Know I AM TOTALLY CONFUSED!
First of all, it's a small business. Second, FIRST STEP FIRST. I need to figure out HOW TO MAKE THE THING! I want it SIMPLE! I have a store name that I will use. The site needs to contain pictures of items, descriptions, allows customer to use all types of credit cards and be EASY to use.
This is going to take me a LITTLE(ha!) time to figure out. I appreciate ANY AND ALL HELP! I am a VERY SLOW learner so PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH ME!!!
First of all, it's a small business. Second, FIRST STEP FIRST. I need to figure out HOW TO MAKE THE THING! I want it SIMPLE! I have a store name that I will use. The site needs to contain pictures of items, descriptions, allows customer to use all types of credit cards and be EASY to use. That's quite a few things there to get right, when you're first starting out. I'd suggest setting up a small informational site for your business now and then worry about the ecomm later.
Regardless of what tools you use to create the site, there are going to be gotchas and the simpler the site, the easier those things are going to be to figure out.
I realize that the amount of feedback from a technical standpoint is a little overwhelming Even though your a small business and you want to keep it simple you need to think of this almost as opening a new store in the physical world. It requires the same amount of thought and effort and a business plan for the site (don’t do one at your peril).
The techie part of this has to do with one of the key factors in deciding where to open a new store and that's location, the second is the size and cost of the new store. The next part of all the techie stuff is the way your store looks to the world and what services it offers. Look at those services almost like employees you’d need to hire to run this new store. Look at the way the web site looks and the traffic flow just like you’d do for a new store. I have a friend who used to run a large chain of shoe stores and he spent a lot of time with the layout and where the cash register would be located. The right locations for things and traffic flow increased sales on the other hand not paying attention to these things cost $$$..
The tucows suggestion that someone made is an excellent one. They have a lot of tools that are either free or shareware where you can play with it before you buy it. The tucows site is located at :
http://www/tucows.com and use it quite frequently
The actual mechanics of getting the site up and running depends on why you want the site and what you hope to accomplish. Basically your back to the first paragraph above and the need to do a business plan which will force you to make some decisions. The first ones I mentioned above and the second decision is are you capable of learning enough quickly enough to get the site up and running. It’s got to be first class but that doesn’t mean every bell and whistle (most of that’s garbage anyway.). If after looking at some books at the local bookstore about web page construction and reading some of the on line free books you decide you can tackle it then fine, but if your not or it’s going to eat to much time (time being money) then you might want to consider hiring someone to set it up for you. If I had to do carpentry work to get a new store up and running I’d have to hire someone or find a friend to do it for me. I don’t have the skills necessary and even if I tried to do it I’d probably take a lot of time to do it and it wouldn’t be first rate. You’ve got to know your limitations.
We really don’t know the purpose of your proposed site and that’s part of the reason you got more of a the answers on how to pick a web host. (location). If your site is nothing more than an information site with a few simple pages and a link to allow your customers to contact you. That’s pretty easy. The more you add to it or services you want to offer the more you are going to have to learn with a pretty steep learning curve. A plumbing company might have a main page with the information on how to contact you by phone, pager, e-mail and fax. A description of the services offered. It should have a link to a page with comments by customers about the quality of the work. You would want to add some window dressing like some pages with helpful plumbing tips like how to clear out a blocked drain, fix a leaky faucet, why you should strap your water heater to the wall and other helpful hints.
After you’ve decided on the content you then need to figure out how you want it to look just like you would with the store. Spend some time looking at web sites of business similar to yours and see what you like and don’t like. Learn from what they did right and wrong. If you see something you really like you can always change the VIEW to View Source and see how they did what you liked. You can only do that after you have some background in the various web site construction tools. However, even if you are going to use an outside service to build your site knowing what you like and don’t like will make their job easier and help you get what you want.
I’ll give you an example of something that I hate and as a customer it would totally turn me off. Some sites use a dark background with floating lettering in say blue. It’s hard on the eyes. Having a cluttered site that’s not pleasant to look at is a big no no. You only have a few seconds to make that customer decide to look around.
You also need to figure out ways to get people to find your web site. The more ways people can find you the better off you are. Also your site needs to be a value added site to make them want to come back.
This page from one of the web sites I sent you earlier has some great information on things you need to look at and consider when setting up a web site. They are trying to sell you their services but the free newsletters on this page are worth reading while you are in the planning stage. The page with the newsletters on it are:
http://www.marketingchallenge. com/articles.html These free newsletters are a wonderful way to make people come back and to subscribe to them which gets their name in front of a potential customer every time it’s sent. It also gives you the information they need to contact the people who visit the site as prospects for their services. Information like that is marketing gold.
"This is going to take me a LITTLE(ha!) time to figure out. I appreciate ANY AND ALL HELP! I am a VERY SLOW learner so PLEASE BE PATIENT WITH ME!!!" My friend from other threads, not to worry.
Go to angelfire.com, and don't be put off by all the adolescent stuff you see.
For the first five hours or so, you will feel like you're going crazy. You also won't be able to link from your homepage to FR.
But YOU WILL LEARN the basics of HTML, with help from a good tutorial, which they have linked to the site.
Check it out and let me know.
Regards,GG
I need to figure out HOW TO MAKE THE THING! If you are reading this message, you already have everything you need to make your own webpage. It can be simple at first. Use your word processor, most have HTML built in. Put the name of your business on the page. Using HTML try to change the size of the lettering or the color, and look at the file with your internet browser, the same one you are looking at this message with.