creating a new website for a friend

  • Unknown's avatar
    amysallnatural · Member ·

    I am looking to redesign a friends small business website using your templates as I heard you have many easy to use tools. I am not a professional, but have a few skills. She bought a new website domain from go daddy and redirects to it currently.
    My goal is to design and then hand off to here for future easy updates to the design of the website.
    Next steps and things to think about regarding domain transfer vs domain mapping. I need quick pros and cons. My friend sells a product currently online and just looking to upgrade from her Square acct. (which has some limitations with its cart feature). She wants to include ‘buy 4, get 1 free’ option.
    Next steps?
    Rick LeBlanc

  • supernovia · Staff ·

    Hi Rick, your friend will be selling with a Buy Four, get one Free feature needed?

    If so, I’d recommend the Business plan so you can install a full e-commerce package with the needed plugin for that feature.
    https://wordpress.com/business

    This includes SSL, direct WordPress support, maintenance, security, and many other features that tend to cost extra with other providers. You could also do a self-managed installation with another host, but that might be harder to hand off.

    As for mapping vs transfer: you could start with mapping, then transfer once the site is live and your client is loving it. That way all of the billing would be in one place, which is probably the greatest pro for transferring. We also include private WHOIS with all of our domains, which can be nice. Last pro: if you transfer, one year is added to the domain with the plan cost.

    Cons of transferring: it takes a few days for everything to settle, so you wouldn’t be able to make nameserver changes in the meantime. That’s why I recommend transferring after the new site is live. It should be pretty seamless if the domain is already mapped here.

    Other con: it’s possible your client pays less for the domain now (I do think that’s offset by convenience and private WHOIS personally, plus the extra year of renewal.) Or, it’s possible they have a premium domain that would not be supported here. Other con: if they cancel after the transfer is complete, we can’t give a full refund. They would need to transfer back, which takes more time, and adds another year. But again that can be mitigated by mapping first then transferring once things are settled.

    I hope that helps!

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