The costs of getting a professional website can vary enormously - from around £35 for a simple one page site, to many hundreds of pounds. Here are some guidelines to think through
• Do they charge per hour, or per page?
• Is domain registration included?
• Is web hosting included?
• Can you have changes made to your site as and when you want?
• Are the extras they offer (identifying keywords etc) worthwhile or are they just fluff!
DO IT YOURSELF?
Most of the rest of the information in this article is for those Instructors who want to design their own site. However, it's still worth looking at even if you're going to get someone else to do the donkey work. I've put the steps in rough order, but it's only a basic guideline.
1.
Choose your domain name. You can find out if your chosen name is available at sites such as www.123-reg.com . You will find .co.uk domains are cheaper than .com names. There are alternatives such as .net or .org. However .co.uk is the standard domain ending for the uk and so is a better choice. You can get a .co.uk domain for £1.99 per annum.
Think carefully about the name you have chosen and how it looks when the words are run together with no spaces. Sometimes using dashes helps. For instance ross-smiths-school-of-motoring.co.uk or ross-smiths-som.co.uk is better than rosssmithsschoolofmotoring.co.uk or rosssmithssom.co.uk!
2. Organise your hosting package. You won't need it till you've designed your site, but it's worth considering at the same time as domain registration as many registration companies offer hosting as well and it can be easier to go for both in one package. Expect to pay anything upwards from £17 per annum. Using free webspace with an isp is a cheap alternative, but don't expect the search engines to find you if you do!
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