As many of you already know, I am an actress. I have been acting since the tender age of 8, and really don’t consider myself an “expert” on much else. (Well, anything that doesn’t have to do with the entertainment field.) I’ve acted,, directed, even produced… And, of course, you all know that I write.
So, why the heck did I decide to open my own online beauty boutique?
I want stability, I suppose. I want to create my own life, especially with all of the major changes I’ve been going through and dealing with. I wanted to start something of my own from the ground up… nurture it, watch it grow, expand, whatever. I took a major leap of faith, and I am terrified that I am going to land face-flat on the concrete.
With all of the stress of creating, operating and maintaining a store, I don’t want to deal with the stress of having to design my own website. Fortunately, Homestead alleviates most of that stress.
Located at www.homestead.com, Homestead is a website company that makes it relatively easy to create, build, operate and maintain your own website at a low cost. It can be any type of website… Homestead has three different types of packages that handles all sorts of websites, from hobby pages to mega-stores.
The first package is the Silver Package, designed to accommodate people who just want a basic website. This package includes 1 site, 10 pages, a Homestead web address, 25 MB of Disk Space, 5 GB of Bandwidth and standard customer support. The prices are pretty reasonable, and you get a discount for signing up for blocks of time. There are 4 options: $9.99 per month, $54.99 for 6 months, $99.99 for one year, or $143.99 for 2 years.
The second package is the Gold Package. Obviously, the Gold Package has a bit more to offer than the Silver Package. With the Gold Package, customers receive unlimited sites, unlimited pages, 1 personalized domain name (which they register for you), 2 matching email accounts, Homestead site submission, 100 MB of Disk Space, 15 GB of bandwidth, next-day customer support and ecommerce through PayPal. The prices, in my humble opinion, are better than the Silver Package for everything that you get. You have a choice of $19.99 per month, $109.99 for 6 months, $199.99 for 1 year or $359.99 for 2 years.
Last but not least is the Platinum Package. This is the end-all, be-all of Homestead site packages. You have a lot of features: unlimited sites, unlimited pages, 3 personal domain names (which they register for you), 10 matching email accounts, $150 of traffic credit from Google, MSN, AOL, Yahoo and other search engines, 300 MB of Disk Space, 25 GB of of Bandwidth, priority next business day customer support and installation phone call and ecommerce through PayPal. Again, you’ve got the choice of 4 reasonable payment plans: $34.99 per month, $189.99 for 6 months, $349.99 for 1 year or $629.99 for 2 years.
All of the packages include the following:
24 x 7 ad-free web hosting
Hundreds of templates
75 interactive site features
Unlimited e-mail support
Award-winning SiteBuilder software
Millions of graphics
Unlimited access to FTP
Robust site statistics
Personally, I think the Gold Package is the best package to go for when it comes to someone just starting out their own website– especially a web-based store. Unfortunately, I went for the Platinum Package, just because I wanted to make sure that everything that I needed to run a successful business online was going to be right there for me. I should have gone for the Gold and upgraded to Platinum later.
The customer service, however, is lacking. Since I’m a Platinum customer, I should be able to get my customer support IMMEDIATELY. However, there was no installation phone call. When I’ve had problems, I’ve emailed and called, which is what I’m supposed to do. It took 3 days for someone to get back to my first email, and I was kept on hold for 7 minutes when I called. Very frustrating, especially with the money that I have spent with Homestead.
Sure, the Homestead site-building tool, Homestead SiteBuilder (AKA Homestead LPX), is incredibly easy to use. Since you download it to your computer, you can build your website online or offline. That’s very convenient to those that just have dial-up modems, as you don’t have to tie up your phone line while you’re building your site. You can just publish your webpage when you do connect to the Internet. Of course, the faster your connection, the faster it will be published. You can alter the page as many times as you want, as often as you want. For beginners, it’s just drag-and-drop. There’s also an HTML version for experts. Or, if you’re in between those levels, you could combine the two.
One thing I have noticed with LPX is that it seems to slow down all of the other programs I may have open. (My OS is Windows XP, so it’s not that I’ve got a prehistoric system.) Sometimes, it even causes them not to respond. I have found the best thing to do is just close everything else and focus on my web-building task.
I’m kind of leery on the site submission options that Homestead uses. There are three major search submission sites that they use: Google, Overture and Kanoodle. Google, of course, is the most reputable. It’s good that Homestead partnered with them for sheer reputation, but I have found that I haven’t gotten too many hits from them. Kanoodle, on the other hand, gives me PLENTY of hits, but has barely turned any sales to my site. The good thing with them is that they doesn’t charge you for clicks that they think are “suspicious.” Finally, there is Overture. Quite frankly, Overture is a joke, and I can’t believe that Homestead actually partnered with them. Overture charged my American Express $75, then terminated my account. I have no idea why, and no one from Overture or Homestead are getting back to me about it.
All in all, Homestead is a great website company. I used them in 1998 for my own, personal page. They have come a very long way since.
Homestead has a company called Homestead Storefront, where I build my webstore. It is NOT the regular Homestead program, so I’m not going to include it in this review. If it isn’t listed on Epinions now, I wil try my best to get a Category Lead to add it.
