Transfer Protocol. FileZilla is a good free ftp tool. You connect to your hosting company and select the files on your desktop at home, and send (transfer) them on over to your hosting company / your server. Easy as can be. - Traffic - People who come to your site. Without theme, your website doesn't do a lot of good. It's not so easy to get eyes on your website, so you must think of ways to do it. Be it advertising in various places, or getting traffic from google, bing and yahoo, or only using your site for a showcase for current clients. Whatever you want to do understand that just because you build a website, it doesn't mean people will find it. You will need to put your marketing cap on and read up on this one. - Stats - Google makes something called Google Analytics. You install a piece of code on your site and they will keep track of your visitors and give you information back about them. You can then see what countries people are coming from, how long they stay on your site, what they are looking at, and so on. You then use this date to fine tune your site. That's a pretty basic primer. And as to why I don't suggest a local hosting company, it is for the same reason I don't trust the locals with any other important aspect of my life / business. "Mai pen rai" is not a term you want used at your hosting company. Take a look and how shotty your internet connection is, usually on and off when it rains, poor support, government blocking, and so on. Your website will be at the mercy of Thailand should you choose a local hosting company. Probably not the wisest thing to do if you're serious about your online business. Godaddy.com and Amazon.com both offer cheap hosting. I believe Thai Visa uses Amazon.com. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokay Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 You may contact Entergraph, they work locally and are reliable. Another good example of Wordpress. Entergraph.com is a wordpress site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil Conners Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 OP already started the same topic here. Please continue the discussion there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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