Getting The HTML Out Of Here

We have a website, http://www.sevys.com/, and a few years ago we hired a web designer who understood the mysterious language called HTML Code to set up our website for us.  But that also meant that every time we had a new menu, or wanted to update promotions, post newsletters, add information, we had to call and have the changes made by the designer - or risk screwing up our website.

And then I found Homestead, by Intuit (y'know, the Quicken/ Quickbooks company).  And now I'm the web designer, kind of, with help from the experts from Homestead.  It's a whole new look for Sevy's Grill, and every time I visit I see something that needs to be tweaked.  But the great thing is I can log in and do it - I even added a Monthly Events page.  All. By. Myself.  No HTML knowledge required.

Maybe you've got a small business but haven't the funds to expand on the web?  Homestead has over 2000 free templates to choose from, many designed for specific industries.   Their web hosting costs as little as $10 per month.

We opted to pay for a Homestead designer to set up a custom template for us, set up the initial 5 pages (we can have up to 10), money well spent even though I've gone through and changed all the fonts and moved buttons, added links.  Because it allows us to put our own personal imprint on our business' web portal, and I think that's important. 

And it did not all go smoothly - transferring over our domain and then linking it to our design was a little stressful.  They have a help staff, it sometimes takes about 24 hours for them to get back with you (depending on the subject).  It would be lovely if they had a "Live Chat" button, even if the result is the same ("We'll get back with you"), at least you feel like you've reached a person.  There were some gaps in the published Help guide when it came to setting up a new page (it does not include instructions for setting up a page with a custom designed template).  But there was a solution for all of my questions, it just required a little patience.

So check out our new look, and please, I'd love some feedback.  I'm thinking of adding a "Chef's Corner" page with some recipes from Sevy and Buzzy.  Oh, and I can set up a blog on it - but wait, I already have one of those.