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I'm setting up a little lighting company soon and trying to do it on as little budget as possible. Anyone know of some ways to build a website and design a logo??
been looking at the one and one type set ups for web but drawn a blank on logo..
Be careful about what the site is for...
A quick 'shop front' so that if someone googles 'matt_outandabout building services' I can show em a few projects, pics and a phone number...
Or a web-based service that you need customers to find via google, or to buy? (eg searching for 'good builders in highland Scotland' or 'online widgets for sale')
The latter needs proper help and sorting, the former, something simple - and think about using wordpress...
it's a bit of both Matt. It's to sell the services of what I intend doing so it needs to accommodate tags so if someone searches for what I would be providing it would pop up and then the shop front would hopefully motivate the viewer to call me up....
Are you going to be reliant on web search traffic for income (or a good proportion of?), in which case, get a proper job done...
tough question, I just want it to get me a few jobs first and then the income can be re-invested. I won't be packing in my main job until it proves there's a demand. I appreciate it may not deliver much unless I invest in it but it's quite a niche offering and I suspect once I get a couple of jobs it may progress more through referral
Mick
Read the small print on those logo makers. You'll probably find that they retain all rights to your logo and may even prevent you from using it for commercial purposes.
Try doing something simple using word art in MS word then creating a PDF of it using a cutepdf download. Open it in adobe reader and save it as a jpeg. Don't use the preset word art fonts, play with whats there and use shapes on top of each other to create something unique.
Sounds like it will be cr*p but trust me it can be really good if you have a bit of design flair. Look at other logos you like and pick the colours carefully. Keep it simple.
Hey,
It's hard to give specific advice without knowing anything about the business. Personally I'd say you might be best off with a little wordpress install with a nice simple template and some really nice photos (assuming that your style of lighting is photogenic). Start getting a bit of rolling content up, keep it simple and submit it to such local directories as appropriate for your industry (again, making the assumption that you're more interior lighting design than international illumination ninja). Make your contact details obvious, spell everything right, don't use too much stock photography and don't talk bollocks.
Try to write a few interesting articles every now and then and keep posting nice photos. Try to get clients to link to you. Once you've got a basic site that makes people interested in your product you can start to think about things in more depth.
Regarding the logo, I wouldn't worry at first, try and design it without and if something comes to you then try it and see what you think. You can always add one in later.
Someone on here designed my logo in return for a pile of cyclocross stuff 🙂
See if you can fInd an art or design student and do a swap...
Wordpress is a great tool for quickly setting up a decent-looking site - I've built several using it. The main business website is done in Netobjects Fusion which is great for large sites but probably not so good for what you want.
Read lean start up by Eric Ries, or better still subscribe to audible, download it to you iPod for £3.99 and listen to it on your next ride.
Basic premise is test the market with an MVP - minimum viable product to create a build measure learn feedback loop. Don't go big first time out start small test your hypothesis and prove that it will work. Don't worry about bells and whistles these can be added later. What if your wrong and your idea is flawed, any effort more than that needed to create the MVP is wasted time and money.
On the logo if you're not good at design get a graphic design student to do it. You'll get it cheap and they'll get some much needed income and experience of a professional paying job. There are websites out there that will put in touch, or simply go to your local uni and put something on the noticeboard.
[url= http://www.27bslash6.com/p2p2.html ]Free logos and spreadsheets here[/url]
weebly is a free and easy way to start a website.
you are mr coca, and you've invented cola?
Read the small print on those logo makers. You'll probably find that they retain all rights to your logo and may even prevent you from using it for commercial purposes.
They retain the right to any icons as part of the logo but you are free to trademark the complete logo including your company name, so it looks fine.
so it needs to accommodate tags
There's the problem. There isn't just a few tags you can add and people will find you. Getting found on Google means having a well laid out page with some well written text. There are no shortcuts. You can do it yourself using something like Wordpress but if you are doing that you should really read the Google webmaster guidelines first. If that sounds too painful then the main rule is create a site that you would want to see as a visitor rather than as the site owner. What would the visitor want - make sure they can get to it quickly. Google rewards that stuff. Real content rather than fluff is good.
Also consider Google AdWords. I think about a third of our traffic comes via AdWords now. Facebook is pretty good as well
I was going to say broadly the same thing as lemonysam.
Do you really need a logo? A crap logo is probably worse than no logo; you may well be better off simply with your company name decently typeset.
As a starting point you could buy a domain and get it forwarded to a Wordpress.com subsite. Pick an appropriate theme there and you're good to go. You'll be able to post content straight away (it needn't be much in the way of blog; Wordpress supports static page content as well, and you can probably find themes that emphasis the pages over the blog), you won't need to roll your sleeves up with any web design or site maintenance or CMS installation, and you'll have the ability to build your own site in future without having to change the URL.
can i assume from your username that you're based in the northeast?
if so i know someone in sunderland that does websites and graphic design professionally (i.e. not a lazy unreliable student) but works from home (i.e. you're not paying the rent on his big shiny glass and metal office). i've put a lot of people his way since i stopped doing it and he always delivers.
let me know if you want his details.