First of all...i would love to check out your cake sites if you have one! I will post mine once i get it done! Secondly, I am looking for a good free or cheap website to start my cake business online! One that has pages to choose from because I dont know how to create my own pages. Thanks for any help!

April :0)

Microsoft Office Live offers a free website service. I use it and I am getting pretty good results. Check mine out and the go to Office live and see what they have. Further you design your site online using their tools. If you need some help, let me know.

www.davesdelectablesoffayetteville.com

Hope this helps and good luck!
Dave
[email protected]

I use Yahoo. It costs $11.95 per month... but that is for email addresses and storage and the domain name. They have a great site building tool. All my pages are designed from their templates. Check it out www.goldenticketbakery.com

I use Domain Name Sanity for my host. It is pretty reasonably priced and pretty easy to work on after the fact. I also use MS Publisher and can work on it anytime.

You can check it out at; donnascustomcakes.com

I use dreamhost.com It is $9.95 a month and I have close to 300GB (you gain space based on the length of time that you have been with them) of storage, unlimited email... and a TON of free applications to choose from. And 2 free domain registrations a year. Check out my site

www.sinfullysweetconfections.com

Whatever type of page you choose, make sure it will support your operating system FIRST! I have had to make 3 separate web pages because I am on a mac, and I didn't double check. Stupid me!!
The first was a web.mac account, but boring. I wanted a contact page and a better gallery. So, I went to Yahoo. It wouldn't let me use their "premium" page builder (because I'm a mac), and I had to download a different browser just to use their junky page builder. Then I had to jump through all sorts of hoops just to get it published, only to find out that it wouldn't support a contact page. '' Finally I'm with Mecca. It works great for me, but it's a mac based site....
Good luck!!

ps...you can also just google "web site hosting" and you'll get a ton of sites that rate and compare the various hosts.

I was using freewebs.com, but I write my own pages using Dreamweaver.
if you make your own page and overwrite the canned stuff on freewebs, there is no ad.
my page is nothing spectaular, but I'm working on it...
www.posh-pastries.com

p.s. are you licensed?
I would be hestitant to post pricing on a webpage if you are not licensed.
as I am not at at place in my life where I can devote the time into making a profitable licensed biz, I just to work here or there for friends, and do not post any information regarding the sale of my cakes.
food for thought.

I am using godaddy.com and so far I love it. I got my domain name and hosting for 2 months for around $10! Hosting is 4.29/month.

http://www.sugarcakesco.com

I do my own HTML but they do have a site builder.

I have a freewebs site and while it functions.. I hate the way it looks. I am going to treat myself to a Blu Domain site soon. They have great Flash templates and they are $100 (some are more, but the $100 sites are perfect for normal business.. the pricer ones are more geared towards professional photographers).

I think a nice polished site make a huge difference.

wow...i have went to some of your sites and you all have amazing sites!

I use www.freewebs.com I did upgrade to Premium and I think it was $4 a month and I also pay for my own domain name (about $20 a year). My web site is tagged to this, just click on it to view.

Oh, I forgot to add that I added google ad sense to help pay for my web site. Everytime someone looks at one of my adds it pays me money.

I second godaddy. I opted not to use their site builder since DH is a designer and created my site. It 's a little pricier than other hosting services, but the options are limitless.
IMO, I think it's never a good idea for a business to use service like freewebs, especially if it shows on your url. Some sites allow you to choose a domain that reroutes and doesn't say freewebs, but others do not. I can't explain what I don't like about it, but it just bugs me LOL

i know it has already been said, but i love freewebs. easy to use, have tons of templates to choose from to make it your own and its FREE! if you buy a domain, you can still use freewebs for hosting.

It took me forever until I found the type of website I wanted. I host through www.tlcwe.com for $11 a month, but if you pay quarterly, it's a few dollars cheaper. For my site, I use a flash template from winklet, www.winklet.com. You change all the photos and everything yourself and it's so easy to maintain. You can always download trial versions to see if this is something you want to work with. I will be changing templates though once I start doing more formal wedding cakes. I'll probably wait to do that next year. My website is www.enchantedsweets.com.

another plug for freewebs....
it's free! and you could always start there until you are ready to move up.
that's what I did. I had a www.freewebs.com/poshpastries/ site, then I actually ponyed up the money for the domain (and moved my hosting to a friend, who is graciously giving it to me free)

also something to think about with the flash sites,
I love them, they are beautiful, but I kinda like having some sort of indicator in the address line of the browser, i.e. ...cake-123.html
so that I could save a link to that specific cake if I wanted.
it's just semantics, and it's all about how you want to have your site work...
just thought I'd add another 2cents...

good luck and post the link when you are done!

thank you all...you have been very helpful and all of your sites are wonderful! I checked them all out!

Love, april

my website is www.celebrationgeneration.com

I host through HostPC.com. They're very cheap, but give you a TON of options - it's very customizable through the installatron feature - many galleries, options for blogs, all kinds of features. I love it, and have put a few other cake people on to them!

I use Yahoo and have been very pleased with the business it has generated. I would say half my customers have found me via the website. So, Yahoo must do a good job in getting you on the search engines.
My only complaint is I've had a real hard time creating my gallery using their template. The cake pictures are small. I haven't figured out how to make changes on that. But I also haven't had a lot of time to fiddle with it.

DO NOT USE FAT NETWORK!!!! There service is not that great. My DH is a computer tech and had a lot of his clients with them. He tried switching them over to a better service and fatnetwork dragged their feet for over a week! Well, now there service has been completely down for over 2 days and all of DH's clients that they wouldn't release when he asked numerous times now don't have websites up which is costing them future sales. DH just got an email from fatnetwork about 5 hours ago saying that everyone is basically screwed and lost all of their info. DH is ticked!!!! (he has a few police departments as clients as well as metal companies, gyms, dentists and stores.) This is a HUGE thing! Just imagine if this was your site affected and you lost orders. I highly recommend not going with them. *sorry to sound brash but DH's business is our lively hood and this is really screwing with the business right now* Some people that host with them were lucky since they were on a different server, many were not.

edited because I wrote godaddy when it should have been fatnetwork.

I used Yahoo Site Builder, which is a free downloadable software, and they have great tech support if you need it, and I pay about $12 a month for the domain and website etc. It's easy to build a site and maintain it, and I was able to build a custom order form for brides to fill out and submit, so I really have an idea what they need before we even meet or talk. I love getting that form in my inbox...!

My only complaint is that it is hard when you want to add a picture to a gallery--you have to manually move all the other individual pictures around if you want the new picture to go at the top of the screen, which is a pain. Other than that, it's been working great for me.

It's at www.cakesbystefanie.com

Glad I found this, I have been thinking about doing a website, thanks!!!

I always recommend templatemonster.com

For about $60 you can get a very nice website with flash animation, etc.

I made the mistake of paying a designer to create mine for me - for a cost of over $2,000.

We used template monster for my site also. We'll probably be hiring a designer to redo some things and work on a new logo for the business next year. But it works well and I get a TON of compliments on the site.

I use homestead. Very user friendly to design it yourself. $19.99/month.

www.qualitycakesbydenise.com

I really like Homestead.com. I think I pay $4.95 per month and I paid an extra fee to buy my domain at first, but I don't remember it being a lot. That includes two email addresses too.