Which tools you use to create landing page for product / business?
Hi fellow hackers!
I'm interested in learning which tools you use to build a web presentation for your product / business, what's the usual process, how long it takes, how much it costs etc. :)
Domain
My absolute favourite tool for purchasing domains is porkbun.com - I think the value/price ratio is unmatched.
(spending: usually less than $5 / year / domain)
Hosting
I don't have any favourite hosting companies - I use whatever's at hand at the specific moment. There are plenty of free ones out there which are usually sufficient for the very early stage presentation.
(spending: usually $0 at the beginning)
Design & Development
I fluctuate between building the site myself using HTML,CSS,JS, or using WordPress & plugins and sometimes I go with services like wix.com, but that's on very rare occasions.
(spending: usually $0, but Wix etc. can get pricey)
Which are your favourites? What are your secrets? :)
Great question.
I use Namecheap for domains.
Unicorn Platform (by IH @alexanderisora) for the landing page of my newsletter. I'm not affiliated, but I keep recommending it to people, cause it was so great to use! Seriously happy with it, 10/10.
As for hosting, I use GitHub + Netlify for some static page stuff (using Hugo). Also Digitalocean and AWS.
Awesome! Thanks for the recommendation and I’ll definitely check out Unicorn Platform :)
Domain: Namecheap
Hosting: Netlify or Heroku, depending on whether I have a Postgres DB or not.
Design: Haven’t finalized this one yet. I’m focusing on building the backend in Python and MySQL (may switch to Postgres, TBD), and then from there I plan to attach a front-end template to it (Python Django or ReactJS).
Damn, that’s quite next level compared to what I do hh. Do you build everything in eg React even for presentation websites?
Typically, yeah. I graduated from full stack web development bootcamp last year so it’s still kinda fresh in my mind even though I don’t program React for work.
Weird, I literally just went through this exercise today!
I used:
It’s not free but it’s pretty cheap so if it saves me even a bit of time it’s got to be worth it, and so far I’m pretty confident that it will.
Thanks! Was Landingi recommended, or how dis you find it? :)
I just found it on google. On reflection after two days of using it, I’m pretty disappointed with its mobile view implementation. It might be me, but the mobile view generated from the desktop view is very rough and there are so many elements that I can’t edit in mobile view, which just puts me back to square 1.
I am leading away from it as we speak and I can’t recommend it atm :(
Carrd.co is great if you want a simple one-pager. If you’re comfortable with React you might like divjoy.com (disclaimer: my project).
For me:
I guess it doesn’t take more than a few hours to get up and running with the above. As long as I can visualize how my landing page will look - design is my weak spot!
If I do something in the future where I just need a landing page then I might try Carrd. Cheap and looks simple.
Domain
We are domain seller, therefore quite simple. :D
Hosting
Own root servers
Design & Development
In 99% of the cases I use my own management system which is specialized in SaaS. Here is an example of how long this will take. We were quite fast with this project.
For a big project, with bots, registration and so on, it need quite more time. (Example)
I have experience with Drupal and other CMS / Frameworks. I don't really like most of it. That's why I built my own management system.
But what I take depends strongly on which project it is. If it is just a little app, then HTML, CSS, JS + Ionic without a real CMS. If it's something like SaaS, E-commerce shops then nothing works without a CMS.
If I was to build another SaaS :)
Domain
I use Namecheap normally but porkbun looks very cheap and I normally put the nameservers on Netlify anyways
Hosting
I usually set up an email account with gmail or zoho and then register for AWS and use their free credits (free EC2/RDS and s3)
Design/Development
For the landing page I would use a free template until I proved that the product has some demand. Then I would upgrade to something more powerful.
But SaaS can take a while and spending money on a bunch of services can burn a lot of money.
For the actually web app I would use React and a framework like https://blueprintjs.com/ that handles most of the design for you.
Thanks for the insights. Regarding the email setup you mentioned, do you use custom email domains ? @yourcompany.com <- I think google is like $5 per month or something, not sure if there are any other alternatives?
Zoho is free, but I think it is just worth paying google. Currently using zoho and not a fan at all.
You can't do a lot of things on the free package.
Understood. I’ll check it out anyways I guess, but I’ll probably stick to google then :)
You can also have multiple domains and aliases on a single $5 per month account. So if you’ve got a few projects then you can keep adding domains at no extra cost.
That’s a good point! Thanks :)
disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with any of the companies listed above :)