You need your own website, and you need to be in control of it. Without apology, I’m a huge fan of WordPress. It’s free, it’s EASY to build and install, it looks just like a normal webpage (although it’s roots were for blogs, but don’t be put off by that at all), it’s very stable, it is SEO friendly, it has thousands of tools you can easily add to the site (availability calendars, booking forms, Paypal and so on), it’s extendable (foreign language tools, photo slideshows) and you don’t have to pay a websdesigner to do the work for you (Big Cheer!). I now use it for all my property and business sites, without exception.
Price
It’s free as a platform (though some of the Themes you can use are premium). All you ahve to do is get it hosted. It’s open source, which means there are thousand’s of programmers providing free or premium add-ons for it. It’s stable, it’s safe to rely on, and it’s a mature product. There are 1000′s of free Themes (designs) you can choose from – and then easily adapt to your specific needs and tastes – or you can buy a premium design, usually for about €50 – €70.
Powerful
You can add, grow, update and manage the site easily. Very easily. No programming is required, it’s click and action. it has Social Intenet integration ususally built in (Facebook, RSS, Twitter etc), you can add uploads for customers to download PDF’s or Maps or whatever, it’s scaleable (add new pages with the click of a button), handles video as well as photos in fixed or slideshow format, you can easily discard a design for a new one with just 2 or 3 clicks of the mouse, and it DOESN’T LOOK LIKE A BLOG! (In Tutorials here there’s a lesson on how to make sure your blog looks like a website).
How To
For your own website, get it hosted under your own url (domain). You can have it hosted by WordPress themeselves but it’s only a subdomain (example: myprettyproperty/wordpress.com) – good enough to pass through enquirers to but in my view, not as effective as myprettyproperty.com.
Using WP to host you also means your choice of Themes are more limited. But, you can be up and running within 30 minutes – simply go to WP, sign up, choose your Theme and subdomain, and you can start editing.
Alternatively, download a free (or Premium) designed Theme. A Google search for ‘Wordpress Themes’ will list you scores of resources to go to. If you have your own domain, use some FTP tools to upload it (it’s easy and free) to your selected host server – or get someone to do it for you. Then you can start editing.
If you haven’t got a host, consider UK2.net. I use them for domain registration and the hosting of many different blogs and websites under one single business acount, and find them excellent.
Follow this link to sign up:
There are thousands of PlugIns you can add (WP gives you a search box and will upload them automatically for you) – from calendars to Video, photos to Booking Forms. There are things called WIDGETS which allow you to add further functionality, from SEO optimisation to photo galleries to Twitter. You simply drag and drop them into your sidebar/s and they are ready to be used.
If you want help tracking down Themes, Widgets or PlugIns, or tips on design, just email me here: michael@alwaysfullybooked.com
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