Full Version: Do you have a website and who set it up?
From: Jo (OAAE) [#1]
14 Nov 2005
To: ALL
I'm fairly knowledgable regarding web "stuff." I've been thinking of creating a website for our business but haven't had the time to devote to doing this.
My question is, Do you have a website? If yes, do you find it has increased and/or improved your profits?
Did youo have someone other than yourself(ves) establish the site or did you develop the site on your own?
EDITED: 17 Nov 2005 by DGL
From: Bieb (HABIEB) [#2]
15 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 15 Nov 2005
I have a website, but like everyone else (I am sure) it can be hard to devote time to update and maintain. I am dedicating Thanksgiving vacation and probably part of Christmas vacation to a total re-do. One thing I can advise that is a great help is to purchase a website template. If you go to www.thetemplatestore.com there are some great starter templates. I purchased my new one for $19.00, I do not buy the eCommerce templates because the only eCommerce I will be doing is with Paypal, so I don't see a need for the fancy database driven $100.00+ templates. I highly recommend getting a Paypal account and trying that out as your venture into eCommerce, the Paypal account is free and they have alot of great free code to help build your shopping cart. If you end up trying out Paypal and really want to try some of the cool not so well known tricks, pick up the book "Paypal Hacks" from O'Reilly Press (www.oreilly.com), it is well worth the $24.95. Here is a link to the book and a couple sample "hacks" http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/payhks/index.html
Best of Luck
Harold
From: Jo (OAAE) [#3]
15 Nov 2005
To: Bieb (HABIEB) [#2] 16 Nov 2005
Thank you Harold. I'm still trying to decide if I want to have it set up for me (in turn I will maintain it) or take on the task myself.
Thanks for the websites!
From: Rodney Gold (RODNEY_GOLD) [#4]
15 Nov 2005
To: ALL
I did my own , http://www.tokerbros.co.za
Its invaluable to me as I refer customers to it for an overview of what my Co can do and its a sort of online catalogue. I am busy with updates and maintaining it is a never ending task. I used frontpage to do it , pretty simple program. It's not the most elegant website , but it gets the job done. Lots of IT guys take me to task for it , but lots of my customers praise me , guess who's opinion I care about :)
I burn it to cd as well and hand out 100's-1000's of copies a yr (we print our own labels as well) and that too is a great form of marketing.
There are no instant results , but over the years it has been instrumental in my growth.
The downside - gives your competion great ideas!
EDITED: 15 Nov 2005 by RODNEY_GOLD
From: Cody (BOBTNAILER) [#5]
15 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 15 Nov 2005
Jo,
I set up our original website, and (IMNSHO) did a pretty decent job of it.
After a while, I wanted a new, more polished look for it. We had a professional revamp the site, and she maintains it as well. She charged $400 for the work, and it was well worth it.
In the two years she's been taking care of us, we've only had one problem with the site, and it was resolved within an hour of contacting her.
We pay about $160 per year for the domain name and site maintenance.
Her site is www.designing-edge.com, and her name is Candice.
This is just another option for you...
Cody
From: Funkmeister (FUNKY) [#6]
15 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 15 Nov 2005
;-) I have one, and had someone set mine up and can make changes if needed. But just like everyone else, no time to do the changes. Soooo... I have a guy make my chages for me in change for goods. He's always asking for some kind of picture of his kids on acrylic or wood. works out well for me. Between the website and the commercial I did business has increased about 30%. Not bad for a full-
part time job.
From: logojohn [#7]
15 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 15 Nov 2005
It really wasn't very helpful for visitors. We get a lot of people that call and want to see products without coming in.
The asi manager decided we needed some more actual stuff we do on there. I spoke up at the wrong time and added another line to my job description. . . web master.
I have been taking pictures and making the pages inbetween paying customers at work and at home for several months and finally got it uploaded last week.
I made some navigation buttons with some examples of the products with coreldraw. I did the rest with freeware. Irfanview is great for making thumbnails and linking larger pics to them.
I them used the "Netscape Composer" which comes automatically when you download the Netscape Browser or at least it did with version 7.2.
You can then open the page Irfanview made and dress it up and add the explanation heading graphics and prices. It is just visual so you don't have to know a bunch of html code. You can go into the source code at change things if you want.
He got a whole gig of space so I put tons of stuff on there including every possible trophy figure. Most of our clientelle has a fast connection so I put a lot of thumbs on each page. Some sites like tropars only have about 4 small thumbs on each page. It drives me nuts trying to find something.
We haven't attempted a shopping cart. It has come in handy a lot already. I uploaded it one night last week and before I told anyone a customer was calling in an order at 10am the next morning. Not sure how often that will happen. Its not the most polished site, but it helps people pick out stuff.
.
.
From: MIKEY (JADEPUTTERS) [#8]
15 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 15 Nov 2005
From: John (JOHNRMONTG) [#9]
15 Nov 2005
To: logojohn [#7] 16 Nov 2005
From: Upacreek [#10]
15 Nov 2005
To: ALL
Here are two other programs that come in really handy for building and maintaining web sites:
Easy Thumbnails (free)
http://www.fookes.com
TextPad (free eval, $29)
http://www.textpad.com
Easy Thumbnails does a nice job converting images to thumbnails and is easy & quick to use.
TextPad is SO much better then using notepad and makes working on web code and any text files so much easier. I've been using it for a long time and I still find new "goodies" it can do that I hadn't noticed before.
Michel
From: gt350ed [#11]
16 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 21 Nov 2005
We have one for the imprinted mug & stein portion of our business. It's been up for almost 5 years. I built it myself. It's the only part of our retail business in which we sell nationwide.
I'm so busy these days that I don't have time to expand it to include the rest of our "stuff".......awards, trophies, personalized gifts and promotional products. But I do intend on it.
Our website address and link is below my signature.
From: gt350ed [#12]
16 Nov 2005
To: gt350ed [#11] 16 Nov 2005
Message 2303.13 was deleted
From: Peter [#14]
16 Nov 2005
To: Rodney Gold (RODNEY_GOLD) [#4] 20 Nov 2005
Keep telling you Rodney,
I reckon you could go on the circuit in the USA and make a squillion..
write a book, write for magazines, make a DVD or 5..sooner or later you'll click that the big moolah is there.
regards
Peter :-)
From: Peter [#15]
16 Nov 2005
To: gt350ed [#12] 17 Nov 2005
how do you make the web address at the bottom of your signature a link ?
Peter
From: Shaddy [#16]
16 Nov 2005
To: Peter [#15] 16 Nov 2005
OK, looks like you have to include your own HTML tags. "A HREF" is the HTML for linking. HTML tags need to be opened and closed... closing involves using a "/". so it'll look like this.
<a href="http://www.shaddysengraving.com">What you want underlined here</a>would look like this
What you want underlined here
Add that into your Sig.
Shaddy
EDITED: 16 Nov 2005 by SHADDY
From: Engravin' Dave (DATAKES) [#17]
17 Nov 2005
To: Peter [#14] 17 Nov 2005
Peter,
The big moolah used to be in the U.S., but now it's in China. (devil)
EDITED: 17 Nov 2005 by DATAKES
From: logojohn [#18]
17 Nov 2005
To: Shaddy [#16] 17 Nov 2005
Being html challenged, I just composed it in an html editor with a wysiwyg view. You can format your text, select your text or jpg you want to link
to and enter the url.
You then switch to source mode, copy and paste the lines between the
"body" tags and paste it into the signature box.
Don't get carried away with unusual fonts unless you save it as a jpg
and link to it. If the font is not also on the viewers computer it will default to something else and they won't see what you see.
I use the Netscape composer that downloads with the Netscape browser.
Actually I just thought of a quicker way if you are just linking to text.
Hit reply to a message here.
Type in or paste in your text and format it with fonts and color choices.
highlight the words you want to link to.
click the hyperlink icon which is the 3rd from the right above if
you have enabled the html in message button below.
When you enter a link and return to the message, it shows you
the html code.
Select it and copy it.
Cancel the sending of the message.
Go to your control page for signature.
Paste in the code.
EDITED: 17 Nov 2005 by LOGOJOHN
From: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#19]
20 Nov 2005
To: Jo (OAAE) [#1] 21 Nov 2005
Jo,
I have a website up now, but have not gotten product entered. www.americanpacificawards.com
We worked with John Fish ( of EE forum fame). He is reasonable, fun and knowledgable.
I could have taken the time to learn to do it myself, but I have a theory that one should pay folks to do what THEY do well, and YOU do what YOU do well, and you will come out on top.
I realizes it's a kick in the pants to do ones own website, and fairly easy also, but how much money could you be making in your business in the same amount of time you would spend on your website?
My website will be my showroom once I get products entered and from what I have heard from others in this industry is that a website is almost a necessity.
Another site that John Fish has helped on is David Takes's site, www.expressionsengraved.com
Just my two cents, want change?
From: logojohn [#20]
20 Nov 2005
To: LaZerDude (C_BURKE) [#19] 20 Nov 2005
Some sites have three columns with links text and pictures all over the place. You have to sit and stare for a long time trying to figure out what of substance is there.
Yours is very uncluttered but you can easily figure out where you want to go.
.
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