Idiot's guide to web page design.

[8timechamps]

Here's the situation, I've been doing (Screen Printing) graphic design for a long time, and am looking to expand my business and establish a webstore. The problem is, I know nothing about web page design and/or management.

Am I better off hiring someone to build my page and then I manage it, or can I do it all myself without spending most of my time worrying with the site? I need an ecommerce site, so I guess that's where I get a little nervous.

In the past this has been more of a hobby than a business, but I have committed more time to it, and it's starting to show some profit, now, I see it as a legit business opportunity, and if it goes the way I think it will, I can transition to running it full time. My concern now is the web store/website.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[mxATVracer10]

it depends on how flashy you want it to be. Programs like M$ Frontpage, Dreamweaver, etc. make web design fairly simple. (a helluva lot simpler than typing out code in notepad for sure!) It will be pretty time consuming at first, but after you get it running the way you like it and aren't making a bunch of changes all the time, it should become easier. Since you state that you know nothing about it though, I'd probably lean towards hiring someone to at least get it set up and everything, and then you could take over after learning the basics...

[Sooner_Bob]

For a free Dreamweaver alternative checkout Nvu.com (http://www.nvu.com). Please don't ever use FrontPage.

I guess it ultimately depends on how much time you have to put into a project like this, and how much business you think it will add for you.

Do you want to process both orders and payments online or just orders?

There are many hosting providers who cater to ebusiness and offer free tools to their sites that can make your life easier.

[Mjcpr]

I thought you were some kind of stockbroker?

[landrun]

Well, you probably won't make money online.
That is the simple truth. You probably can't put products online and acquire new business. But you CAN use your online presence to better serve your current customers and increase your profits that way.

Just don't believe the 'if you build it they will come' hype you hear about e-commerce.

As for a web site, you can get ripped off in a hurry!

And you can pay a lot for a site and never get a return on the investment, in which case, you'd be better off without one. (in my opinion)

Here's a quick breakdown of what you will need:
A hosting company - to host the site on a web server so it can be found online - if you're paying more than $25/month you're getting screwed. You can get good hosting for as low at $9/month --- sometimes lower.
A domain name - all professional businesses have their own domain. - godaddy.com sells domains for under $10/annually.
Shopping Cart Software - no need to buy. There are plenty of good free ones.

I suggest you use a shopping cart wrote in PHP. It is an easy language (so you should be able to find a lot of developers who know it) and it's free. You can use a MySQL database to store your products in (also free) - and it works very well with PHP.

You can look here to find over 150 e-commerce software packages wrote in php - many are free. (oscommerce is a popular one)

http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Shopping_Carts/

Most web site hosting companies will provide you with .php and a mySql database as a standard part of the hosting. If they don't, go somewhere else because you're not dealing with a reputable company. I don't care what they say to you. They may also provide you with shopping cart software but I wouldn't pay extra for it - there are too many good free ones available.

The most expensive part of it would be getting someone to develop it for you and install the shopping cart software etc... (then you'd have to use the software's web base interface to put products online)

Hope that helps get you started.

[landrun]

Oh yeah. One very important word of warning.

DO NOT BUY A MERCHANT ACCOUNT OR A 'GATEWAY' TO PROCESS ONLINE PAYMENTS!

If you already have a merchant account, you can use it to take credit cards online. You get the order via email (from your shopping cart software) and just process the transaction as a 'card not present' transaction.

A gateway is for real time credit card processing (which means their software will contact their back during the transaction to make sure the card is good, has funds available etc... ) and has all sorts of hidden fees and can get very expensive! You don't need real time credit card processing (at least when you start out). Just take the order online and process it manually on the same machine you process credit cards now. If the card is bad, the machine will reject the transaction and you can call the customer letting them know their card was rejected. It is a little more work, but a WHOLE LOT cheaper.

Don't even consider getting setup for real time transactions until you've got enough business to justify it (and I have honestly never found a single client that was that busy!) That stuff is for huge retailers like JC Penney, Sears, etc... For the average business it is a money pit and a total rip off. You'll never get your money back on it.

If you don't have a merchant account, then you need to get a shopping cart that works with pay pal (though to be honest, if you don't take credit cards, most will not buy from you even if they use pay pal.) You'll need a merchant account, so people will feel comfortable doing business with you online. Taking credit cards lets customers know you're legit. But... get the merchant account from a local bank - not some online peddler - just make sure that you can process the transactions you get online. Most banks will tell you that it is perfectly normal and fine for the merchant accounts they provide. It'll be about $45/month and you'll probably have to sign a 2 year contract.

If you're only getting the merchant account for your online business because you've never needed it before. Then it may not be worth it because you'll be hard pressed to do that much business online each month you're first 2 years. If that is the case, I'd just go with paypal.

[8timechamps]

I thought you were some kind of stockbroker?

I am. Money is great, job isn't.

[TheLurker]

http://homestarrunner.com/sbemail51.html
Just follow this simple guide and you too will become an internet brazilionaire.

[GrapevineSooner]

What landrun said.

Especially the part about PHP, MySQL, and not paying too much for webhosting.

My blogs are hosted for $36 a year at Webhostingbuzz (http://www.webhostingbuzz.com/), BTW.

[J-Rod12]

Please don't ever use FrontPage.

What's so bad about FrontPage?

[BigRedJed]

FrontPage creates a lot of superfluous and unneccessary code, and can dork otherwise good code up if you let it. That said, IMO it can be a useful tool at times for someone who can also code, just like Dreamweaver. I have used it in the past because I was on a machine that had it loaded (generally bundled with Office), and didn't have another WYSIWYG editor. But I used it mostly in the HTML mode, editing the code the same as in Notepad, and then toggling to the WYSIWYG mode to see how things were working out. Generally I used it mostly to work in nested tables, because all of the table tags are hard to keep up with at times.

I wouldn't use it to create code, but then again I'd reccommend anybody who is serious about creating a business website to learn the basics of coding. Frankly, it's not much harder than the UBB tags you probably use on here with regularity. If you spend just a little time with some tutorials you'll take a lot of the mystery away from the coding process, and then can use a WYSIWYG editor without inadvertantly creating garbage.

[bluedogok]

Dreamweaver is the only WYSIWIG program that I use but most of the time I still use Web Media Publisher and code in HTML, it at least color codes your statements. Old habits die hard.

[soonerboomer93]

I use front page sometimes


just because I'm an asshat and like to **** off the fp haters

but I do go back and manually edit the code as I need to