Need expert advice about website creation?

Question

I need to create an informational website with a shopping cart for selling professional services. I did research and found reliable webhosting; however, I then realized I have to learn a whole new software pkg (eg NetObjects) and HOW to create a website which I don't want to do.Next I looked into website templates & a few I liked (eg a "swish" template); however, from what I learned I would still need to learn how to use site-building software in order to customize it. Given my needs (small biz, simple shopping cart, not too canned looking, not able to pay thousands to have one customized), what is the best & easiest way to create, maintain and adminster a small business website for a non-techie? I've been looking at sites like homestead.com that have decent templates but bad reviews. Any constructive advice/experience is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Here’s a top 10 list of reasons I’ve compiled of companies that either think they don’t need a website at all, or have an outdated site that badly needs updating:



1 - I’m too small of a company to have a website.



Well, I’ve heard of many people that have a website for their one man band operation. Better still, others have sites for companies that they have started on the side.



2 - We are only based locally.



At first glance, this looks like a plausible reason not to have a website. However, it is not. Wonderful things like Geo-Targeting increase a local company’s visibility in the region. Bob Nicholson does a good job explaining how Google uses Geo-Targeting for AdSense marketing in this video:



3 - I have a small website already, and it works just fine.



Your current website might not fit your company’s needs as well as it used to. The site may be outdated and not display correctly in modern browsers. Also, if you choose to advertise, your site may not be search engine ready. There may also be broken to links that you have linked to in the past.



4 - I’d like to have a website, but I heard that it costs too much.



A new website or a good refresh of an old one starts in the hundreds of dollars for a basic site, depending on how much is involved. You could even get a canned template website for less than that (although not preferred, more about that later).



Read more here: http://nowsourcing.wordpress.com/2007/06/17/top-10-reasons-companies-dont-need-a-website/

Answer 2

Take a look into this.



http://buildit.sitesell.com/Jeremy1.html19.html



With site sell I was able to set up a website with no experience and also learned how to drive traffic to my info-site.



Check out some of their products for free.



http://freetrial.sitesell.com/Jeremy1.html19.html



I would suggest downloading their e-book "Make Your Sitesell" A year ago this ebook cost me $30 (now they're giving it away free, bad timing on my part i guess) and I eventually ended up using Sitesell's main product SBI. But even if you decide not to use SBI it has some good information about starting a web business.



You also mentioned selling professional services so you may want to take a look into the "Service Sellers Master Course" ebook. Personally I have never read it so I cant say how great the informaation is but I have read some of the other master courses and have found them very useful.



If you have any questions you can contact me through my website on my profile.



Good Luck.

Answer 3

Well depending on how many items you are going to sell, you can get any template you like and add paypal as a "shopping" cart.



They have plugin code and you just paste it into your template.



If you dont know any HTML you can probably hire someone to mod the template without spending a fourtune. Many web developers have "templates" that they will setup a site for you for little money. (200-300) usually.



The most professional sites simply dont use templates they have a design done for them. Just remember your web site speaks loudly about your business.

Answer 4

It appears like a particular hearth thanks to get your information superhighway website penalised through Google, possibly even banned - especially that bit about 2,500 listing submissions. RSS feeding for blog posts is likewise iffy because it generates reproduction content cloth and also you may want to finally end up with yet another website score better than yours with you blog submit on it. Spend one month and get 4 fairly high quality links - they are going to be well worth a strategies better than the thousands your search engine optimization crew is presenting.