If you ask most people how they feel about about building a website, their response is often similar to my friend Harry: “I just wouldn’t know where to begin. It would be like somebody asking me to compose a symphony.”
Harry, like lots of others, happily uses a computer to surf the internet – he sends e-mails, does shopping and banking online, books travel tickets and catches up on the news headlines, so why does he find the idea of making a website so daunting? Maybe he needs help…
We set up 2-Minute-Website in early 2002, with aim of making creating and running your own website as simple and affordable as possible. You don’t have to be a ‘geek’ to use it and you can try out the service free with no obligation. Our customers include people letting holiday properties, owners of small businesses, authors promoting their books, charities publicising their work and even a weather enthusiast taking a jaunty look at the climate in his region of Scotland.
So how do you start? All you need to do is to go to our home page and click on the words ‘free trial’. Once you do this, you’ll be asked to choose a user name and a password. It’s entirely up to you whether you give your e-mail address.
And that’s it - you can now start working on your website’s front page. To do this, you’ll be asked to give your site a title (such as 'Cornish Holiday Cottage', or 'Andy's Plumbing Supplies') and a brief description of what it’s about (this is to help people searching the Internet to find your page).
Once that’s done, you can start managing
your website. This means you can:
· change the design you’d like for your
site
· add new pages
· put in a logo
· edit each of your pages
When you edit each page, you’ll be able to add paragraphs, headings and subheadings, containing any information you want to include, all at the click of one button. You can also add links to other websites and pictures to liven up your site. If you change your mind, it’s easy to add or remove pages, and to change the design or logo.
Hey presto. Your page can now be seen by millions of people all around the world.
And if you need to ask for advice on any aspect of the process at all, that’s no problem. We’re always available to answer questions and will do our best to help in any way we can. Many of our customers come through word-of-mouth recommendation and we’d like to keep it that way.
You’re probably wondering how much this will all cost. The free trial, as its name suggests, costs you nothing and you don’t have to give any personal details at this stage. After that, if you like our service, it’s £65 a year (that's roughly US$100 or 80 Euros).
Our price includes your domain name (your unique web address ending in .com, .net or .org). We submit your site to the Internet search engines (making it easy for people to find). The price also includes web hosting (this means your site is put on a high-speed computer which links it to the internet). Unlike some of our competitors, we have no hidden charges.
You’re always free to edit your site, update it and change it around as often as you like at no extra cost. And, of course, we’ll be there to help with any problems you might have at any stage – not just while you’re building your site but afterwards too, whenever you need advice.
All of which should be music to Harry’s ears!
Caroline Helder
Customer Care Manager, 2-Minute-Website Ltd
caroline.helder@2-minute-website.com