Every website needs a domain name.  That’s the address of your website, but it’s more than just that.  In addition to an address, it also acts as a conduit for emails to you, either set up as a mailbox attached to the domain or as a forwarder to your own person email account somewhere else.  Importantly, having an email address linked to your website is a must if you want to promote yourself as a professional.

Part of setting up a domain name is making sure you adequately secure your website.  For sites that do nothing but present some information to the world about you, no extra care is needed, but if you want people to submit data to your site, either for something as simple as a contact form or payment details for goods and services you sell, then it may be necessary to purchase an SSL certificate, which allows you to use the https protocol and shows a secure lock in the URL bar at the top of the page.

If you host your site on my Virtual Server, I can include an SSL certificate free of charge from Let’s Encrypt.

All sites needs to be built on a good structure.  If you tell me what you are looking for, I can likely help you to build it.  For example, if you would like a simple contact form, such as this example on JS Media, that’s easy enough.  On Aegis Financial, I extended the concept so that new enquiries are automatically added as a lead to Zoho, my CRM.  This means that my website becomes an integral part of my business engagement process, but once the lead has been established all my activity takes place elsewhere.  Finally you can look at rexyforruislip.uk for an example of a shop, including an integrated payment system and a connection to an on-demand printing firm.

In short, if you can imagine it, I can probably work out a way to build it.

By default I use WordPress and add in any plugins I find necessary.  For basic contact forms, I use Contact Form 7, for shopfront integration I tend to use WooCommerce, and for CRM integration I use the Zoho Webforms plugin.  I also make extensive use of the Burst Statistics and Yoast SEO plugins to make the site perform better both in terms of functionality and interaction with search engines.

Finally, if you would like to organise off-site backups of your website, I can arrange that.  My usual approach is to upload to a Google Drive account, but if you prefer something else that can be arranged.

For my own sites, I use Fasthosts to register the domain name and host the WordPress framework on my own private server from Hostinger.  If you sign up to their services from these links, I will get some credit towards my own hosting packages with them – you don’t need to actually retain my services if that’s all you need to do!

Clearly other hosting providers exist, and if you have a preferred provider but would still like me to work with you, I can do so as long as you have the ability to create an admin account for me.