Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Need help with a website/email solution for business

D

davidg4781

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Oct 28, 2006
2,973
476
Alice, TX
My brother asked me to make a website for the company he works for. It's a service business and the website is going to be something simple...just information about what they do and pictures.

I'm probably going to do the site with iWeb, but I had questions about hosting, domain names, and email.

I'm assuming to use iWeb I'll have to have a Mobile Me subscription. I'll also need to purchase the domain name. I looked at GoDaddy and they have it there. As for email, I guess I'm looking at Google Apps. He wanted the email to be something like david@blahblah.com.

Is it that easy? Are there other's I should look for? Right now their business has been down, so I'm trying to keep this as low cost as possible. Google charges $50/year/email address. I think they would only need one or two address, although if there's a less expensive option with more addresses, we could consider that.
 
Ok let me split this up into the three component parts of your question.

1) The Domain name - You're going to need this before you can go to anything else, as you'll need this to go forward.

You an buuy the domain name at a tone of different place. GoDaddy as you mentioned is pretty popular as they are comparatively cheap. I've however herd quiet a bit of negaitive criticism about their business practices so when I went out to get a domain I decided to go elsewhere.

I bough mine from www.register.com, as I'd delt with them on behalf of my employers in the past and was pretty happy with the response. I got a .Net domain for Three years (Don't want to have to think about it for a couple of years) with Private Domain Registration( As I dont want my personal details to pop up in a WhoIS Search) for $100 - $15 discount (Google for discount code). I did have to pay extra VAT as I'm in Europe, but for people outside the EU there should be no VAT.

I got the domain, and its pretty easy to configure from the control Panel.

2) Email - Google Apps Standard Edition is FREE for upto 50 EMail Addresses, so there is no need to pay the for the premier edition Unless you need more then 7GB of space per mailbox, SSO, forced SSL, custom password
strength requirements and more, and Guaranteed 99.9% uptime (Which you mostly get with the free service anyway,).

Setting it up is also pretty easy as The Apps configuration page will walk you through the whole process, step by step. It took me about 20 minutes to setup everything and that was because I was working on something else at the same time.

3) Website - Now it comes to the meat of the matter.

Now you could use something like iWeb to design the Site, but I'll like to suggest going to Someone like Squarespace. They offer a WYSWYG site design tool which allows you to modify the site in real time. What I've seen of them looks pretty good and am consideing using them for a project in the future.

They have a two week free trial (And don't require you to give a credit card I believe) so its worth a try to check it out. Their plans start at $14 a month ( a little more then mobileme but you gea a lot more) and there are a ton of Discount codes to get 10% off the lifetime of your order (Again Google is your friend, though both TWIT and Rev3 have their own codes)
 
i don't think you need mobileme to use iweb. you can just publish it locally in a folder, and then upload it to your domain space.

i've used godaddy and hostgator and i prefer hostgator because it had a more flexible control panel and better support. i think it had better pricing too but i i might be remembering wrong. there are some startups that use hostgator for hosting, and you can use them to register a domain as well.

i believe godaddy/hostgator both have e-mail options depending on the package you buy. i haven't had experience using google apps

you should probably also post this in the web design forum
 
A lot of web hosting sites will also register a domain name for you but they may or may not offer the best prices. You can register your domain from anyone that is qualified to do so. Also look for web hosting sites that will also offer email allow with their hosting service. Many of them do but not always for their cheapest package service. That will be a better deal than paying for hosting and also Google email.

Your email name can then be "anything"@YourDomainName.com and many hosting sites will allow you to have more than one so that's an even better deal than Google email.
 
Thanks for the help. If we go with Google, we'll probably just use the standard version and that will save a lot of money.

Now, if I decide to build the site with iWeb, will I be able to upload the site to hostgator? I also came across Yahoo website hosting. They have an email solution and the price seems about where hostgator is. Will I be able to upload the iWeb folder to them also?

Squarespace looks interesting, but either my internet is slow (we're having t-storms right now) or their server is because it's taking forever to load the demo video.
 
I've been in the webhosting business for quite some time , and what I found is that if you don't know a lot about webhosting - you should find a company that delivers very good support and patience , to help you with your website.

Just technical support isn't going to cut it , if you are a new in the webhosting scene. Ofcourse support and price should go well together :)
 
davidg4781 said:
Thanks for the help. If we go with Google, we'll probably just use the standard version and that will save a lot of money.

Now, if I decide to build the site with iWeb, will I be able to upload the site to hostgator? I also came across Yahoo website hosting. They have an email solution and the price seems about where hostgator is. Will I be able to upload the iWeb folder to them also?

Squarespace looks interesting, but either my internet is slow (we're having t-storms right now) or their server is because it's taking forever to load the demo video.
Click to expand...
i think really any web hosting will be able to use the iweb output, i just tested it and the iweb publishes a folder with pretty conventional format
 
1) Use Google for email. This will solve a lot of problems such as setting up iPhones for email or syncing calendars.

2) This article shows you can use iWeb with standard FTP and I believe it also works with WebDAV. Any cPanel enabled webhosting provider should be able to provide both features with support for most of iWeb's features.

3) Register your domain with www.namecheap.com. It is around $9 per year and includes free private whois for the first year costing approximately $2 per year after that. I don't like them for webhosting, but their domain registrations and SSL certificates are great.
 
Namecheap.com is a very good domain registrar, i use that one myself.

With Google email you mean using Google Apps or just email? I really like Google Apps because you can use the Gmail technology with your own domain ; for example - sxr@sxrsite.com
 
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry Curve: BlackBerry8330/4.5.0.175 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

After looking at some of the monthly prices on web hosting, it looks like Mobile Me would be either pretty close to or maybe even less (if I buy it on Amazon or eBay).

Is there any reason I should use a different web host besides cost?
 
davidg4781 said:
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry Curve: BlackBerry8330/4.5.0.175 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

After looking at some of the monthly prices on web hosting, it looks like Mobile Me would be either pretty close to or maybe even less (if I buy it on Amazon or eBay).

Is there any reason I should use a different web host besides cost?
Click to expand...

Well,

I dont think Apple offers support on your website, just on MobileMe - webhosting is very cheap aswell - you can have a package with unlimited email addresses and stuff, for a very low price aswell.
 
davidg4781 said:
Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry Curve: BlackBerry8330/4.5.0.175 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/104)

After looking at some of the monthly prices on web hosting, it looks like Mobile Me would be either pretty close to or maybe even less (if I buy it on Amazon or eBay).

Is there any reason I should use a different web host besides cost?
Click to expand...

MobileMe offers a small fraction of the overall features that traditional webhosts offer.

Does Apple support for PHP, Perl, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, or other more advanced features you might want to build into the website in the future?

Consider Apple's lack of support for statistics (Awstats, Webalizer, Urchin, Analog or others) subdomains (subsite.yourdomainhere.tld), addon domains (yourotherdomainhere.tld hosted on the same account as yourdomainhere.tkd), and other features like that.

MobileMe is fine, but it isn't meant to host business websites. It is meant as a way for people to share photos and build personal websites. You'll need more robust webhosting for business and the whole thing will work fine with cPanel's Webdisk.

Edit: Yes, I do mean Google Apps Email assuming they can use Google Sync. I don't mean using all of Google Apps features, just email. The OP was looking for iWeb compatibility and that is best done with Webdav using cPanel's Webdisk feature.
 
8767092 said:
MobileMe offers a small fraction of the overall features that traditional webhosts offer.

Does Apple support for PHP, Perl, MySQL, Ruby on Rails, or other more advanced features you might want to build into the website in the future?

Consider Apple's lack of support for statistics (Awstats, Webalizer, Urchin, Analog or others) subdomains (subsite.yourdomainhere.tld), addon domains (yourotherdomainhere.tld hosted on the same account as yourdomainhere.tkd), and other features like that.

MobileMe is fine, but it isn't meant to host business websites. It is meant as a way for people to share photos and build personal websites. You'll need more robust webhosting for business and the whole thing will work fine with cPanel's Webdisk.

Edit: Yes, I do mean Google Apps Email assuming they can use Google Sync. I don't mean using all of Google Apps features, just email. The OP was looking for iWeb compatibility and that is best done with Webdav using cPanel's Webdisk feature.
Click to expand...

I agree with this. Go with a good webhost. I've Pmed you some time ago , OP. I can also give you my views on other webhosting companys since I have tried lots of them.

Im kinda stepping off the Gmail interface. Im actually trying to like Apple Mail.app :p
 
Thanks again for all the help.

We'll probably go with a web hosting site I can use iWeb with....the reason I'd like to use iWeb is because it seems easy to work with and it's free, while still making a nice looking site.

As far as email, my brother has a blackberry so he'll probably be getting the email on the phone. It might just be one address though, just so people can contact them for quotes or what not. Gmail seems the best solution, although Yahoo seems to have good rates, and we'll be able to use Yahoo mail.

My old college organization used Yahoo and the site was very basic looking...I'm not sure if that's because it had to be or because of the person that designed it.
 
davidg4781 said:
Thanks again for all the help.

We'll probably go with a web hosting site I can use iWeb with....the reason I'd like to use iWeb is because it seems easy to work with and it's free, while still making a nice looking site.

As far as email, my brother has a blackberry so he'll probably be getting the email on the phone. It might just be one address though, just so people can contact them for quotes or what not. Gmail seems the best solution, although Yahoo seems to have good rates, and we'll be able to use Yahoo mail.

My old college organization used Yahoo and the site was very basic looking...I'm not sure if that's because it had to be or because of the person that designed it.
Click to expand...

iWeb will work fine as a design tool. I've seen very nice websites built in iWeb and didn't notice they were from a WYSIWYG editor until I started to look closer at the source code.

Blackberry devices require specific servers and specific software to be fully "Push" enabled so be 100% certain what you are looking at for compatibility. Google provides Google Sync while Yahoo.. doesn't. Google's Email for domains is fully compatible with control panel software such as cPanel, Plesk, or DirectAdmin while Yahoo is harder to setup.

Consider this: Your host's support department has likely had hundreds of people request the changes necessary for Google while not so many for Yahoo.

Good luck!
 
thoughts

As a small business owner in a service industry (no need for web transactions on the site), I used GoDaddy to buy my domain and host it. I used iWeb to initially design my website, and I used the GoDaddy web FTP to upload the site. I think it's an extra $5/month to not have ads on your site.

When it comes to email, I started out with Google Apps, which I loved because it was free. However, I ended up switching because of a captcha error that meant I sometimes couldn't get email on my iPhone for hours, sometimes days. I have no idea if the blackberry could be subject to the same problems.

I ended up using Lanlogic.net for hosted Exchange for email/calendar/contacts. There are other companies which are cheaper, but Lanlogic advertises as Mac-friendly and since my business uses Macs and iPhones, I don't regret it at all. It may not be the cheapest (I think $14/month/user), but their service and tech help have been terrific, and in the 2 months I've been using it, I have had no downtime at all.

NOTE: While I'm raving about Lanlogic, I have no affiliation. I am simply a very satisfied customer.
 
Solution for building a website !!

Fine !!
Its the great job !!
Recently i make use of this site http://www.thewebpole.com/twp/website-tonight/ for building a website & got nice solution ...
They provide hosting services at cheap cost than other hosting company & they are very much good in providing services..
If u need to build a website click on to this site & gain solution !!!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back