I'm not getting much bite on my Etsy shop, because I don't think many Brits have heard of it and because the prices are in dollars. I want to make my own website to sell my bath bombs, bath melts, scrubs, etc. So I have a few questions and I know someone out there will have an answer:
1. Where do I begin?
2. What makes a good website versus a bad website?
3. What do I need to do to make my website come up near the top on search engines?
4. How much should I be looking to spend to create and maintain it?
5. Is this something I could do myself, or is there some secret thing I need to know to build my own site?
6. Anything else I've forgotten that I should know?
I'd appreciate any help you can give me. Thanks.
Saturday, October 04, 2008
I want to make a website
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18 comments:
sorry I cant help you here
Not much help, but a few thoughts.
skincandyonline.com came from: internetbasedfamily.com.
The dog site was build in MS Frontpage (which is crap) and just uploaded to the host. It's like trying to sew wearing boxing gloves (IMO), but do-able.
I assume some hosts may provide tools to produce basic sites (like blogspot.com does for this site right here).
Matt Hollenbach does this for a living, altho it seems more on the design/photography/artwork end of it, altho I'm sure it's the total package. I've talked to him twice to have him do ours but each time I think my wife thought I was insulting her efforts, so I backed off.
All Apple computers come with a website-building program which is (out of the box, anyway) too lightly-featured to be very useful, IMO - but there are lots of templates available for purchase online. I don't know how to drill down far enough into the code to make your own templates, but it's do-able (since people are selling them).
Once you have a host, and a site uploaded to it, you can go register your site with Google, Yahoo, etc. Try to get other sites to put links to your site - the more your page(s) are linked, the higher it will hit. You can also pay a fee to Google, et.al., to guarantee being a top-hit for whatever keywords you specify.
My wife has noted that "makeupalley.com" contains a board on which many of the members discover a small soap maker site, post a link, and all the members pile over to check it out and drown the owner in initial sales - then report back their experiences. For a small biz like yours, getting attention in a place like that might keep you busy for quite a while.
Good luck, HTH.
Okay, Steve. Talk to me like I'm a moron, because I am. Where do I find a host? There are literally thousands of sites for hosting. How do you know what's legit and what's not? I'm looking at internetbasedfamily.com, and this looks doable. I don't have thousands to spend on a site, so for a start this will do. But where to put it?
I'm also going to have a look at this makeupalley.com.
Thanks for your help!
I don't know how to tell you to pick a host.
Does your isp offer you any free hosting as part of your service - you may already have a host.
Another host (free, or at least very cheap):
doteasy.com.
You also have to register your domain name - that'll cost a few bucks.
Have you tried googling "create web site" or something similar?
Yes, I tried that...and I got confused. :-/
I think I might just e-mail Matt, to be honest, because I started playing around with that internetbasedfamily.com, and it was all so tiresome. After about 30 minutes I thought "I really can't be bothered to do this." I'm a firm believer in paying a professional when it's warranted.
Thanks for your help Steve. I really do appreciate it. I'll do a bit more reading and playing and see what I come up with.
OK hold on - I'm going to try to transcribe Melissa's yammering:
internetbasedfamily.com (IBF for brevity):
It IS the host. Go there and click on "try it for free" - you get some number of days for free. They have HUNDREDS of templates - find one you like, or something close. If you don't like the background or something, google around for pics (of backgrounds you like) - you can upload what you like to IBF. Editing is somewhat canned, but pretty flexible. Pick a domain name (Vickissupersuds.com, or whatever) and find a site from which you can purchase it (she bought it on doteasy.com for $11 or so). Once you've fiddled around enough to make a site look the way you want, sign up for hosting from IBF.com(she thinks it was $60 for 6 months). Somewhere in there is a button you can click called "I have my own domain." Click that and link your domain name ("vickissupersuds.com", or whatever) to your IBF.com page. So IBF is hosting your site, and providing the site editing tools, but when people visit your store the url is "vickissupersuds.com", as opposed to internetbasedfamily.com/vickissupersuds
(Still according to her:) if you pay someone to do it for you, you STILL have to take your own pics and provide all that to the developer and any time you want to make a change (add product, add different scents, run a sale, add a product category, change prices, etc.) you'll have to go back and pay the developer again to make the changes - so in the long run, it really makes sense to spend the time fiddling around and getting to know how to build/edit the site because it's probably something you're going to need to do from time to time and you'd otherwise have to pay and wait for EACH change. Plus, developers aren't cheap - you'll save LOTS of money doing it yourself.
IBF.com has shopping carts which you can link to you site, but it costs more to process credit cards and is pretty scary, so she only accepts paypal.
Wow, I missed my calling - should've been a secretary. Thank you, Mr. Celin's "keyboarding class."
My input:
Everything you do costs a little money: registering the name, paying the host, paying for the financial transactions, etc. It's not expensive, but you won't get it free, either. IBF.com and doteasy.com are just two of probably a brazillian different sites, and I would imagine they're all pretty similar - I wouldn't sweat making the "right" decision on one vs. another - they're probably pretty interchangeable (google "free web hosting" and you'll probably get hundreds of sites to compare - maybe there's something to be said for the top few hits being the most "legitimate" since they're either paying google or are used ((linked)) by lots of users). Make sure it's not hosted in Nigeria or something and don't worry. I suppose you could google around for negative comments about a hosting site if you wanted some piece of mind.
DISCLAIMER: I don't know what the hell I'm talking about.
HTH
Well, there have been several developments since this morning.
After some whining and a bit of nagging, I got John to do some reserach for me, and he found me some software called WYSIWYG that I can try free for 30 days before I buy it for the princely sum of £23 ($39). I played with it for a couple of hours this afternoon while Chris had his nap. Then I did some research and found I could purchase the domain name from a British based host for $10 for 2 years. It's going to cost me about $15/month to run the thing, but I think I can put it together. I've got to do lots more reading and trying things out, etc., etc., but you (and Melissa) and John gave me a good start. So thanks! I'll let you know when the site is up and running.
WYSIWYG ("wizzy-wig") = "what you see is what you get."
Yeah, and it really is. I've just been playing with it, but I'm tired now so I'm going to bed. Thanks again for your help.
I love Melissa's site. She's got loads of great stuff on there. I've bookmarked it.
Vicki, How are you? I read your message and I can help you. I own an IT company where we host and design websites for businesses.
I need a few answers from you first.
1. Do you want to sell on-line and have shopping cart sales?
2. Do you need to update your site frequently?
3. Do you want to be the person updating it?
4. Do you know what keywords will generate interest in people who are browsing google?
These are just a few questions we need to answer.
You can e-mail me at rpiotrowski@inovatechs.com
My Hero! I'm fed up now. I got this massive e-mail from the the domain/web space people and after about 10 minutes I was like "I need help!"
I'm e-mailing you now!
robb have you been blurking?
lol - wow, I forgot about Robb (who I also weaseled out on for services from at some point).
Hey Robb!
Didn't realize you did website stuff - I thought you were all hardware and OS stuff.
Vicki - in my opinion you might be better off using the Etsy tool for what it is (a nice simple tools for selling to a certain niche) and the spending some more energy and money on driving business to your Etsy page. a site, no matter how well it is designed isn't going to generate business by itself. Steve is on the right track with making sure your site is registered as many different places as possible, search engines, message boards, any place women (who want to be clean) might visit on the web.
Okay, now I'm confused. And I'm going to ask a really stupid question:
How do I register my site in as many places as possible? Remember, I'm a moron.
I've already paid my money for space, so I'm going to use it. And I've bought the domain name. Oh, I feel so stoopid and confused!
vicki don't feel that way I got confused just reading there replies
sorry Vicki, that's marketing question, my wife handles that voodoo. try something like this
Steve,
We diversified since our last meeting. We are designing WordPress sites with CMS. A.K.A end user friendly sites so they can change their own without paying big bucks.
How is WOLF WORLD? I see you have some competition now, which could be a good thing.
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