Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#1

Post by kevin_vanilla » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 8:44 PM UTC

A plumber friend has asked me how to make a basic website for people to see on Google search results, which as a SWE of >10 years lands right in the middle of "Things it sounds like I should know" and "Things I don't know". I'm just not sure which DIY tool to recommend.

I can look into this, but figured you all would know best. What should we use?

Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#2

Post by tmpburning » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 9:09 PM UTC

[dead]

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#3

Post by skilled » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 9:11 PM UTC

To be completely honest? WordPress. It will cost you around $70 to buy a theme that looks 80% of the way there and all you have to do is change the placeholder images and text. And the same goes for plugins, for this kind of a "basic" project every single plugin you need is going to be free.

I don't know it's worth spending your own time trying to create something custom or mess around with website builders because in the end it will cost a lot more than that $70 for a premium theme.

That said, it will be a few hours (2 or 3 maybe?) to set everything up.

But that's just my opinion.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#4

Post by theduder99 » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

If the goal is for the plumber to be able to setup and maintain it on his own then I'd recommend wix or squarespace. Otherwise wordpress as mentioned in the other comment.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#5

Post by kennydude » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 10:18 PM UTC

skilled wrote: post #3

To be completely honest? WordPress. It will cost you around $70 to buy a theme that looks 80% of the way there and all you have to do is change the placeholder images and text. And the same goes for plugins, for this kind of a "basic" project every single plugin you need is going to be free. I don't know it's worth spending your own time trying to create something custom or mess around with website builders because i…

WordPress would be my reconmendation too. As someone who builds websites for these kinds of businesses daily, it allows people to get online quickly in a way which works.

More than anything get some decent hosting (i.e not EIG group/GoDaddy)

(If it's too much effort - more than happy to discuss further - website on profile)

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#6

Post by LunarAurora » Fri, Dec 23, 2022, 10:23 PM UTC

For a free option, The new Google sites is not bad [1].

[1] https://sites.google.com/

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#7

Post by CM30 » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 1:24 AM UTC

Depends exactly what you need. If the site only needs to provide a bit of info about the business plus a contact form, then just about any CMS or site builder would be perfect here. WordPress could do this, SquareSpace or Wix could do this, and heck, you could even do it manually just by buying/finding a template (maybe a Bootstrap one?) and coding a few static pages. As long as you don't do anything obviously disastrous for SEO (like say, making it entirely reliant on a poorly coded SPA, sticking your text in images, not including title tags, etc), it should work perfectly fine regardless of what you do.

You'd probably want to choose the CMS or site builder if your plumber friend wants to actually maintain the site and add content though.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#8

Post by billylo » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 2:28 AM UTC

I use mobirise.com to create + Firebase hosting (free for low volume).

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#9

Post by kaikai » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 5:31 AM UTC

I’ve helped multiple non-technical people successfully make squarespace sites. It has the option to buy a domain and the fees are cheap. It’s totally worth the site builder and included themes.

Re: Ask HN: How to make a simple business website?

#10

Post by Tomte » Sat, Dec 24, 2022, 6:28 AM UTC

skilled wrote: post #3

To be completely honest? WordPress. It will cost you around $70 to buy a theme that looks 80% of the way there and all you have to do is change the placeholder images and text. And the same goes for plugins, for this kind of a "basic" project every single plugin you need is going to be free. I don't know it's worth spending your own time trying to create something custom or mess around with website builders because i…

And don't host it yourself. Buy Wordpress hosting (there are big, reputable players besides wordpress.com as well), they come with premium themes, updates and security fixes managed by the hoster, same for backups.