www.boxertrix.com

I'm in the initial stages of setting up a company and going into partnership with a colleague, one of our needs is a simple web page, consisting of a home page with 5 or 6 pages behind. Whilst working on a computer all day is my mainstay, I know bugger all when it comes to websites .

Before we go approaching web designers I want a little knowledge on the subject. I've only a couple of questions (at the moment), so if any of you can answer it would be much appreciated:

Our website is going to be more of a backup & reference to what we provide, rather than a website that clients will find and then contact us over. That said we also want the opportunity for potential clients to find us. How does this work? Does this work on keywords within the site or keywords that you choose, or on your web address? Is it a case of having to register with different search engines (eg google, yahoo etc) or register & pay?

A rough idea on price for a simple website (home page + 5 or 6 pages behind). What's typical? What happens when we want to amend pages?

Cheers,
Nero

If you just want it for reference to refer a client to who already knows about you, you can forward them a link or they can google your company name and find it (which is how ours works as a kind of on-line portfolio)

Its more complex and costs money to register keywords to try to catch random browsers, don't know how it works either..

There are also various online yellow pages type organisations which will list your business (presumably for money)...

Speak to several designer's to get quotes before selecting one prices vary enormously from hundreds to tens of thousands. My brother did ours as a favour, its a bit basic and needs updating at the mo.... last time we updated it was about a year ago.

Bear in mind the cost of updating (and future proofing!) it will really annoy you after a while if you are constantly having to explain why the info on the site is no longer relevant etc.

Might be more economical in the long run (if you are so inclined) to obtain software and go on a course and learn how to update your own site - one day I will get round to this.....

Good luck with the new venture.