Creating my own global online business and need some technical advice about websites ...

Actual_Criminal · March 11, 2022

I am creating my own business by myself that will involve selling products/services essentially. It won't be created for another 12-18 months, so now is all about planning. Below are some researched provided stats in order to assist with answering my questions (let me know if you need any more info).

I have zero web development knowledge and will only have around £10K to initially launch the business, so want to avoid professional fees where possible. (Like hiring a web dev... for the moment). - So thanks for your free help in advance, lol.

-Global website that would receive traffic from across the world.

-The office address and hub will be based in the UK for the first year.

-I would estimate around 100K visitors per month to the website after the first year of trading.

-Payment methods would be the standard VISA, Mastercard, PayPal etc. However, a specialist third-party provider will be assisting me with this.

1.) Do domain extensions (.com, .co.uk, etc) serve any technical purpose other than its desired audience?

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For example, lets say I was a well-known local bicycle shop and sold my bikes all across the country within the UK. I then wanted to create a website to receive more business across the country, so the shop would more than likely make the website with the '.co.uk' domain, over the '.com' (or others). - This is because if a UK visitor was randomly browsing for 'bicycles' on Google, they may be put off and not even buy from the website if it was a '.com' because they could mistakenly assume I was not UK based, even if the content on the website made it clear it was a UK company. Then, same case if it was flipped and it was a bike shop in the US; you wouldn't really buy from a bike shop with a '.co.uk' domain if you live in the States and was looking to buy locally. - My point being, the extensions are sort of geographical or focus on a specific audience (like .gov or .edu), but in terms of I.T, do the extensions have any differences and advantages?

2.) When creating an online business, I know the main domain extensions to obtain are the .com and .co.uk, but HOW important are the other ones? Any you would consider essential in obtaining?

3.) How easy is it to transfer a website from one 'provider' to another?

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Apologies if I'm not using the correct terms... my initial website will be set-up using one of my countries free / fairly cheap and simple services. So things like Wix, Squarespace (lol), etc. So far, I'm leading to one called Shopify as a lot of my competitors are using this 'provider'. Lets say I create a website using 'Wix' or one of those^ services, but after a year or so, I will very likely need a more advanced website and would have the money for it... but how easy would it be to transfer the content of the webpages (links, images, payment processes, basically everything you can think of on a webpage) to another provider/host service? Any tips for long-term planning in this area?

4.) Quite hard to answer without knowing all the details, but if I wanted to create a website from scratch and in my vision (Probably around 50 pages), I would need someone to create the website and then I would just need to host it. Any idea, roughly or even just a range on how much this would cost?

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As an average. (Nothing too technical, will be for buying / selling, customer can create their own account and view order history, about us, home pages, reviews, FAQs, a 3 - 5 videos showing products etc. - It will not have ads.)

+ feel free to provide any additional tips or info if you desire.

Thanks again to anyone that can help with this. I really am set on doing this and need all the help I can get.

Eigenvektor · March 11, 2022

1 hour ago, Actual_Criminal said:

1.) Do domain extensions (.com, .co.uk, etc) serve any technical purpose other than its desired audience?

The Top Level Domain (TLD) has become fairly meaningless these days, with TLDs like .io, .info, ,biz, .guru and so on. Though the ".com" ("commercial") domain is still typical for businesses and doesn't really tell you anything about their location, while ".co.uk" would make me assume that it's probably a local business from the UK (that might not ship to my country).

However the more important aspect why I might not want to order "abroad" is that shipping and import taxes are going to be higher. When I order from my "local" Amazon, I know I'm going to be paying local shipping rates and no taxes.

1 hour ago, Actual_Criminal said:

2.) When creating an online business, I know the main domain extensions to obtain are the .com and .co.uk, but HOW important are the other ones? Any you would consider essential in obtaining?

I would say the most important (and typically most expensive) one would be .com. I'd consider getting a local one once your business in that country warrants it or if you want to focus your business to that region. It's quite possible Google filters results based on location and reach of a company.

1 hour ago, Actual_Criminal said:

3.) How easy is it to transfer a website from one 'provider' to another?

I'd say that depends on how easy the person developing the website makes it to (re)deploy the site. As long as it doesn't depend on any provider specific things, it should be easy to switch to another one.

Though do you really mean the website as such or are you talking about the domain? The company hosting the website and the company providing the domain don't have to be the same and you can transfer the domain independent from the website. A domain transfer is a standardized process that is (typically fully) automated these days. A website transfer is going to require a bit more work, depending on how much custom configuration is required to set it up. Especially if there's a database involved that contains a ton of data.

1 hour ago, Actual_Criminal said:

4.) Quite hard to answer without knowing all the details, but if I wanted to create a website from scratch and in my vision (Probably around 50 pages), I would need someone to create the website and then I would just need to host it. Any idea, roughly or even just a range on how much this would cost?

There are ready to use website kits for online shops, so there's little reason to buy or develop something tailor made, at least as a first go. It'll be much cheaper to buy something that is "mass produced" rather than having a developer build a site just for you.

Actual_Criminal · March 12, 2022

On 3/11/2022 at 5:33 AM, Eigenvektor said:

The Top Level Domain (TLD) has become fairly meaningless these days, with TLDs like .io, .info, ,biz, .guru and so on. Though the ".com" ("commercial") domain is still typical for businesses and doesn't really tell you anything about their location, while ".co.uk" would make me assume that it's probably a local business from the UK (that might not ship to my country).

However the more important aspect why I might not want to order "abroad" is that shipping and import taxes are going to be higher. When I order from my "local" Amazon, I know I'm going to be paying local shipping rates and no taxes.

I would say the most important (and typically most expensive) one would be .com. I'd consider getting a local one once your business in that country warrants it or if you want to focus your business to that region. It's quite possible Google filters results based on location and reach of a company.

I'd say that depends on how easy the person developing the website makes it to (re)deploy the site. As long as it doesn't depend on any provider specific things, it should be easy to switch to another one.

Though do you really mean the website as such or are you talking about the domain? The company hosting the website and the company providing the domain don't have to be the same and you can transfer the domain independent from the website. A domain transfer is a standardized process that is (typically fully) automated these days. A website transfer is going to require a bit more work, depending on how much custom configuration is required to set it up. Especially if there's a database involved that contains a ton of data.

There are ready to use website kits for online shops, so there's little reason to buy or develop something tailor made, at least as a first go. It'll be much cheaper to buy something that is "mass produced" rather than having a developer build a site just for you.

First off, thanks for commenting. I thought I would get more responses, lol. I better try Reddit instead.

Yes, the .com seems like the main one to be using if I am aiming at a worldwide auidence.

Great! That's not too bad to hear. My plan is to use Shopify for a year, then switch over to a more advanced host, so hopefully the transfer of web assets like pictures, links etc won't be too hard. - No, i'm not talking about transferring from one domain to another.

Again, thanks for the info bud