I am starting a small construction business in the hill country. Will start out as just me and my wife but I will need a website and custom business email domain. I would like a hosting service that can help build a website that is easy to build yet good looking and functional. I am not sure of all the terms, but I also think many of them make self SEO easier or will actually manage it for you.

I don't have all day to maintain a website, I just want it to be easy to make sure info and content is accurate, easy to update and easy to add to.

My biggest problem is cost, I'm opening on a shoestring and need to be cost conscious yet effective.

I'm probably looking for a unicorn, tell me how the real world works, and what I need to plan on spending.

You can do it cheap and simple. Use Namecheap to buy domain and I have used their email service for $5/months/email. Build and upload page using square space with their templates. Connect the two and you will be good to go. This is the do it all yourself route but I'm sure you could figure it out with YouTube videos and their help videos on a weekend. After all set up the maintenance is very minimal. If you want some to build and do it all I bet you could find someone small and new to get it done for $3to $5k

Squarespace and Google for business or Microsoft business.

Beauty of using Google or Microsoft suite is that each license gets access to the Microsoft or Google apps. So if Microsoft you have access to excel, word, etc. cloud storage using one drive or Google drive if Google.

Whatever you do spend the time to set up your security settings (2FA) and start out using a filing convention to keep everything organized in the cloud.

I think accounts are around $5 to $8 a month depending on the service.

Squarespace is super simple to use.

Anything else will require some assistance or some type of research and might be time consuming depending on your technical expertise.

Thank y'all for the advice. I'll look at all the recs and get moving with one pretty soon!

Don't know if you have decided.

Easy

godaddy gets pricey as time goes on with renewals but can have everything in one spot. (Email and Website)

Medium

Zoho Mail free (basic account is free with your domain, 5 accounts) https://www.zoho.com/mail/zohomail-pricing.html

Google Workspace for email and Google Sites for a basic webpage. $6/month per user

Microsoft 365 - email only $6 per month, get more storage at basic level than other options but no website.

Website - Zoho Sites $5-7/month
https://www.zoho.com/sites/?ireft=nhome&src=all-products-phome

Website- Wordpress Hosting - Various Providers (Hostinger is my Rec, inmotion is another) - cost varies, building varies based on your experience or third party out (also get free email boxes if you setup with hosting provider, nothing fancy but you get email as part of their cost.

Domain purchase management from cloudflare at cost no extra fees $8-20 per year depending on domain ending (.com vs .xyz)

Let me know if you have questions, willing to help, I do this for a few folks and can answer questions.