WEBSITES

Here is an interesting thought on WEBSITES


In my opinion anyone or any business that needs some name recognition in any manner should have a website.

The Internet is taking over from the numerous yellow page directories that exist throughout North America and around the world.  It has reached a point where the yellow pages are now using the Internet to deliver advertising for their subscribers.  The Internet is the way millions of people shop for products and services each and every day.  We look for restaurants, electronics, cars, and handyman services from the comfort of our homes without having salespeople attempt to pressure us into buying.  We can compare offerings and specifications, without someone looking over our shoulder and even more importantly the Internet gives us access to every companies products, and services, we are not limited to what is available in any one outlet and we can do it at two o’clock in the morning!

Some individuals will spend hours of time searching the Internet looking for work - jobs, contracts, fairs, gigs, and festivals.

Your ability to read this article, at your convenience, hot off the press so to say is because of the Internet.  I didn’t have to have it accepted for publication in a magazine, wait six months for the publication to go to print and then have them mail it to you or have you buy it at the local grocery store and hope that you opened the magazine to the right page and actually read the article.

You came to this article because you were looking for information.  People who need your services and/or products also use the Internet to find and satisfy there needs and requirements.  If you are not present, explaining what you have to offer, they will choose from those who have taken the time to create a unique Internet identity.

3Essentials Web Hosting

The cost of having a website is decreasing monthly.  You can even obtain free space and templates that are ultra convenient to “fill in the blanks”, if you don’t mind some advertising along side your message.  If you are looking for something that is a little more personal or dynamic, most website hosting companies provide free software which provides any layman with the tools to create a website with pictures, graphics, and text to tell their story to their town, city, country or the world.

 
Most businesses spend countless hours trying to find opportunities to chase.  What business doesn’t want opportunities presented to them?  I don’t know of any!

If you have a vending cart, a food concession trailer, you are a musical group or you’re a stand-up comedian, you will never know if someone in your area is looking for the services that you provide unless you can be found - conveniently.

Are you someone that believes that the Internet is only for the fortune 1000 corporations?  Are you guilty of saying that it won’t work, without even trying?

A few hours of your time could mean being invited to a gig, fair, corporate outing, wedding, or a sweet sixteen that you were not even aware was in the offing.  So what’s holding you back?

Thanks, Dr.  I was wondering if anyone uses free or very cheap website hosts and would be willing to share their experiences?  My business is at that precarious point of starting to make money but not quite.  I really don't have much to put on a website just yet but would like to get a web presence going.

Thanks!
Stephanie

No matter how simple your web presence is, it will be a presence! The Dr is totally right in his thought above.  I had a great burger at place in Falmouth, Maine yesterday about 8 miles from where I live.  Never heard of it, but I love burgers.  Some website that I don't even remember said that they had great burgers.  I was there 45 minutes later.  Hand cut fries and the burger was $2.25 for a small burger with cheese and onions.  Super local, tons of character, and I'm definitely going back.  Harmon's Lunch Falmouth Maine.  

www.godaddy.com

domain = $10 per year
Hosting = $50 or free per year

Stephanie

Bluehost  (bluehost.com) is a very reliable hosting service. I've used it for over three years and I have no complaints.

Here are a couple of tips if you're just starting out:

• Pay a little extra for a dedicated IP address for your site- this ensures that your site won't be blacklisted with other shared IP's that most hosting companies use. The extra cost is usally only a buck or two per month.
• Consider creating a blog site through Wordpress. I have considerable web design ability and created my older sites myself, but the advantages of a Wordpress blog site are amazing. First of all, anyone can pick a design and build the site, no html or coding skills are needed. Myy 11 year old daughter can build one. More importantly- they are very Google friendly because of the posting features and your site will maintain great relevance.

         Here's a sample of my current site- I built this in less than a day.

Good Luck!

From your (so called web site) :

"One of the biggest requests I receive for our site is to post more Local Store Marketing tactics. Well here’s one that’s timely, since it is directed at younger children and we are in the Back to School season."

Again from your site
"Introducing the Frisbee Meal. If you can produce some inexpensive plastic Frisbee with your name and number on them, bring out the kids meal inside the Frisbee!
The kids get to take home a free Frisbee and you WILL get talked about by the kids and the parents."
 
Ok so what is my health department going to think about my serving food on a Frisbee? Not very much, I’m sure.

Oh by the way when I pasted your post here I corrected the spelling errors that are on your web site, for this short quote.

Much more likely that my sons would have brought home their frisbees took them to the basement or attic to see who could toss them farther...until something broke. At which time frisbees would have found their way to the witness protection program before we chatted up the wonders of the ABC Waste Management business  printed on such a frisbee.

ice queen


Thanks, Dr.  I was wondering if anyone uses free or very cheap website hosts and would be willing to share their experiences?  My business is at that precarious point of starting to make money but not quite.  I really don't have much to put on a website just yet but would like to get a web presence going.

Thanks!
Stephanie

Sams Club has a service that will build you a website for around $300.00, decent site to boot!

For a restaurant website design and regular maintenance.

I would recommend you to go on restaurantsfx website those guys are pretty good and don't charge thousands of bucks.

I'm working on our website thru a freebie account.  I have also spent the past week putting our name on various Party & event websites that will list us with other vendors.  All the ones that I have listed with are free to list but also have an upgrade ($) as well.  So far, we are the only food cart in Corpus on these sites.  I have no interest in Blogging as I wouldn't know what to say.  To me, it's a lot like the newsletter that the NKBA was always saying to send out to contractors that never read them.  I put a lot of  my cabinet business' $$ into mailing out a lot of paper. It was another one of those "marketing tips" that never paid off.  For me the website is to say where we are located and what our menu is, along with a pic of our cart.  We have a unique cart and hope to get some party type things going because of it.

Dr of BBQ Every food business should have a website because I want to see your menu and the photos of your place,and even how to get there, some directions would be nice, I would say bluehost is very good start, Once you have a website it will be much easier to find you on the web.

letseatonline, welcome to Roadfood. 

For your information, Dr. of BBQ has an excellent website at : http://www.drofbbq.com/ so he is speaking from experience.

Thank you 6star

Yes I was talking in general, every business should have a website. And you are right Dr. of BBQ has a great website after looking at it for few minutes now Iam hungry for some BBQ

I use  Go Daddy to register my domain, then I use a website hosting company called Intuit . I pay $5.00 a month to have them host it. You get 5 total pages. I think it's great. I haven't had ONE single problem with it. You also get web building software too. Which I used.


The Wild Dog
"Our Dogs Dont Just Snap, They Bite"
ww.thewilddogcart.com

I have been using hostgator.com for the past 3 years to host numerous sites. They have a lot of useful tools including a wordpress plugin that implements in minutes.

This is what I created using intuit.  This is my web page.  Took me about 100 hours to complete so far and I have alot more I want to tweek on it. I want to match the font & color on the rest of the pages to match my menu page...   feel free to comment and leave suggestions and sign my guest book.


www.thewilddogcart.com

I'm having a little difficulty reading the yellow type on your menu.  Possibly spreading the text out a little? Of course it's probably just my older eyes and the fact the I've been staring at the computer screen just a little too long.  The Locations Link doesn't seem to work for me.

Looks great.  Are you planning on posting pics of your food as well? (pics link isn't working either)

Under the Book Us page... the last part seems a bit ambiguous.  It's too "iffy" to me. 

the location & pic links are dead right now since we don't have either yet...  i want to re-do the book us part too... I need to reword some stuff too, i put a hold on doing any of that for now until we get up and rolling , i've got everything layed out and designed for the most part.

Every business with a phone number has a free website at Merchant Circle  It's pretty good for a free site.  You can load your email addresses and send newsletters, post coupons, etc.  Pics are very easy to post.  

Here is the Doc's site ready to be claimed.  I use this for my own business besides having my own website.  

Joe,
I appreciate what you did and I did sign up. But then to become verified you need to give them 5 or is 6 businesses email addresses and I'm not sure that is such a good idea. I'm not sure my friends would appreciate me giving their email addresses out. Spam and bs emails are a horrific problem that I fight every day. Hell I delete 2 or 3 hundred emails a day every day and I use Spam Cop to boot, which reports spamers to their ISP, but they just keep coming every day.

Jack

What's are your thoughts?

Jack
 

wow, those are horrible reviews... Is that what they are really saying about your food ? I'm not in any way trying to be smart about that. I just noticed there were 3 reviews and they weren't saying anything nice. I would definately hop on there and defend yourself it allows you to.

Dr of BBQ


Joe,
I appreciate what you did and I did sign up. But then to become verified you need to give them 5 or is 6 businesses email addresses and I'm not sure that is such a good idea. I'm not sure my friends would appreciate me giving their email addresses out. Spam and bs emails are a horrific problem that I fight every day. Hell I delete 2 or 3 hundred emails a day every day and I use Spam Cop to boot, which reports spamers to their ISP, but they just keep coming every day.

Jack

What's are your thoughts?

Jack

 


Doc,  I've been on MC quite a few years.  I never had to supply addresses as part of claiming my site.  


Your account is up and running.  The reviews you see are from Yahoo.  The nice thing about MC is that they show you reviews from all major sites.  You should work with yahoo to get those "Ax Grinder" reviews removed.


You can load your customers email addresses and send out newsletters, daily, weekly, whatever.  Interact through the blog, send out coupons, post specials and sales, all free.  Unless you want to purchase an upgraded version.  I don't see a need for it in my business.


Spend some time reviewing all the options in your dashboard.  Just drop me a PM if you get stuck.


Joe

THE WILD DOG , All three of those reviews are within a one month span  The use of capital letters and the writing style tells me that all three were written by the same person.  It's very easy for someone to slam you on the internet, very difficult for the business owner to clean it up.

THE WILD DOG


wow, those are horrible reviews... Is that what they are really saying about your food ? I'm not in any way trying to be smart about that. I just noticed there were 3 reviews and they weren't saying anything nice. I would definately hop on there and defend yourself it allows you to.