More than one website?

After browsing some of your websites I can't help thinking that some of the layouts and options are way better than those offered by my current website (not to mention how talented you all are in your designing of it, of course )

But it got me wondering; does anyone have more than one website for the same business?
I wouldn't mind having a 'wix' one say, in addition to my current one, because I love the flash player aspect of it!

Would you/could you, have another website for your face painting?

I might be missing something reeeeeally obvious as to why that's not done... but right now, I need coffee

What do you think?

Lots of people have multiple websites for their business but probably don't think of them that way. After all how many people do you know who have a website, twitter, facebook, myspace, and flicker for their businesses?

I have a hard time keeping up with multiple sites but if you can I don't see why it would be bad.

There are many who have different sites and addresses for different aspects of their business. Face painting on one site, Body painting on another, etc.

Some buy multiple addresses and redirect to the main site in order to keep others from using similar addresses.

Hi

Of COURSE you can have different websites!

However ... you should do so as part of a marketing plan and not just as a whim! This is because there will be an effect created and this can either be good or bad depending how and why you do it.

If you have different products, different brands, different niche markets ... then you SHOULD have different websites in any case. But if not, and one is just an almost duplicate of another ... you will be diluting both your own focus and efforts and also your audience and traffic.

I'd suggest having say two websites so long as you handle them differently ie one as a portfolio site (often called a vanity site) and the other as a Wordpress Blog. Then they have different roles...and you can benefit from cross linking hundreds of links and pages so that readers use both for a full picture of you.

Hope this helps

John

I spent a ton of time making a site on webs.com then I saw a few peoples free wix accounts and like the layout way more. So I set up my wix and love love love the options it has given me compared to the other sites. I am sticking with wix till I make enough to have a pro done.

Eva,
Just fyi, shop around. I had a GARBAGE website for a bit. Hubby promised up, right, left, and backwards that he'd build my site for me. It never happened. His 9-5 is more like a 8-10...
So I shopped around and found someone who built my website for under $200! I got a deal on hosting that came out to being ridiculously good from JustHost.

So don't feel that you need to lay out a grand (or two) for a pro website. You totally don't!

Thank you all for the info.! Good points to consider

The thing with wix, anyone who views it must have their Flash updated and Cache cleared in order to view it. Not alot of people, especially the non computer savvy ones, do this because 1) they don't know how to and 2) are afraid of update because they think they are going to get viruses and slow the computer down. I did wix for a day and cancelled my account. After I signed up for it I found out about the flash thing and I also had read in various webstites about their poor customer service. I think a basic website that everyone can view is best. As long as all of your info is easy to read because all people want to know is how much and how can I get you.

Oh, good point!

Maybe I should stick to my webs one then... but it just seems so boring compared to some of yours

Yes Tanya .... well said. If anyone wants a website with Flash ..... then they should do that for personal interest .... a Vanity Site or Hobby Site. But if the site is for business ..... then Flash is a bad idea.

Apart from the things Tanya said about your customers maybe not being up to speed ... things not in HTML (ie in Flash) .... cannot be seen by the spiders who crawl sites for listing. You site will look like a blank page to them - so they are not going to list it highly in the results!

John

I think a website for different services is cool if you do various services like if you do face and body painting, commisioned canvas painting, craft arts, etc. but if you are only offering one service which is face painting and party entertainment then maybe one website is best and have links to facebook or what not. It' is hard enough updating and maintaining one website and facebook, I'm sure more than that is a headache. Just one website on a business card is all a customer needs. If I was a customer and saw like 3 web addresses on a business card I might think "jeez, I gotta type all of these addresses just to find out which one has pricing for my kids party"

(Miss Tanya - I just looked at your website - I love your Mario and the picture of you showing the little girl her butterfly is just darling )

Thank you for the techno savvy John! I wouldn't have a clue about those things. As part of the reason for thinking about several sites were to gather more exposure it makes a lot of sense NOT to get 'flashy' then .

I guess I'll just keep to being 'boring"

If you want to tweak you webs page I would recomend maybe some basic CSS codes to maybe add a cool background picture that you find and maybe use a photo editing program to make your pictures pop by adding a fun border and to make a cool banner header. I sure you can find someone who can help with that.

Hehe, thanks! Although I think I look like a deer caught in headlights in that Mario photo. The picture of the girl looking in the mirror was a pro photo taken at a fundraiser event I painted at. I guess when you do good things for others you get good back, like cool photos for promotion