I’m finally taking the plunge from mostly amatuer to part time pro, and have decided that I need a website to promote my products and to give prospective customers some nice photos to peruse.
Two weeks ago I knew exactly nothing about making my own webpage, but now I think I’m starting to get Dreamweaver down, I’ve got some ideas, and I just bought my domain name and signed up for hosting. My question is, what dumb moves can you guys help me avoid?
I already almost got conned into $5/month/10 MB. Luckily I checked that one out and found 5000MB and a bunch more bandwidth for $7.77/month. I think I made the right call on that one. What else should I watch for? Thanks guys, and your help is much appreciated.
This is kind of like the feeling you get when you do your first glueup.
Replies
Dirt, Why don't you get a professional to set this up for you? Sift through them, check them out and go for one with a record of results and some sort of guarrantee to get results.
If you play with it yourself you may not get it right and then you will end up losing opportunities and having to spend more cash getting it fixed.
Phillip,
I got a quote of $3000 from this local character, which irked me, so I decided to learn how to do it myself. I'd like to have the ability to do some web design myself, so why not now? You are right, I need to get it right, so I might have to get some help, but I at least want to give it a try.
Steve
Dirt
The hosting questions are relatively easy - look for a reputable supplier offering a good deal and read the fine print. Pick wrong, and it's not so hard to change, so don't sweat the small stuff.
How you set up and maintain the site is much more important. It helps a lot if you can code HTML yourself, and if you do you'll want to download an HTML editor and some FTP software. I use CuteHTML and CuteFTP - both commercial products, available on-line, and real easy to use - but you can find freeware or shareware that does the same job.
I chose to hand code - working directly from a Word document - but most people seem to use Dreamweaver or Frontpage or one of the applications that means you don't have to know anything about HTML. Your choice.
Because I'm not that great, my two sites are relatively plain - but I can (and do) update them almost daily, and it's not much harder than writing a Word document and saving to the hard disk!
My sites are http://www.macpherson.co.nz, and http://www.baldrigeplus.com
An easy way to DIY is find a site you like, and copy the source code, dropping in your own words and links!
Good luck
Malcolm, is great to put a face to a name, interesting to find out you are a public servant as well. Great advice, thanks!
Steve
"... already almost got conned into $5/month/10 MB. Luckily I checked that one out and found 5000MB and a bunch more bandwidth for $7.77/month. I think I made the right call on that one. What else should I watch for? Thanks guys, and your help is much appreciated. ..."
Too bad you didn't check things out a bit more. I got two years of hosting with domain registration included for under $120 ($4.95/month). This package gives me 500MB of storage and 1GB of bandwidth. It's been rock solid and I wouldn't look anywhere else. Some of the services may seem to offer a lot more space, etc., but how much space do you think you need?
For instance, a web-formatted photo of a piece you build should less than 100KB -- even less is better to accomodate dial-up users. Most of my photos range from 16KB to 40KB and are plenty big to view. At 50KB per photo, 100MB holds 2000 photos.
I believe some of the hosting services use the space issue as a come-on, knowing the user is highly unlikely to use more than a small fraction of it.
Regards,
Bill Arnold - Custom Woodcrafting
Mensa Member
Click Here if you're interested in a good, inexpensive website host.
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Thanks for the post Bill. I signed up with Powweb for the $7.77/ month, including the domain registration. I'm still learning as you can no doubt tell, and I hope I don't screwup to badly. You have a great site, very much like what I'd like. I'd like to have quite a few photos of the finished product of course, but also of the construction. M&T's and dovetails look great, and I think a prospective customer would respond well to seeing some of the construction.
I think you are right about the space sales pitch, I checked out this host a bunch actually, and found nothing but good reviews. We'll see.
Steve
Steve,
I'm sure you'll do well with the hsot you're using. They're all about the same, I suppose. When I signed up a little over a year ago, me host checked out just fine -- and I was real leery of a bargain basement setup. Like I said, I'm really satisfied so far.
Thanks for your comment on my site. I built my site on basic HTML coding -- no engine to generate it -- keeps the code nice and clean. A friend has offered to let me use Dreamweaver to see if I like it. I'll take him up on the offer, I think.
I've opted NOT to show construction phases on my site. I think I'd rather have a prospective client see only the finished product. Most clients wouldn't have a clue about construction processes anyway. I like to make sure the photos show some of the finished joinery, but not go into a lot of detail. Having said that, I have a backdoor to a page where I show some 'work in progress' photos to fellow sawdust sniffers.
Regards,
Bill Arnold - Custom WoodcraftingMensa Member Click Here if you're interested in a good, inexpensive website host.
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
Interesting take on the construction phase Bill. I remember seeing a site selling curly maple entertainment centers, bookcases and the like. They had a nice sequence of photos showing the assembly, and it all looked fine until they started drilling and screwing these things together. They actually bragged about the 80 screws they drilled through the poor cabinet. I'd just rather my prospective customers don't think I do that.
How do people find your site? My plan is to refer people to mine so they can view my catalog and portfolio, when they are initially interested. I built a disply case in my restaurant that gets a huge amount of attention, and I was thinking I'd start by just putting the site on my card, and leaving them by the case. I only want a couple of projects per month, and I've been doing that without any advertising, just now I want to focus on my sleigh beds. Roughly how much traffic, if any, can I expect from the search engines?
Thanks Bill, and anybody else please feel free to answer that one too.
I'm going to go find that backdoor BTW.
Steve
The construction phase is certainly a "different strokes" kinda thing with us guys. The client base I'm working toward couldn't care less about the specifics of construction. If the item looks right and is solid, that's all they want. The main point I get across to people is that I use real wood, not particle board. If the piece calls for veneer, then the substrate will be MDF or plywood and most people understand that without hesitation.
Most people find my site by direct reference; i.e., business cards. A lot of hits are from Forums on which I post. Very few come via search engines and that's OK too. I've had a listing on a national woodworking registry but the only thing I've gotten there are people who want something for nothing or want me to beat Lowe's price on kitchen cabinets. LOL I've listed my site with all the major search engines, but only a small percentage of hits come from that direction.
I'm not interested in building a "business", per se; just get known in circles of people who can afford custom furniture. For instance, I'm working with one of my doctors who needs a cabinet to house his computer and printer; it's to sit in the corner between two sofas. His wife, also one of my doctors, wants it to look like a nice piece of furniture. She'll win, of course. Then, when their friends see the piece, hopefully I'll get a referral. I'd rather wait to get a commission on a piece that means something than try to compete with furniture stores like I've heard others try to do.
BTW, the "backdoor" is something I set up at my wife's request so she could show off some of the details to her co-workers. I've also used it on an occasional Forum post. I don't update the page unless there is some major step that I've photographed. I'm kinda bad about keeping up with documentation of my projects with photos. I get busy working through a process, then realize I forgot to take pictures! LOML eventually forgives me for my lapse, though. LOL
Take care.
Bill Arnold - Custom WoodcraftingMensa Member Click Here if you're interested in a good, inexpensive website host.
Food for Thought: The Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.
One thing I found that was important to me was the stats reporting.
You will want to know how many visitors come to your site and what pages are most visited. Also the keywords that were used to locate your site.
Without good stats information you will be without the information you need to make future decisions.
Garry
http://www.superwoodworks.com
Garry, the host I picked provides reporting, and I can sure see the benefits. Kind of the only way to tell if your site is working short of an actual sale.
Steve
Dreamweaver .. I have a older version of it than is available now.. IT 'rocks',,,
I have made a few web-pages for several folks and for the service department where I worked...
Dreamweaver can have a 'steep' learning curve .. Just like most other things you have never used...
My advice (opinion?) is STAY AWAY from the fancy blinkin' lights, rollovers, Flash and other 'trash'.. at least for now..
Use 'web safe' colors and keep the number to a minimum..
Think of the folks with dial-up.. If page takes to long to load.. They leave and never come back..
To me, a good web page, is not cluttered and shows (or links to) what is to be sold and not full of 'sales BS'.. You can sell yourself but keep it short and direct..
Get a few people to review you ideas. Get some folks you trust will NOT just say it looks great just to please you..
Look around the web for pages you like the look of.. Base your ideas around what 'YOU' like and find easy to use..
Also, I have seen many so-called PRO designed pages that are TRASH!
Good luck in your new venture!
EDIT:: Look at Bill Arnold's page.. NICE ..BUT I hate Blue text. My eyes are OLD! Just funnin' ya Bill...
Edited 8/30/2005 9:49 am ET by WillGeorge
There's a temptation to get fancy with the site design. Particularly if you hire a professional developer, he'll want to make the site design interesting for him -- a developer. Remember that you are selling woodwork, not the site. Keep the site simple and get customers to focus on what you're selling. As added benefits, a simple site is less work to write, easier to maintain, and the pages will likely download faster.
Good points, I looked at some of the sites of that guy who quoted me $3000, and they sure look like a Perfectory template, with some "fancy" gimics. Nothing wrong with that, but not what I need.
Steve
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